Pekah

2 Kings 15:27‑31  •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
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Contemporary Prophet: Oded
As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death. Prov. 11:1919As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death. (Proverbs 11:19)
“In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah [Uzziah] king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” How painfully this oft-recurring testimony, like a sad refrain, falls on the ear! But this is the last time. Under Hoshea, Pekah’s slayer and successor, God made “to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hos. 1:44And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. (Hosea 1:4)). And Hoshea, though he did evil, did it “not as the kings of Israel that were before him” (2 Kings 17:22And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. (2 Kings 17:2)).
“In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.” This occurred after Pekah’s unprovoked and cowardly attack on Jerusalem, together with Rezin king of Damascus (see AHAZ in Kings of Judah).And the king of Assyria’s invasion and devastation of his land was his just reward for his fierce anger and evil counsel against the house of David, which he sought to overthrow by conspiracy and revolution (see Isa. 7:4-64And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. 5Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, 6Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: (Isaiah 7:4‑6)).
Pekah slew one hundred thousand Jews in one day (2 Chron. 28:5-65Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter. 6For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. (2 Chronicles 28:5‑6)); and God requited him in kind. For as he had so treacherously shed man’s blood, by man was his blood also treacherously shed. “And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.”
Josephus wrote that Hoshea was a friend of Pekah’s (Antiquities 9.13.1). In his death the prophecy of Isa. 7:1616For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. (Isaiah 7:16) was fulfilled. His name, meaning “watch,” is from a root, “to open” (as the eyes); figuratively, to “be observant” (Strong). But watch as he might, his very friend in whom he trusted became, in the ordering of God, his slayer; so impossible is it for the wicked to escape their merited retribution from the hand of Him who has said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” (read Amos 9:1-51I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. 2Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: 3And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them: 4And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good. 5And the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. (Amos 9:1‑5)).
“And the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.”