2 Kings 15:17-22--Menahem Reigns in Israel

2 Kings 15:17-22
English Standard Version
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Menahem Reigns in Israel
17 In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi began to reign over Israel, and he reigned ten years in Samaria. 18 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart all his days from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 19 Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that he might help him to confirm his hold on the royal power. 20 Menahem exacted the money from Israel, that is, from all the wealthy men, fifty shekels of silver from every man, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land. 21 Now the rest of the deeds of Menahem and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 22 And Menahem slept with his fathers, and Pekahiah his son reigned in his place.

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You may notice that the kings in Judah are reigning for a long time compared to the kings in Israel.  There is blessing and long life that comes as a result of following the Law of the LORD (especially for the nation of Israel according to the Mosaic Covenant).  However, we see fairly short reigns for the kings of Israel who rebel against the the LORD in their worship--following in the sin of Jeroboam, worshiping false gods and goddesses, and usually living in the wickedness that comes along with that and encouraging others to do the same.  Such wickedness leads to them not having peace, not having military victory not having safety within (for even their own people are dangerous) and people always wanting to seize power for themselves, so the king is always in danger of those who want to seize power for themselves.

Today, the danger for the king of Israel comes from without in the form of the nation of Assyria.  We haven't heard a lot about Assyria to this point, but they controlled a large amount of territory to the east of Israel.  I'll post a map here for reference as the Assyrian Empire will be important in biblical events very soon.  Right now they are still in the dark green borders of what's shown, but by the end of the book of 2 Kings, the LORD will let Assyria break out of their boundaries and have control over all the kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Egypt and the areas we know as the kingdoms of Babylon and kingdom of the Medes and the Persians (Medo-Persia).  The LORD will allow Babylon, Persia, Greece, and eventually Rome to become the "superpowers," but for the time being, Assyria is for all intents and purposes seen as the "superpower" since the LORD defeated Egypt with the plagues and has given Israel and Judah victory over the Canaanites and other people groups that lived in the Land.

Menahem, king of Israel, tried to bribe Assyria with a thousand talents of silver and promised to be a vassal king.  That is that his people would pay taxes to Assyria, be under the control of Assyria, but Menahem would be allowed to be a figurehead king that did the bidding of whatever Assyria wanted.  Of course, he didn't want to pay this bribe out of his own money, so he exacted the money to pay the bribe from the people of Israel--a tax of 50 shekels of silver from each man that went directly to the king of Assyria.  This satisfied the king of Assyria for now, but the LORD was displeased with Menahem and he only reigned as king for ten years.

When Menahem died, he was buried in Samaria along with the other kinds of Israel and his son Pekahiah reigned in his place.  There is no other mention of him in biblical texts, but his reign was a turning point for Israel as now they are the subjects of Assyria and we'll see next time that tribute is not enough for Assyria (they are a brutal people and probably the ones who invented crucifixion--the Romans just took what they had invented and "perfected" it later).  However, the events of the book of Jonah have just taken place right before this (Jonah's prophetic ministry was from 785 B.C.-750 B.C. and Menahem is king of Israel from 752 BC-742 BC, so the stories are nearly concurrent.  Either the events of Jonah happened right before Menahem became king, or in the first two years of his reign.  Either way, salvation has come to the people of Nineveh, possibly the whole kingdom of Assyria, and now they are the ones the LORD will use to judge the nation of Israel.  How is that for irony since we normally are like Jonah and think of the Assyrians as wicked people who would be "irredeemable"?  That is not to say that the Assyrians become the LORD's people, that He gives the kind of revelation to them that He gave to Israel, or anything else of the sort, but it is to say that the LORD can save those that we believe are beyond hope and can make the pagans become the righteous and use them to judge those that call themselves "children of God" when they become "children of their father the devil."  Those are Jesus' own words about what the leaders of Israel had become in His day, and I would say that the people of Israel in this time seemed far worse.