Pekah, son of Remaliah
The name Pekah means “he that opens; that is at liberty.” Pekah is mentioned in 11 verses of the Bible, first in 2 Kings 15:25.
Family of Pekah
Father
Who was Pekah?
Open-eyed, the son of Remaliah a captain in the army of Pekahiah, king of Israel, whom he slew, with the aid of a band of Gileadites, and succeeded (B.C. 758) on the throne (2 Kings 15:25). Seventeen years after this he entered into an alliance with Rezin, king of Syria, and took part with him in besieging Jerusalem (2 Kings 15:37; 16:5). But Tiglath-pilser, who was in alliance with Ahaz, king of Judah, came up against Pekah, and carried away captive many of the inhabitants of his kingdom (2 Kings 15:29). This was the beginning of the “Captivity.” Soon after this Pekah was put to death by Hoshea, the son of Elah, who usurped the throne (2 Kings 15:30; 16:1-9. Comp. Isa. 7:16; 8:4; 9:12). He is supposed by some to have been the “shephard” mentioned in Zech. 11:16.
Biography adapted from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), public domain, linked via Theographic Bible Metadata.
Key verses about Pekah
- 2 Kings 15:25
But Pekah the son of Remaliah, a captain of his, conspired against him, and smote him in Samaria, in the palace of the king’s house, with Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men of the Gileadites: and he killed him, and reigned in his room.
- 2 Kings 15:29
In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath–pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel–beth–maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.
- 2 Kings 15:30
And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.
- 2 Kings 16:5
Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him.
- 2 Chronicles 28:6
For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers.
- Isaiah 7:1
And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
Timeline of Pekah's life
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 758 BC | Death of Pekahiah |
| 758 BC | Reign of Pekah |
| 738 BC | Death of Pekah |