The kings of Israel and Judah

King Pekahiah

The kingdom of Israel (the north) · Reigned two years (2 Kings 15:23) · Evil before God · 2 Kings 15:23 to 26

Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, reigned two years and did evil, continuing the sins of Jeroboam. He was assassinated in the royal palace at Samaria by one of his own officers, Pekah, who conspired with fifty men of Gilead and took the throne. His short reign is another of the brief, violent kingships of the northern kingdom's final years, as the nation slid toward its fall to Assyria.

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.2 Kings 15:24 (KJV)

A brief and evil reign

Pekahiah reigned over Israel in Samaria two 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. He inherited the throne of his father Menahem and with it the settled idolatry of the north, and Scripture records nothing good of his short reign.

By now the pattern of the last decades was fixed: a king held power briefly and then was cut down by an ambitious officer, and Pekahiah was no exception.

Assassinated by Pekah

Pekah the son of Remaliah, a captain of his own, conspired against him, and struck him down in Samaria, in the palace of the king's house, together with fifty men of the Gileadites, and killed him, and reigned in his place.

So another king fell to another conspiracy from within his own ranks, and the throne passed once more by murder. The kingdom was consuming itself even as the Assyrian empire gathered on its border.

The biblical verdict and where it points

Pekahiah is judged evil and remembered mainly for the manner of his death. His reign leaves little trace beyond its place in the collapse of the northern kingdom, one more short-lived king in a dynasty of violence.

The relentless instability of these years, kings rising and falling by the sword, is Scripture's portrait of a society that has cut itself off from God and lost the very foundation of order and peace. It quietly magnifies the longing for a King whose throne is founded not on conspiracy but on the promise of God, and whose reign brings not endless bloodshed but everlasting peace, the Prince of Peace from David's line.

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: Menahem · Pekah · All the kings of Israel and Judah