KING OF ISRAEL · TWO KINGDOMS

Menahem. Ten years in Samaria; tribute to Assyria.

REIGNEDi

10 years c. 752–742 BC (dates vary)

CAPITAL

Samaria

HOUSE

House of Menahem 16th of 19 in Israel

VERDICT

✕ Did evil “he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD”

PROPHETS

None named

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS JEROBOAM I → HOSHEA

ACCESSION

How Menahem came to power

  • He came up from Tirzah, killed Shallum in Samaria, “and reigned in his stead”. 2 Kings 15:14

SUCCESSION

The two kingdoms

THE VERDICT

How Scripture judges the reign

“he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD”

2 Kings 15:18 (KJV) →

“he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin”

2 Kings 15:18 (KJV) →

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS

✓ Did right ✕ Did evil ◐ Mixed ● No verdict formula

THE KINGDOM

Samaria and the places of the reign

Israel (the north). Only places Scripture names are shown, each where the Atlas puts it.

EVENTS

Wars, works and turning points

Each mark sits at the year of the reign the Bible gives for it.

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • He did not depart “all his days” from Jeroboam's sins. 2 Kings 15:18

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

ASSYRIA

Pul (Tiglath-pileser III)

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · UNDATED IN THE TEXT; MACK (1915) PUT MENAHEM'S TRIBUTE IN 738 BC

Annals of Tiglath-pileser III

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · 730S BC

Tiglath-pileser III, fragmentary annals text

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

THIELE, AS REVISED BY MCFALL AND YOUNG

c. 752–742 BC[1]

Nisan (about April) 752 to 742/741 BC

ALBRIGHT (1945)

c. 745–738 BC[24]

Printed form: c. 745–738 (p. 21); 8 years or more against the Hebrew text's 10.

TRADITIONAL (USSHER, 1658)

772–761 BC[2]

Years of the world 3233–3243 (Annals, pp. 57–58)

Yes: Pulu was his Babylonian name

R. W. Rogers (1912), p. 308; the site's person data

Rogers writes that the new king “was proclaimed under the name and style of Tiglathpileser in Assyria, and later under the name of Pulu in Babylonia”. The site's person data files 2 Kings 15:19 under Tiglath-pileser.[15]

The KJV wording reads as two kings

1 Chronicles 5:26 (KJV)

The KJV of 1 Chronicles 5:26 has “the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away” — two names, one verb in the singular. 1 Chronicles 5:26

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 2

2 Kings 15 1 Chronicles 5

PASSAGES · 2

2 Kings 15:14–22 1 Chronicles 5:26

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture gives no age, mother or burial for Menahem.
  • Kings does not give the year of his reign in which Pul came.

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • From the textPul, who came against the land in his reign (2 Kings 15:19), is identified with Tiglath-pileser III; see the question below.

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • Rodger C. Young, Chronological tables: Table 1, Chronology of the Kings of Israel; Table 3, Synchronisms, Israel to Judah (Thiele's system as revised by McFall and Young; dates cited as facts only) (undated web tables, read 2026-10-07), Tables 1 and 3.
  • James Ussher, The Annals of the World (English translation of the Annales) (1658), The fifth Age of the World, pp. 40–69 (read from the page scans).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §594 (the Monolith Inscription from Kurkh) and §611, p. 223.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §553 (the Black Obelisk) and §590, p. 211.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §672, p. 243 (annals, 18th year).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§732, 739–740, pp. 260–263 (Adad-nirari III: reign dates; the slab from Calah).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §772, p. 276 (Tiglath-pileser III, annals).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §779, pp. 279–280 (Tiglath-pileser III).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§815–816, p. 293 (Tiglath-pileser III, fragmentary annals text).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §4, p. 2 (Sargon's annals, year 1).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §55, p. 26 (Sargon's display inscription).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §1198, p. 437 (eponym list with notes, years 727–723).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 296 (Monolith, Qarqar).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 304 (Black Obelisk, with Rogers's note 2 on “mar Humri”).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 308 (Tiglath-pileser and “Pulu”).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 316 (Tiglath-pileser's annals, line 150).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), pp. 319–321 (Tiglath-pileser on Pekah and Hoshea).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), pp. 323, 326 and 331 (Sargon and the fall of Samaria).
  • S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel (Appendix: the Inscription of Mesha) (1890), pp. lxxxvii–lxxxviii (translation), lxxxix and xciv.
  • A. H. Sayce, “Moabite Stone”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 3 (1915), p. 2072 (checked against the 1915 scan).
  • Edward Mack, “Chronology of the Old Testament”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1 (1915), pp. 639–640 (checked against the 1915 scan).
  • A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Chronicle 1 (facts only; copyrighted, read in Livius's reproduction) (1975), Chronicle 1, column i, lines 27–28.
  • A. Biran and J. Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan” (1993) and “The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment” (1995), Israel Exploration Journal 43 and 45 (facts only; copyrighted) (1993, 1995), IEJ 43 (1993) 81–98; IEJ 45 (1995) 1–18.
  • W. F. Albright, "The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 100 (facts only) (1945), Chronological table, pp. 20–22.

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