2nd Kings Chapter 15 verse 27 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 27-31. - REIGN OF PEKAH. The writer is again exceedingly brief. Pekah's reign was a remarkable one, and might have furnished much material to the historian. In conjunction with Rezin of Damascus, he made war upon Judaea, defeated Ahaz with great loss (2 Chronicles 28:6), and laid siege to Jerusalem (Isaiah 7:1). Ahaz called in the aid or' Assyria, and Tiglath-pileser made two expeditions into Palestine - the one mentioned in ver. 29, and another some years afterwards. In the latter he seems to have had the assistance of Hoshea, who, with his sanction, slew Pekah, and became king. The scanty notices of our author must be supplemented from 2 Chronicles 28; Isaiah 7:1-9; Isaiah 8:1-8; and the Assyrian inscriptions. Verse 27. - In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah King of Judah; rather, in the thirty-ninth or thirty-eighth year (see the comment on ver. 23). Pekahiah's "two years" may not have been complete. Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years. The Assyrian records make this number impossible. Tiglath-pileser's entire reign lasted only eighteen years, yet it more than covered the entire reign of Pekah. When he first invaded the kingdom of Samaria, Menahem was upon the throne ('Eponym Canon,' p. 120, line 29); when he last attacked it, probably in B.C. 730 - two years before his death in B.C. 728 - he set up Hoshea, or, at any rate, sanctioned his usurpation (ibid., pp. 123, 124, lines 15-18). Pekah's entire reign must have come in the interval, which is certainly not more than one of fifteen, probably not more than one of ten years.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(27-31) THE REIGN OF PEKAH, SON OF REMALIAH, IN SAMARIA.(27) Reigned twenty years.--This does not agree with the duration assigned to the reign of Jotham (2Kings 15:33), and the year assigned as the beginning of Hoshea's reign (2Kings 17:1). For, according to 2Kings 15:32, Pekah had reigned about two years when Jotham succeeded in Judah, and Jotham reigned sixteen years; and, according to 2Kings 17:1, Pekah was succeeded by Hoshea in the twelfth year of Jotham's successor, Ahaz. These data make the duration of Pekah's reign from twenty-eight to thirty years. We must, therefore, either assume, with Thenius, that "the numeral sign for 30 () has been corrupted into 20 ()," or, with Ewald, that "and nine" has been accidentally omitted after "twenty."(29) Tiglath-pileser.--This Assyrian sovereign, who reigned from 745 to 727 B.C. , is called in his own inscriptions, Tukulti- (or Tuklat) 'abal-Esarra, which Schrader renders, "my trust is Adar"--literally, Trust is the son of the temple of Sarra. (See Note on 1Chronicles 5:26.) "The idea we get of this king from the remains of these inscriptions corresponds throughout to what we know of him from the Bible. Everywhere he is presented as a powerful warrior-king, who subjugated the entire tract of anterior Asia, from the frontier mountains of Media in the east to the Mediterranean sea in the west, including a part of Cappadocia" (Schrader, K.A.T., p. 247). . . .