The kings of Israel and Judah

King Menahem

The kingdom of Israel (the north) · Reigned ten years (2 Kings 15:17) · Evil before God · 2 Kings 15:14 to 22

Menahem seized the throne of Israel by killing Shallum, and reigned ten years with notable cruelty. He did evil, keeping the sins of Jeroboam. When the king of Assyria came against the land, Menahem bought him off with a thousand talents of silver, which he raised by taxing the wealthy men of Israel, so that Assyria withdrew. His reign marks the moment when the great Assyrian empire, which would soon destroy Israel, first came onto the scene.

And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.2 Kings 15:19 (KJV)

A cruel usurper

Menahem came up from Tirzah, killed Shallum, and took the throne. Scripture records an act of shocking brutality at the start of his reign: when a town would not open to him, he attacked it and ripped up all the women that were with child. It is one of the most horrifying acts noted of any king, and it marks the savagery of the age.

He reigned ten years in Samaria, and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD; he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

Tribute to Assyria

In Menahem's days Pul, the king of Assyria, came against the land, and the shadow of the empire that would end the northern kingdom fell for the first time. Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.

He raised the enormous sum by exacting fifty shekels of silver from each of the wealthy men of Israel. So the king of Assyria turned back and stayed not in the land. It was a temporary purchase of peace, and it made Israel a tributary of Assyria, a vassal buying survival year by year, with the empire's grip only tightening.

The biblical verdict and where it points

Menahem is judged evil, a cruel and violent king who bought his throne and his safety with blood and silver. He met the Assyrian threat not by turning to God but by emptying the nation's wealth to appease a pagan empire, a strategy that only postponed and deepened the coming ruin.

His reign is a picture of a people trying to save themselves by every means except repentance, paying and scheming while refusing the one thing that could have healed them, a return to the LORD. It sets in relief the true King who saves his people not by buying off their enemies but by defeating the last enemy himself, and who calls the violent and the fearful alike to lay down their schemes and trust him.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: Shallum of Israel · Pekahiah · All the kings of Israel and Judah