2 Kings 15:19

And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.

Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, х Puwl (H6322); Septuagint, Foua, probably from the error of a copyist in mistaking the final lambda (L) for a capital alpha (A) elsewhere (1 Chronicles 5:26); Vatican, Falooch; Alexandrine, Faloos]. In the passage just cited, it is said, conformably to the statement here, that "the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria." But Hoses (Hosea 5:13) referring to this crisis says, "Ephraim (Israel) went to the Assyrian." These different statements may be reconciled thus-`Pul, of his own motion, resolved to chastise Menahem, induced, perhaps, by the double motive of crushing a bold rebel, whose ambition had led him to usurp the throne of a kingdom which from the time of Jehu had been an Assyrian dependency, and of avenging the expedition of Menahem against Thapsacus. Then Menahem, on his part, sent Pul 1,000 talents, in order not only to divert him from his hostile purpose, but at the same time to purchase his friendship and aid for the establishment of his own precarious sovereignty ("to confirm the kingdom in his hand:" cf. 2 Kings 14:5). According to this view, which seems the proper order of events, Menahem did not make the first overture to Assyria, but on "Pul the king of Assyria coming against the land," he took measures to change the enemy when marching against the country, by the offer of a bribe, into a patron or protector for the security of his usurped dominion, which the prophet Hosea, less concerned about the historical fact than the disposition betrayed therein, might very well censure as a going of Ephraim to the Assyrian (Hosea 5:13; Hosea 7:11; Hosea 8:9), and a covenant-making with Asshur' (2 Kings 12:1).

A thousand talents of silver = œ62,200. This tribute, which Menahem raised by a poll-tax imposed on the wealthier classes of the people in Israel, bribed Pul to return to his own country (1 Chronicles 5:26). It was an oppressive exaction, and seems to form the subject of a strong prophetic interdict, proclaimed at the time of the return from the Babylonian captivity (Ezekiel 45:8; Ezekiel 46:18).-A special interest is attached to Pul as the first mentioned in Scripture of the great northern sovereigns who invaded Palestine, and exercised a political influence in that country. The identification of this conqueror, however, with any of the Assyrian or Babylonian monarchs has not been established; for the various conjectures of Sir H. Rawlinson and the late Dr. Hincks in the early days of cuneiform studies-such as that the native appellation of Pul was Phallukha-that he was identical with Iva-lush-and that he was the last of the old or upper dynasty of Assyria, have been successively abandoned; nay, even the idea of a close connection between Pul and Tiglath-pileser, which the tenor of the sacred narrative appeared to suggest, has been given up since the discovery of the Assyrian canon, which has shown that three reigns, extending over a period of 32 years, intervened between Iva-lush IV and Tiglath-pileser II But what has most of all tended to overthrow the many hypotheses at one time advanced and zealously supported by eminent explorers of cuneiform monuments, is that the name of Pul is not found in the list of Assyrian kings, nor can admit of being identified with that of any sovereign in the catalogue.

The consequence is, that scholars in the present day are now divided in opinion as to whether Pul was not another name of Tiglath-pileser, or whether he was an Assyrian king at all. The grounds on which the supposed identification rests are briefly these. The sacred history records that Menahem paid tribute to Pul, the Ninevite monuments expressly record that he made such payment to Tiglath-pileser in the eighth year of his reign; whence the conclusion is drawn, that, as it is not very likely two Assyrian monarchs would successively undertake so distant an expedition as an invasion of Israel within the short space of ten years-which was the duration of Menahem's reign-the tribute must have been offered to one and the same sovereign. Also, it is alleged that Pul and Tiglath-pileser are spoken of (2 Chr. 5:26) in such a manner as to create an impression that they were identical-an impression which receives additional strength from the circumstance that in the passage just cited the Syriac and Arabic versions have one name only, not two. These arguments, which are all that can be adduced in support of the theory of identification, are far from being satisfactory: for it must appear to the mind of every candid and unbiassed reader that the language of the sacred history, both in this book and in Chronicles, points to two different sovereigns.

The present views entertained upon this obscure point are thus summarized by G. Rawlinson ('Ancient Monarchies,' 2:, p. 388): 'The most probable supposition is, that he was a pretender to the Assyrian crown, never acknowledged at Nineveh, but established in the western southern provinces so firmly that he could venture to conduct an expedition into lower Syria, and to claim there the fealty of Assyria's vassals. Or, possibly, he may have been a Babylonian monarch, who, in the troublous times that had now come upon the northern empire, possessed himself of the Euphrates valley, and thence descended upon Syria and Palestine. Berosus represented Pul as a Chaldean king; and the name itself, which is wholly alien to the ordinary Assyrian type-being all compound words-has at least, one counterpart among known Babylonian names.'