PEKAH
(Peʹkah) [(God) has opened (the eyes), sees].
King of Israel for a twenty-year period (778-758 B.C.E.), contemporaneous with Judean Kings Azariah (Uzziah), Jotham and Ahaz. Earlier Pekah had served as adjutant to Israelite King Pekahiah. But in the fifty-second year of Uzziah’s reign, Pekah the son of Remaliah, with the cooperation of fifty men of Gilead, assassinated Pekahiah and seized the kingship over Israel in Samaria. (2 Ki. 15:25, 27) During Pekah’s reign idolatrous calf worship continued. (2 Ki. 15:28) This ruler also formed an alliance with Rezin the king of Syria. Toward the close of Judean King Jotham’s reign (which began in the second year of Pekah) both Pekah and Rezin caused trouble for Judah.—2 Ki. 15:32, 37, 38.
After Jotham’s son Ahaz began his reign in the seventeenth year of Pekah, Rezin and Pekah invaded Judah, intending to dethrone that monarch and install a certain son of Tabeel as king. They did not succeed in taking Jerusalem (2 Ki. 16:1, 5; Isa. 7:1-7), but Judah sustained heavy losses. In one day Pekah killed 120,000 valiant men of Judah. The Israelite army also took 200,000 Judeans captive. However, on the advice of the prophet Oded, supported by a number of leading men of Ephraim, these captives were returned to Judah.—2 Chron. 28:6, 8-15.
Though assured through the prophet Isaiah that the Syro-Israelite combine would fail in deposing him as king (Isa. 7:6, 7), faithless Ahaz bribed Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser (III) to come to his assistance. In response, the Assyrian monarch captured Damascus and put Rezin to death. (2 Ki. 16:7-9) Apparently also at this time Tiglath-pileser captured the regions of Gilead, Galilee and Naphtali and a number of cities in northern Israel. (2 Ki. 15:29) Thereafter Hoshea the son of Elah killed Pekah and became Israel’s next king.—2 Ki. 15:30.
A fragmentary historical text of Tiglath-pileser (III) reports about his campaign against Israel: “All its inhabitants (and) their possessions I led to Assyria. They overthrew their king Pekah (Pa-qa-ha) and I placed Hoshea (A-ú-si-’) as king over them.”—Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 284.