2 Kings 16:1

Reign of Ahaz, king of Judah. He reigns wickedly. Israel and Syria make war upon Jerusalem. Ahaz obtains assistance from Tiglath-pileser (2 Chronicles 28:1-21)

1. In the seventeenth year of Pekah It is clear that some error has crept into the chronological statements of this period. In the previous chapter (2 Kings 15:30) we read that Pekah was murdered by Hoshea in the twentieth year of Jotham. From the present verse it seems that Ahaz began to reign, and so Jotham died, before Pekah's death. In reference to Ahaz too the figures are not without some difficulty. He begins his reign at 20 years old and reigns 16 years. But his son Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:2) was twenty-five years old at his accession, and so must have been born when Ahaz was not more than eleven.

With reference, however, to the death of Pekah in the reign of Jotham, we see from Isaiah 7:1, that Pekah was still alive and conducting operations against Judah in the reign of Ahaz. This agrees entirely with verse 5 of the present chapter. Therefore in any chronological calculation the words of 2 Kings 15:30 ought to be neglected. It is not easy to explain how the error arose, but it is manifest that there is an error.