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== Fausset's Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_36465" /> == | |||
<p> [[Son]] of Gadi. [[Slew]] Shallum, and seized the throne of Israel, 772 B.C.; reigned ten years. The words (2 Kings 15:14; 2 Kings 15:16) "from Tirzah" imply that [[Menahem]] was a general under Zechariah, stationed at [[Tirzah]] (now Tallusa), and that he marched thence with some troops to Samaria, and avenged his master's murder by Shallum. He then, proceeding "from Tirzah" (2 Kings 15:16) where Israel's main army was posted, smote Tiphsach (Thapsacus on the Euphrates), Israel's northeastern border city under [[Solomon]] (1 Kings 4:24), restored by [[Jeroboam]] II (2 Kings 14:25; 2 Kings 14:28), but having probably revolted again during the anarchy at his death. Situated on the western bank of the [[Euphrates]] on the great trade road from Egypt, Syria, and [[Phoenicia]] to Mesopotamia, it was important for Menahem to secure it. </p> <p> With savage cruelty, "because they opened not to him," and to strike terror into all opponents, Menahem "smote it and ripped up the women with child," copying the unscrupulous [[Syrian]] Hazael's cruelty (2 Kings 8:12). In religion "he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam who made [[Israel]] to sin." Hosea and Amos depict Israel's demoralization at the time. In his reign first appear the [[Assyrians]] as invaders of Israel from the N.E. under Palestine. Menahem, at the cost of 1,000 talents of silver (400,000 British pounds, reckoning the silver talent 400 British pounds), induced him to "confirm the kingdom in his hand." By exacting 50 shekels a head from 60,000 wealthy men of Israel, Menahem raised the money. The name Pal appears in an [[Assyrian]] inscription as "Phallukha," who took tribute from "the house of Omri" (Beth Khumri), i.e. Samaria. Tiglath Pileser II, the first monarch of the new dynasty, mentions Menahem in another inscription. Menahem died in peace; [[Pekahiah]] his son succeeded him. </p> | |||
== Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible <ref name="term_52525" /> == | |||
<p> <strong> MENAHEM </strong> , one of the latest kings of Israel, was a usurper, like so many other monarchs in this period. He and <strong> [[Shallum]] </strong> planned to seize the throne about the same time ( 2 Kings 15:13 f.), Shallum having possession of Samaria, while [[Menahem]] commanded the ancient fortress and former capital, Tirzah. War raged for a brief time with unusual ferocity, resulting in the defeat of Shallum. Menahem seems not to have felt secure on the throne, and to have purchased the help of [[Assyria]] by paying a heavy tribute to Tiglath-pileser (called [[Pul]] in 2 Kings 15:19 ). Or we may suppose the [[Assyrians]] to have invaded the country because it was so weakened by civil war that it could no longer make effective resistance. The tribute was a thousand talents of silver, and it was raised by a direct tax on the holders of landed property. The assessment of sixty shekels each shows that there were sixty thousand proprietors in [[Israel]] at this time. From the [[Assyrian]] sources we learn that this tribute was paid in the year 738 b.c. </p> <p> It is interesting to note that in the literature of [[Judaism]] <em> Menahem </em> (= ‘Comforter’) is a title of the Messiah. </p> <p> H. P. Smith. </p> | |||
== American Tract Society Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_16709" /> == | == American Tract Society Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_16709" /> == | ||
<p> The sixteenth king of Israel, previously general of the army of Zachariah. He was at [[Tirzah]] when he heard of his master's murder; and immediately marching against Shallum, who had shut himself up in Samaria, he captured and slew him, and them ascended the throne. He reigned in [[Samaria]] ten years, 771-760 B. C., and was a tyrannical and cruel idolater. Pul, king of Assyria, having invaded [[Israel]] during the reign of Menahem, obliged him to pay a tribute of a thousand talents, which [[Menahem]] raised by a tax on all his rich subjects of fifty shekels a head. He seems to have died a natural death; but his son and successor [[Pekahiah]] reigned only two years, and was the last of the dynasty, 2 Kings 15:13-22 . The name of Menahem is found on the [[Assyrian]] tablets recently discovered. </p> | <p> The sixteenth king of Israel, previously general of the army of Zachariah. He was at [[Tirzah]] when he heard of his master's murder; and immediately marching against Shallum, who had shut himself up in Samaria, he captured and slew him, and them ascended the throne. He reigned in [[Samaria]] ten years, 771-760 B. C., and was a tyrannical and cruel idolater. Pul, king of Assyria, having invaded [[Israel]] during the reign of Menahem, obliged him to pay a tribute of a thousand talents, which [[Menahem]] raised by a tax on all his rich subjects of fifty shekels a head. He seems to have died a natural death; but his son and successor [[Pekahiah]] reigned only two years, and was the last of the dynasty, 2 Kings 15:13-22 . The name of Menahem is found on the [[Assyrian]] tablets recently discovered. </p> | ||
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<p> Few [[Israelite]] kings were as ruthless in achieving their ambitions as Menahem. In 752 BC he seized the throne by murdering the previous king, then smashed any opposition to his rule with the most brutal cruelty (2 Kings 15:14; 2 Kings 15:16). He survived for ten years, but only by buying the protection of Assyria. This policy was not only economically costly to Israel, but it also opened the way for eventual conquest by [[Assyria]] (2 Kings 15:17; 2 Kings 15:19-20). </p> | <p> Few [[Israelite]] kings were as ruthless in achieving their ambitions as Menahem. In 752 BC he seized the throne by murdering the previous king, then smashed any opposition to his rule with the most brutal cruelty (2 Kings 15:14; 2 Kings 15:16). He survived for ten years, but only by buying the protection of Assyria. This policy was not only economically costly to Israel, but it also opened the way for eventual conquest by [[Assyria]] (2 Kings 15:17; 2 Kings 15:19-20). </p> | ||
== | == Smith's Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_73826" /> == | ||
<p> Men'ahem. (comforter). [[Son]] of Gadi, who slew the usurper, Shallum, and seized the vacant throne of Israel, B.C. 772. His reign, which lasted ten years, is briefly recorded in 2 Kings 15:14-22. He maintained the calf-worship of Jeroboam. The contemporary prophets, Hosea and Amos, have left a melancholy picture of the ungodliness, demoralization and feebleness of Israel. [[Menahem]] reigned B.C. 771-760. </p> | |||
<p> [[Son]] of Gadi | |||
== Morrish Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_67597" /> == | == Morrish Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_67597" /> == | ||
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<p> [[Menahem]] (mĕn'a-hĕm), consoler. A king of Samaria. His reign, which lasted ten years, b.c. 771-760, was distinguished for cruelty and oppression. 2 Kings 15:14-20. </p> | <p> [[Menahem]] (mĕn'a-hĕm), consoler. A king of Samaria. His reign, which lasted ten years, b.c. 771-760, was distinguished for cruelty and oppression. 2 Kings 15:14-20. </p> | ||
== | == Holman Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_42220" /> == | ||
<p> | 2 Kings 15:10-142 Kings 15:16[[Tiglath-Pileser]] | ||
== Easton's Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_32743" /> == | |||
2 Kings 15:14-22 | |||
== Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature <ref name="term_50407" /> == | |||
<p> (Hebrews Menachem', מְנִחֵם, comforting [comp. Manaen, Acts 13:11; Sept. Μαναήμ, Vulg. Manahem; Josephus, Μανάημος, Ant. ix, lj, 1), the seventeenth separate king of Israel, who began to reign BC. 769, and reigned ten years. He was the son of Gadi, and appears to have been one of the generals of king Zachariah. When he heard the news of the murder of that prince, and the usurpation of Shallum, he was at Tirzah, but immediately marched to Samaria, where [[Shallum]] had shut himself up, and slew him in that city. He then usurped the throne in his turn, and forthwith reduced Tiphsah, which refused to acknowledge his rule. He adhered to the sin of Jeroboam, like the other kings of Israel. His general character is described by [[Josephus]] as rude and exceedingly cruel (Ant. 9:11, 1). The contemporary prophets, Hosea and Amos, have left a melancholy picture of the ungodliness, demoralization, and feebleness of Israel; and Ewald adds to their testimony some doubtful references to Isaiah and Zechariah. (For the encounter with the Assyrians, see below.) [[Menahem]] died in BC. 759, leaving the throne to his son [[Pekahiah]] (2 Kings 15:14-22). There are some peculiar circumstances in the narrative of his reign, in the discussion of which we follow the most recent elucidations. (See [[Kingdom Of Israel]]). </p> <p> (1.) Ewald (Gesch. Isr. 3:598), following the Sept., would translate the latter part of 2 Kings 15:10, "And Kobolam (or Keblaam) smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead." Ewald considers the fact of such a king's existence a help to the interpretation of Zechariah 11:8; and he accounts for the silence of [[Scripture]] as to his end by saying that he may have thrown himself across the Jordan, and disappeared among the subjects of king Uzziah. It does not appear, however, how such a translation can be made to agree with the subsequent mention (Zechariah 11:13) of Shallum, and with the express ascription of Shallum's death (Zechariah 11:14) to Menahem. Thenius excuses the translation of the Sept. by supposing that their MSS. may have been in a defective state, but ridicules the theory of Ewald. (See [[Kings]]). </p> <p> (2.) In the brief history of Menahem, his ferocious treatment of [[Tiphsah]] occupies a conspicuous place. The time of the occurrence and the site of the town have been doubted. Keil says that it can be no other place than the remote Thapsacus on the Euphrates, the northeast boundary (1 Kings 4:24) of Solomon's dominions; and certainly no other place bearing the name is mentioned in the Bible. Others suppose that it may have been some town which Menahem took in his way as he went from [[Tirzah]] to win a crown in [[Samaria]] (Ewald); or that it is a transcriber's error for [[Tappuah]] (Joshua 17:8), and that Menahem laid it waste when he returned from Samaria to Tirzah (Thenius). No sufficient reason appears for having recourse to such conjectures where the plain text presents no insuperable difficulty. The act, whether perpetrated at the beginning of Menahem's reign or somewhat later, was doubtless intended to strike terror into the hearts of reluctant subjects throughout the whole extent of dominion which he claimed. A precedent for such cruelty might be found in the border wars between [[Syria]] and [[Israel]] (2 Kings 8:12). It is a striking sign of the increasing degradation of the land, that a king of Israel practiced upon his subjects a brutality from the mere. suggestion of which the unscrupulous [[Syrian]] usurper recoiled with indignation. (See [[Tiphsah]]). </p> <p> (3.) But the most remarkable event in Menahem's reign is the first appearance of a hostile force of [[Assyrians]] on the. north-east frontier of Israel. King Pul, however, withdrew, having been converted from an enemy into an ally by a timely gift of 1000 talents of silver, which Menahem exacted by an assessment of fifty shekels a head on 60,000 Israelites. This was probably the only choice left to him, as he had not that resource in the treasures of the [[Temple]] of which the kings of [[Judah]] availed themselves in similar emergencies. It seems, perhaps, too much to infer from 1 Chronicles 5:26 that [[Pul]] also took away [[Israelitish]] captives. The name of Pul (Sept. Phaloch or Phalos) appears, according'to Rawlinson (Bampton Lectures for 1859, Lect. iv, p. 133), in an [[Assyrian]] inscription of a [[Ninevite]] king, as Phallukha, who took tribute from [[Beth]] Kumri (=the house of Omri=Samaria), as well as from Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, Idumaea, and Philistia; the king of [[Damascus]] is set down as giving 2300 talents of silver, besides gold and copper, but neither the name -of Menahem, nor the amount of his tribute, is stated in the inscription. Rawlinson also says that in another inscription the name of Menahem is given, probably by mistake of the stonecutter, as a tributary of Tiglath- pileser. (See [[Nineveh]]). </p> | |||
== International Standard Bible Encyclopedia <ref name="term_5994" /> == | == International Standard Bible Encyclopedia <ref name="term_5994" /> == | ||
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== Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature <ref name="term_16228" /> == | == Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature <ref name="term_16228" /> == | ||
<p> Men´ahem (consoler), sixteenth King of Israel, who began to reign B.C. 772, and reigned ten years. [[Menahem]] appears to have been one of the generals of King Zechariah. When he heard the news of the murder of that prince, and the usurpation of Shallum, he was at Tirzah, but immediately marched to Samaria, where [[Shallum]] had shut himself up, and slew him in that city. He then usurped the throne in his turn; and forthwith marched to Tiphsah, which refused to acknowledge his rule. Having taken this place after a siege, he treated the inhabitants with a degree of savage barbarity, which, as [[Josephus]] remarks (Antiq. ix. 11. 1), would not have been pardonable even to foreigners. He adhered to the sin of Jeroboam, like the other kings of Israel. In his time the Assyrians, under their King Pul, made their first appearance on the borders of Palestine; and Menahem was only able to save himself from this great invading power at the heavy price of 1000 talents of silver, which he raised by a tax of 50 shekels from every man of substance in Israel. This was probably the only choice left to him; and he is not therefore to be blamed, as he had not that resource in the treasures of the temple of which the kings of [[Judah]] availed themselves in similar emergencies. Menahem died in B.C. 761, leaving the throne to his son [[Pekahiah]] . </p> | <p> Men´ahem (consoler), sixteenth King of Israel, who began to reign B.C. 772, and reigned ten years. [[Menahem]] appears to have been one of the generals of King Zechariah. When he heard the news of the murder of that prince, and the usurpation of Shallum, he was at Tirzah, but immediately marched to Samaria, where [[Shallum]] had shut himself up, and slew him in that city. He then usurped the throne in his turn; and forthwith marched to Tiphsah, which refused to acknowledge his rule. Having taken this place after a siege, he treated the inhabitants with a degree of savage barbarity, which, as [[Josephus]] remarks (Antiq. ix. 11. 1), would not have been pardonable even to foreigners. He adhered to the sin of Jeroboam, like the other kings of Israel. In his time the Assyrians, under their King Pul, made their first appearance on the borders of Palestine; and Menahem was only able to save himself from this great invading power at the heavy price of 1000 talents of silver, which he raised by a tax of 50 shekels from every man of substance in Israel. This was probably the only choice left to him; and he is not therefore to be blamed, as he had not that resource in the treasures of the temple of which the kings of [[Judah]] availed themselves in similar emergencies. Menahem died in B.C. 761, leaving the throne to his son [[Pekahiah]] . </p> | ||
==References == | ==References == | ||
<references> | <references> | ||
<ref name="term_36465"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/fausset-s-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Fausset's Bible Dictionary]</ref> | |||
<ref name="term_52525"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/hastings-dictionary-of-the-bible/menahem Menahem from Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible]</ref> | |||
<ref name="term_16709"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/american-tract-society-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from American Tract Society Bible Dictionary]</ref> | <ref name="term_16709"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/american-tract-society-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from American Tract Society Bible Dictionary]</ref> | ||
<ref name="term_18850"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/bridgeway-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Bridgeway Bible Dictionary]</ref> | <ref name="term_18850"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/bridgeway-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Bridgeway Bible Dictionary]</ref> | ||
<ref name=" | <ref name="term_73826"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/smith-s-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Smith's Bible Dictionary]</ref> | ||
<ref name="term_67597"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/morrish-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Morrish Bible Dictionary]</ref> | |||
<ref name=" | <ref name="term_70508"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/people-s-dictionary-of-the-bible/menahem Menahem from People's Dictionary of the Bible]</ref> | ||
<ref name="term_42220"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/holman-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Holman Bible Dictionary]</ref> | <ref name="term_42220"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/holman-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Holman Bible Dictionary]</ref> | ||
<ref name=" | <ref name="term_32743"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/easton-s-bible-dictionary/menahem Menahem from Easton's Bible Dictionary]</ref> | ||
<ref name=" | <ref name="term_50407"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/cyclopedia-of-biblical-theological-and-ecclesiastical-literature/menahem Menahem from Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature]</ref> | ||
<ref name="term_5994"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/international-standard-bible-encyclopedia/menahem Menahem from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia]</ref> | <ref name="term_5994"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/international-standard-bible-encyclopedia/menahem Menahem from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia]</ref> | ||
<ref name="term_16228"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/kitto-s-popular-cyclopedia-of-biblial-literature/menahem Menahem from Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature]</ref> | <ref name="term_16228"> [https://bibleportal.com/encyclopedia/kitto-s-popular-cyclopedia-of-biblial-literature/menahem Menahem from Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature]</ref> | ||
</references> | </references> | ||
