Pekah

Pekah the son of Remaliah was the next-to-last king of the northern kingdom of Israel. He took the throne by murder, ruled twenty years, made war on Judah, drew the first wave of Assyrian deportations onto Galilee and Gilead, and was himself struck down by a conspiracy. Isaiah's oracles to Ahaz are addressed against Pekah's coalition with Syria and announce that the very kings Judah feared would soon be carried off as Assyrian spoil.

Captain Who Made Himself King

Pekah enters the record as captain to Pekahiah son of Menahem and as the man who killed him. "And Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him, and struck him in Samaria, in the castle of the king's house, with Argob and Arieh; and with him were fifty men of the Gileadites: and he slew him, and reigned in his stead" (2Ki 15:25). His accession is dated and his length of reign given: "In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, [and reigned] twenty years" (2Ki 15:27).

A Reign in the Sins of Jeroboam

The verdict on the reign is the verdict pronounced on every northern king after the schism: "And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh: he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin" (2Ki 15:28).

War Against Judah

Pekah allied with Rezin king of Syria and moved against Ahaz of Judah. "Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him" (2Ki 16:5). Chronicles records the same campaign from the southern side, framing it as Yahweh's chastisement of Ahaz: "Therefore Yahweh his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they struck him, and carried away of his a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter" (2Ch 28:5). The toll on a single day was extraordinary: "For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men; because they had forsaken Yahweh, the God of their fathers" (2Ch 28:6).

Isaiah's Word Against the Coalition

Isaiah dates his great oracle to this same moment: "And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it" (Isa 7:1). Word reached the Davidic court that Syria had joined Ephraim, and the house of David was shaken "as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind" (Isa 7:2). Yahweh sent the prophet to meet Ahaz with his son Shear-jashub at the conduit of the upper pool (Isa 7:3) and gave him a message of contempt for the two attacking kings: "Take heed, and be quiet; don't be afraid, neither let your heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah" (Isa 7:4). Their plan to install a puppet — "Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach in it for us, and set up a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeel" (Isa 7:6) — would not stand: "thus says the Sovereign Yahweh, It will not stand, neither will it come to pass" (Isa 7:7). The geographic logic of the oracle reduced both kings to their cities and persons: "the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son" (Isa 7:9).

The same word continues into the next chapter, where Isaiah names Pekah again under the patronymic and announces the Assyrian sequel: "Since this people have refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son; now therefore, look, the Lord brings up on them the waters of the River, strong and many, [even] the king of Assyria and all his glory" (Isa 8:6-7). The riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria would be carried away before the king of Assyria (Isa 8:4) — and the land whose two kings Ahaz abhorred would be forsaken before Isaiah's child knew to refuse the evil and choose the good (Isa 7:16).

The Assyrian Stroke

The book of Kings records the first dismemberment of the northern kingdom under Pekah: "In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria" (2Ki 15:29).

Killed by Hoshea

The same instrument Pekah had used was used against him: "And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and struck him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah. Now the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, look, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel" (2Ki 15:30-31).