Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

MENAHEM

King of Israel who ruled from 752–742 BC. He was the son of Gadi, a name not attested in the OT except in 2 Kings 15:14-22.

Virtually everything that the OT records about the career of Menahem is contained in a few brief verses in 2 Kings 15. Three important points may be noted from these verses.

First, 2 Kings 15:14 records the assassination of Shallum, which enabled Menahem to seize the throne. Verse 16 then recounts the actions of Menahem against the town of Tappuah (Tiphsah). The entire verse is troublesome but may be translated as follows (NLT): “At that time Menahem destroyed the town of Tappuah and all the surrounding countryside as far as Tirzah, because its citizens refused to surrender the town. He killed the entire population and ripped open the pregnant women.” Two things are unusual. First, the actions of Menahem are quite without precedent in Israelite history. Second, the location and identity of the town that Menahem attacked are uncertain. The Hebrew text reads “Tiphsah” (see NLT mg), using the spelling of a town normally identified as Thapsacus on the Euphrates. Menahem’s reasons for attacking a town this far away from his own territory and interests would be difficult to determine. Accordingly, some scholars have followed the Lucianic version of the Greek Bible that reads the Hebrew letters as if they were “Tappuah,” a town 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) southwest of Menahem’s hometown of Tirzah. If this reading is correct, and the textual evidence for it is limited to the one version, the meaning of 2 Kings 15:16 is that Menahem began just outside the boundaries of his hometown (Tirzah) and put to the sword the entire population of a neighboring town (including its citizens who lived outside the city proper) that failed to support his bid to become king.

Second, 2 Kings 15:19-20 provides the biblical view of the way in which Menahem dealt with the Assyrian crisis posed by the campaign of Tiglath-pileser III into the Syro-Palestinian region (c. 744). Evidently hoping to persuade the Assyrians to support his claims to the throne in Israel, Menahem levied a stiff tax upon the wealthy citizens of his nation to be used to pay tribute to Tiglath-pileser (called by his Babylonian name “Pul” in v 19). Evidently Menahem hoped this payment would convince the Assyrian king “to gain his support in tightening his grip on royal power” (v 19). Politically at least, Menahem appears to have guessed correctly, because the Assyrians withdrew (v 20) and Menahem was left in power.

Finally, the reign of Menahem is introduced (2 Kgs 15:17) and concluded by the standard literary forms employed throughout the books of Kings. Despite the fact that Menahem was judged to be just as sinful as the original apostate (Jeroboam I) had been, 2 Kings 15:22 appears to attest an unusual fact about his death. Of the last six kings of Israel, only he died a peaceful death.