For Pekah son of Remaliah,.... Who was at this time king of Israel:
slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all
valiant men; a great slaughter to be made at one time, and of valiant men, but not so great as that in 2 Chronicles 13:17,
because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers; this was not a reason with Pekah for slaying them, he himself being an idolater, but why the Lord suffered them to be slain by him.