TIGLATH-PILESER
(as: “my strength is the god Ninib”).
Name of several kings of Assyria. Tiglath-pileser III, who was also called Pul, (possibly his original name before he usurped power), reigned between 746/5 and 728/7 BC. The Israelites knew him at first by the name of Pul.
From 743 to 740 he established his command center at Arpad, in northern Syria, from where he directed devastating campaigns. It was around this time, or somewhat later, that he invaded Israel.
King Menahem was quick to pay him tribute, so Tiglath-pileser confirmed him in the kingdom (2 Kings 15:19, 20; see PEKA). Among the kings who appear in the records of Tiglath-pileser as having paid tribute in the year 738 is Menahem of Samaria.
The king of Assyria next led expeditions east, north, and northwest of Nineveh. In 734 he turned west. Ahaz, king of Judah, threatened by Rezin, king of Syria, and by Pekah, king of Israel, bought the help of Tiglath-pileser at a very high price, and against the exhortations of the prophet Isaiah (2 Kings 16:7 , 8).
Tiglath-pileser marched against the Philistines, seizing Gaza in the year 734 (2 Chron. 28:18). During his advance southward and his return northward, he took several cities, Galilee, the entire country of Naphtali, and deported the inhabitants of it (2 Kings 15:29).
The king of Assyria also took away the Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh (1 Chron. 5:26). Thus, already before the fall of Samaria (722-721 BC), there was a mass deportation of Israelites from the northern kingdom.
Assyrian tablets report that Tiglath-pileser received tribute from numerous rulers, including those of Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Judah. These data are in line with the biblical data (2 Kings 16:10). In 732, Tiglath-pileser seized Damascus and then pacified Babylon, which had been invaded by the Chaldeans.
In the year 730 BC, Hosea, son of Elah, killed Pekah, king of Israel (2 Kings 15:30), with the support of Tiglath-pileser. The latter, more than its predecessors, preceded a systematic transfer of populations.
The lands abandoned by the deportees were in turn populated by Assyrian settlers. Its purpose was to annihilate the national sentiment of the defeated, dispersing and isolating them.
He died in 728 (or 727) BC, after a reign of eighteen years, and having brought Assyria to the height of power.