We are told in the Book of Kings that Pekah reigned for twenty years; but some of these later reigns must be shortened to suit the exigencies of known chronological data. It seems probable that he occupied the throne for a much shorter time.[388]
Such was the weakened, harassed, vassal kingdom--the gaunt spectre of itself--to the throne of which, after a period of anarchy and chaos, Hoshea, by conspiracy and murder, succeeded as the miserable feudatory of Assyria.
[354] Amos viii. 2.
[355] Amos iv. 1-3.
[356] It is probable that our present Book of Zechariah is composed of the works of three prophets of different dates, each of whom may have borne that name. See my _Minor Prophets_ ("Men of the Bible" Series).
[357] Zech. xi. 8. In 2 Kings xv. 10 the LXX. read καὶ επάταξεν αὐτὸν ἐν κεβλαάμ; and Ewald thinks that "before the people" (קָבָל־צָם) is really a proper name of the third king in one month--"and _Kobolam_ slew him." There is insufficient ground for this; though a similar name is found in Assyrian records.
[358] Hos. viii. 3, vii. 7.
[359] Zachariah, Shallum, Kobolam (?).
[360] Zech. xi. 1-17 (Heb. 13).
[361] That this was Thapsacus on the Euphrates (1 Kings iv. 24), and that Menahem was in a position to march northward three hundred miles, and offer so deadly and wanton an insult to the might of Assyria, is out of the question. The name means "a ford," and might apply to any town on a river. Thenius thinks the name is a clerical error for _Tappuach_, between Ephraim and Manasseh (Josh. xvii. 7, 8).
[362] Josephus says, ὠμότητος ὑπερβολὴν οὐ καταλιπὼν οὐδὲ ἀγριότητος. It is said that the same crime was committed in 1861 by a Mexican bandit. Machiavelli says, "He who violently and without just right usurps a crown must use cruelty, if cruelty becomes necessary, once for all" (_De princ._, 8).
[363] 2 Kings viii. 12; Hos. xiii. 16.
[364] Amos i. 13.
[365] Hos. x. 14. This allusion is, however, uncertain. Shalmaneser III. is not elsewhere found abbreviated into Shalman. Some suppose him to be a Moabitish king, Salamannu, who was a vassal of Tiglath-Pileser. The LXX., Vulg., etc., identify him with the Zalmunna of Judg. viii. 18. Psalm lxxxiii. 11 renders the word _ex domo ejus qui judicavit Baal_ (_i.e._, Gideon). Beth-Arbel is either Arbela in Galilee, or Irbid, north-east of Pella.
[366] Nah. iii. 10.
[367] Isa. xiii. 16.
[368] The two predecessors of Tiglath-Pileser (_Tuklat-abal-isarra_) were Assurdayan and Assurnirari.
[369] Isa. v. 26-29.
[370] Comp. Job xx. 15; Ruth ii. 1.
[371] Hos. v. 11-13. Comp. x. 6: "It [Samaria] shall be carried to Assyria for a present unto King Jareb." Sayce (_Bab. and Orient. Records_, December 1887) thinks that Jareb may have been the original name of Sargon, and so too Neubauer, _Zeitschr. für Assyr._, 1886. The Vulg. renders King Jareb _ad regem ultorem_, and so too Symmachus. Aquila and Theodotion have δικαζόμενον. It may be the name of an unknown king of Assyria, or of Pul, or of Sargon--R.V., margin, "a king that should contend."
[372] Hos. vii. 8-12.
[373] Josephus says, τῇ τοῦ πατρὸς ἀκολουθήσας ὠμότητι.
[374] 2 Kings xv. 25, A.V., "in the palace of the king's house" (_armon_), rather "fortress." For the character of the Gileadites see 1 Chron. xii. 8, xxvi. 31.
[375] The length of Pekah's reign is most doubtful. If the periods assigned to the reigns in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms be added together up to the Fall of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 9, 10), it will be found that the Southern chronology is twenty years longer than the Northern. G. Smith would alter the text, and make Jeroboam II. reign fifty-one years and Pekah thirty years; others invent an interregnum of eleven years between Jeroboam II. and Zachariah, and an anarchy of nine years before Hoshea's accession; others shorten Pekah's reign to _one_ year.