Pekah (, Peqaḥ; Paqaḫa [pa-qa-ḫa]; ) was the eighteenth and penultimate king of Israel. He was a captain in the army of king Pekahiah of Israel, whom he killed to become king. Pekah was the son of Remaliah.
Pekah became king in the fifty-second and last year of Uzziah, king of Judah, and he reigned twenty years. In the second year of his reign Jotham became king of Judah, and reigned for sixteen years. Jotham was succeeded by his son, Ahaz in the seventeenth year of Pekah's reign. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 737–732 BC, while E. R. Thiele, following H. J. Cook and Carl Lederer, held that Pekah set up in Gilead a rival reign to Menahem's Samaria-based kingdom in Nisan of 752 BC, becoming sole ruler on his assassination of Menahem's son Pekahiah in 740/739 BC and dying in 732/731 BC. This explanation is consistent with evidence of the Assyrian chronicles, which agree with Menahem being king in 743 BC or 742 BC and Hoshea being king from 732 BC.
When Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram, to attack Ahaz, the king of Judah, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help. This the Assyrian king obliged, but Judah became a tributary of Assyria.
Summary of reign
With the aid of a band of Gileadites, from whose home territory he probably originally came, he slew Pekahiah and assumed the throne.<ref name=je>[http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11994-pekah "Pekah", Jewish Encyclopedia]</ref>
In c. 732 BC, Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram and threatened Jerusalem. The prime reason for such a league was probably to protect their respective countries from another incursion of Tiglath-pileser III., who had compelled Menahem, in 738 B.C., to pay a large tribute. The two kings united their armies and attempted to coerce Ahaz of Judah into joining them. Pekah raided Judah and carried to Samaria a number of captives; but, rebuked by the prophet Oded and by some of the prominent men, the Israelite soldiers released them and sent them back. The united forces of Israel and Syria appeared before the walls of Jerusalem to demand its surrender. At this juncture Isaiah the prophet came to the support of Judah and her king. The allies had proposed to set upon the throne of Judah a son of Tabeel, probably one favorable to the alliance. Ahaz, however, knowing that Tiglath-pileser was within call, appealed to him for help. Ahaz's "dread" of Rezin and Pekah, "Son of Remaliah" is recorded in the Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 where the birth of a son (possibly Hezekiah) is a sign of the defeat of both kings by the King of Assyria before the child is old enough to eat curds and honey and distinguish right from wrong. After Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrians sacked Damascus and annexed Aram. According to , the population of Aram was deported and Rezin executed. According to , Tiglath-Pileser also attacked Israel and "took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria." Tiglath-Pileser also records this act in one of his inscriptions.
Soon after this Pekah was assassinated by Hoshea ben Elah (that is, Hoshea the son of Elah) - a captain from Pekah's own army - who then took the throne. Tiglath-Pileser in an inscription mentions the slaying of Pekah by his fellow Israelites. The inference here is that the people, seeing the inevitable outcome of the contest with Assyria, put out of the way their fighting king, and then yielded submission to the conqueror, Tiglath-pileser III. He is supposed by some to have been the "shepherd" mentioned in .
Chronology
Controversy
The data given for Pekah's reign in the biblical sources have generated considerable discussion. His ending date can be established fairly firmly as 732/731 BC.
But two conflicting systems of reckoning seem to be used for his reign. One system gives him a long reign of twenty years (), which puts his starting date in 752 BC. This date is consistent with the statement that Jotham began to reign in Pekah's second year, 750 BC (), and that Jotham's successor Ahaz began to reign in his 17th year, 735 BC ().