Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Father: King Menahem, 2 Kings 15:23
Length of reign: 2 years, 2 Kings 15:23
Reign: 742 BC – 740 BC
Succession: 17th King
Predecessor: King Menahem, 2 Kings 15:22
Morality: evil king, 2 Kings 15:24
Successor: King Pekah, 2 Kings 15:25
Biblical history: 2 Kings 15:23-26
Pekahiah reigns in Israel
The name Pekahiah means ‘God has observed‘. The tyrant King Menahem was dead and his throne had been passed to his son Pekahiah. King Pekahiah was the 17th king to rule the Kingdom of Israel and he ruled for two years from the year 742 BC to 740 BC in the city of Samaria. He was a bad king too, perpetuating the sins of Jeroboam like the kings who were before him (2Ki 15:24).
Conspiracy to dethrone and kill kings was a common practice in the Kingdom of Israel since the days of King Nadab, son of King Jeroboam I. This practice continued through the ages even to the time of Pekahiah when the kingdom of Israel was in the latter days of becoming extinct.
The saying that the sons shall bear the sins of their fathers came to pass in Pekahiah’s life because, despite the violence and wickedness that his father King Menahem committed, he did not die a violent death as he deserved. Rather, his son Pekahiah was removed from power and killed violently.
Two years into the reign of Pekahiah, Pekah, an army captain, with the help of Argob and Arieh and fifty men from Gilead, conspired against him, killed him in his palace in Samaria, usurped the throne, and ruled as king over Israel, ending the dynasty of King Menahem. (2 Kings 15:25)
Contemporaries of Pekahiah
King Uzziah of Judah had reigned for 50 years at the time Pekahiah became a king. Nothing good or bad happened between these two kings. (2 Kings 15:23)
Category: Pekahiah belongs to:
- The kings who inherited the throne
- The kings who did evil in God’s sight
- The kings of the Kingdom of Israel
- The idolatrous kings in the Bible
- The kings who were murdered