Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.
Menahem smote Tiphsah. Thapsacus, on the western bank of the Euphrates, formed the border city of Solomon's kingdom (1 Kings 4:24), and having been taken by Hazael, it was regained by the arms of Jeroboam, who justly ranked this important city among his most valuable conquests. The inhabitants refusing to open their gates to him, Menahem took it by storm, and having spoiled it, committed the most barbarous excesses, without regard either to age or sex-excesses, the report of which is supposed to have attracted the notice of the Assyrian monarch, and led to that invasion of Israel which terminated in its destruction.