Pekah
Encyclopedia
Pekah was king of Israel. He was a captain in the army of king Pekahiah
of Israel, whom he killed to become king. Pekah was the son of Remaliah .
Pekah became king in the fifty-second and last year of Azariah
, king of Judah
, and he reigned twenty years. In the second year of his reign Jotham
became king of Judah, and reigned for sixteen years. Jotham was succeeded by his son, Ahaz
in the seventeenth year of Pekah's reign. William F. Albright
has dated his reign to 737 – 732 BC, while E. R. Thiele
, following H. J. Cook and Carl Lederer, held that Pekah set up in Gilead a rival reign to Menahem's Samaria-based kingdom in Nisan of 752 BC, becoming sole ruler on his assassination of Menahem's son Pekahiah in 740/739 BC and dying in 732/731 BC. This explanation is consistent with evidence of the Assyrian chronicles, which agree with Menahem
being king in 743 BC or 742 BC and Hoshea
being king from 732 BC.
When Pekah allied with Rezin
, king of Aram
to attack Ahaz
, the king of Judah, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III
, the king of Assyria
, for help. This the Assyrian king obliged, but Judah became a tributory of the Assyrian king.
ites, he slew Pekahiah and assumed the throne .
In c. 732 BCE, Pekah allied with Rezin
, king of Aram
and threatened Jerusalem. Ahaz
appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III
, the king of Assyria
, for help. Ahaz's "dread" of Rezin and Pekah, "Son of Remaliah" is recorded in the Immanuel
prophecy in Isaiah 7:14
where the birth of a son (possibly Hezekiah
) is a sign of the defeat of both kings by the King of Assyria before the child is old enough to eat curds and honey and distinguish right from wrong. After Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, Tiglath-Pileser sacked Damascus
and annexed Aram. According to , the population of Aram was deported and Rezin executed. According to , Tiglath-Pileser also attacked Israel and "took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah
, Janoah
, Kedesh
and Hazor. He took Gilead
and Galilee
, including all the land of Naphtali
, and deported the people to Assyria." Tiglath-Pileser also records this act in one of his inscriptions.
Soon after this Pekah was assassinated by Hoshea
, the son of Elah, who took the throne, in the twentieth year of Jotham of Judah
. Tiglath-Pileser in an inscription mentions the slaying of Hoshea by his fellow Israelite
s. He is supposed by some to have been the "shepherd" mentioned in .
But two conflicting systems of reckoning seem to be used for his reign. One system gives him a long reign of twenty years , which puts his starting date in 752 BC. This date is consistent with the statement that Jotham of Judah
began to reign in Pekah's second year, 750 BC , and that Jotham's successor Ahaz
began to reign in his 17th year, 735 BC .
However, a shorter reign is indicated by , which says that Pekah began to reign in the 52nd year of Azariah
(Uzziah) of Judah, i.e. in 740 BC. Also, Pekah assassinated Pekahiah
to assume the throne , and Pekahiah's two-year reign was preceded by his father Menahem
's ten-year reign . Menahem gave tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III
, as is recorded in (where Pul = Tiglath-Pileser) and also in Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions. Since Tiglath-Pileser came to the throne in 745 BC, Menahem's tribute would have to be in 745 or later, yet the "longer" chronology gave Pekah, successor to Menahem and Pekahiah, a twenty-year reign that started before this, in 752. These apparent inconsistencies led many scholars to reject all or part of the biblical sources concerning Pekah. D. M. Beegle has maintained that it is impossible to reconcile a twenty-year reign for Pekah with other biblical or with Assyrian history, using this as one of his arguments that the doctrine of the inerrancy of all Scripture cannot be true.
in his second edition of Mysterious Numbers and later, Leslie McFall, Francis Andersen
and David Noel Freedman
in their commentary on Hosea in the Anchor Bible Series
, T. C. Mitchell, in the Cambridge Ancient History, and Jack Finegan in his Handbook of Biblical Chronology.
demonstrate that the Assyrian king distinguished between two kingdoms in the north of Israel. Tiglath-Pileser says he united the northern part (restored as Naphthali in the text) with Assyria, whereas for the southern part, he wrote, "Israel (bit-Humria) overthrew their king Pekah and I placed Hoshea as king over them." Cook thinks that Menahem's tribute to Assyria in 2 Kings 15:19 also suggests the existence of a rival to Menahem's kingdom:
Isaiah 7:1,2 speaks of a league between Pekah and King Rezin of Aram that was a threat to Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz and Menahem of Israel (Ephraim) followed a pro-Assyrian policy and were therefore aligned against the coalition of Pekah and the Arameans that sought to withstand Assyria, thus explaining why Menahem felt insecure and sought to buy the support of Assyria.
Any rivalry between Menahem and Pekah could only appear more and more foolish in light of the growing menace of Assyria. In 733, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned against Damascus, the capital of the Arameans, Pekah's erstwhile ally, and he returned to destroy the city in 732. Pekah must have seen the handwriting on the wall in 733 or earlier, and any feeling for Realpolitik would dictate that it was time for the two rivals to put aside their differences under some sort of accommodation. But Realpolitik would also suggest that this accommodation should not include giving your potential rival a position of leadership in the army, which Pekahiah learned too late.
This is based on inference from the political situation of the time. Gleason Archer showed how inference is used to reconstruct a rivalry in the neighboring kingdom of Egypt that has striking parallels to the Pekah/Menahem rivalry. When Thutmose II
died, the intended heir was his son Thutmose III
, who was still a boy. However, some time not long after the death of her husband (Thutmose II), Hatshepsut
assumed the royal regalia and the title of pharaoh, reigning for 21 years. As he grew older, Thutmose III was given the position of commander of the army, similar to Pekah's position as commander, but still under his aunt and stepmother Hatshepsut. After Hatshepsut died, Thutmose, in an inscription describing his first campaign, said it was in his 22nd year of reign, thereby counting his regnal years from the time his father died, not from the death of Hatshepsut. Thutmose left no explanation for modern historians that his 22nd year was really the first year of sole reign, any more than Pekah or the historian of 2 Kings left an explanation that Pekah's 12th year, the year in which he slew Pekahiah, was really his first year of sole reign. Modern historians rely on a comparison of inscriptions and chronological considerations to reconstruct the chronology of Thutmose III, and there is unanimity among Egyptologists that he counted as his own years the 21 years that Hatshepsut was on the throne, even though no inscription has ever been found explicitly stating this fact. Commenting on the fact that Egyptologists have no problem in reconstructing history using inference of this sort, whereas critics will sometimes not allow the same historical method to be applied to the Bible, Young writes, "Do those who reject the Menahem/Pekah rivalry as improbable also reject as improbable this reconstruction from Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty that Egyptologists use to explain the regnal dates of Thutmose III? How do they explain Hosea 5:5?"
Pekahiah
Pekahiah was a king of Israel and the son of Menahem, whom he succeeded, and the second and last king of Israel from the House of Gadi. He ruled from the capital of Samaria....
of Israel, whom he killed to become king. Pekah was the son of Remaliah .
Pekah became king in the fifty-second and last year of Azariah
Uzziah of Judah
Uzziah , also known as Azariah , was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father...
, king of Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
, and he reigned twenty years. In the second year of his reign Jotham
Jotham of Judah
Jotham or Yotam was the king of Judah, and son of Uzziah with Jerusha, daughter of Zadok.He took the throne at the age of twenty-five and reigned for sixteen years. William F. Albright dated his reign to 742 – 735 BC. Edwin R...
became king of Judah, and reigned for sixteen years. Jotham was succeeded by his son, Ahaz
Ahaz
Ahaz was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew....
in the seventeenth year of Pekah's reign. William F. Albright
William F. Albright
William Foxwell Albright was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist and expert on ceramics. From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement...
has dated his reign to 737 – 732 BC, while E. R. Thiele
Edwin R. Thiele
Edwin R. Thiele was an American missionary in China, an editor, archaeologist, writer, and Old Testament professor. He is best known for his chronological studies of the Hebrew kingdom period.- Biography :...
, following H. J. Cook and Carl Lederer, held that Pekah set up in Gilead a rival reign to Menahem's Samaria-based kingdom in Nisan of 752 BC, becoming sole ruler on his assassination of Menahem's son Pekahiah in 740/739 BC and dying in 732/731 BC. This explanation is consistent with evidence of the Assyrian chronicles, which agree with Menahem
Menahem
Menahem, was a king of the northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Gadi, and the founder of the dynasty known as the House of Gadi or House of Menahem....
being king in 743 BC or 742 BC and Hoshea
Hoshea
See also Hosea, who has the same name in Biblical Hebrew.Hoshea was the last king of the Israelite Kingdom of Israel and son of Elah . William F. Albright dated reign to 732 – 721 BC, while E. R. Thiele offered the dates 732 – 723 BC.Assyrian records basically confirm the Biblical...
being king from 732 BC.
When Pekah allied with Rezin
Rezin
King Rezin of Aram or Rasin of Syria in DRB ruled from Damascus during the 8th century BC. During his reign he was a tributary of King Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria....
, king of Aram
Aram (Biblical region)
Aram is the name of a region mentioned in the Bible located in central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo now stands.-Etymology:The etymology is uncertain. One standard explanation is an original meaning of "highlands"...
to attack Ahaz
Ahaz
Ahaz was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew....
, the king of Judah, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BC and is widely regarded as the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a civil war and killed the royal family...
, the king of Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
, for help. This the Assyrian king obliged, but Judah became a tributory of the Assyrian king.
Summary of reign
With the aid of a band of GileadGilead
In the Bible "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, , a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It is also referred to by the Aramaic name Yegar-Sahadutha, which carries the same meaning as the Hebrew . From its mountainous character...
ites, he slew Pekahiah and assumed the throne .
In c. 732 BCE, Pekah allied with Rezin
Rezin
King Rezin of Aram or Rasin of Syria in DRB ruled from Damascus during the 8th century BC. During his reign he was a tributary of King Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria....
, king of Aram
Aram Damascus
Aram Damascus was an Aramaean state around Damascus in Syria, from the late 12th century BCE to 734 BCE.Sources for this state come from texts that can be divided into three categories: Assyrian annals, Aramaean texts, and the Hebrew Bible....
and threatened Jerusalem. Ahaz
Ahaz
Ahaz was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew....
appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BC and is widely regarded as the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a civil war and killed the royal family...
, the king of Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
, for help. Ahaz's "dread" of Rezin and Pekah, "Son of Remaliah" is recorded in the Immanuel
Immanuel
Immanuel or Emmanuel or Imanu'el . It is a theophoric name used in the Bible in and...
prophecy in Isaiah 7:14
Isaiah 7:14
Isaiah 7:14 is a verse of the Book of Isaiah in which the prophet Isaiah, addressing king Ahaz of Judah , promises the king a sign that his oracle is a true one...
where the birth of a son (possibly Hezekiah
Hezekiah
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....
) is a sign of the defeat of both kings by the King of Assyria before the child is old enough to eat curds and honey and distinguish right from wrong. After Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, Tiglath-Pileser sacked Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
and annexed Aram. According to , the population of Aram was deported and Rezin executed. According to , Tiglath-Pileser also attacked Israel and "took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah
Abel-beth-maachah
Abel-beth-maachah was a city in the north of Israel, in the neighbourhood of Dan and Ijon, in the tribe of Naphtali....
, Janoah
Janohah
Janohah means "he rests" in Hebrew.In the Bible, Janohah is a town mentioned in Joshua 16:6 and 16:7, giving the northern border of the Tribe of Ephraim "the border went about eastward unto Taanathshiloh, and passed by it on the east to Janohah; And it went down from Janohah to Ataroth."Another...
, Kedesh
Kedesh
The ruins of the ancient Canaanite village of Kedesh are located within the modern Kibbutz Malkiya in Israel on the Israeli-Lebanese border....
and Hazor. He took Gilead
Gilead
In the Bible "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, , a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It is also referred to by the Aramaic name Yegar-Sahadutha, which carries the same meaning as the Hebrew . From its mountainous character...
and Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, including all the land of Naphtali
Tribe of Naphtali
The Tribe of Naphtali was one of the Tribes of Israel.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes...
, and deported the people to Assyria." Tiglath-Pileser also records this act in one of his inscriptions.
Soon after this Pekah was assassinated by Hoshea
Hoshea
See also Hosea, who has the same name in Biblical Hebrew.Hoshea was the last king of the Israelite Kingdom of Israel and son of Elah . William F. Albright dated reign to 732 – 721 BC, while E. R. Thiele offered the dates 732 – 723 BC.Assyrian records basically confirm the Biblical...
, the son of Elah, who took the throne, in the twentieth year of Jotham of Judah
Jotham of Judah
Jotham or Yotam was the king of Judah, and son of Uzziah with Jerusha, daughter of Zadok.He took the throne at the age of twenty-five and reigned for sixteen years. William F. Albright dated his reign to 742 – 735 BC. Edwin R...
. Tiglath-Pileser in an inscription mentions the slaying of Hoshea by his fellow Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
s. He is supposed by some to have been the "shepherd" mentioned in .
Controversy
The data given for Pekah's reign in the biblical sources have generated considerable discussion. His ending date can be established fairly firmly as 732/731 BC.But two conflicting systems of reckoning seem to be used for his reign. One system gives him a long reign of twenty years , which puts his starting date in 752 BC. This date is consistent with the statement that Jotham of Judah
Jotham of Judah
Jotham or Yotam was the king of Judah, and son of Uzziah with Jerusha, daughter of Zadok.He took the throne at the age of twenty-five and reigned for sixteen years. William F. Albright dated his reign to 742 – 735 BC. Edwin R...
began to reign in Pekah's second year, 750 BC , and that Jotham's successor Ahaz
Ahaz
Ahaz was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew....
began to reign in his 17th year, 735 BC .
However, a shorter reign is indicated by , which says that Pekah began to reign in the 52nd year of Azariah
Uzziah of Judah
Uzziah , also known as Azariah , was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father...
(Uzziah) of Judah, i.e. in 740 BC. Also, Pekah assassinated Pekahiah
Pekahiah
Pekahiah was a king of Israel and the son of Menahem, whom he succeeded, and the second and last king of Israel from the House of Gadi. He ruled from the capital of Samaria....
to assume the throne , and Pekahiah's two-year reign was preceded by his father Menahem
Menahem
Menahem, was a king of the northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Gadi, and the founder of the dynasty known as the House of Gadi or House of Menahem....
's ten-year reign . Menahem gave tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BC and is widely regarded as the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a civil war and killed the royal family...
, as is recorded in (where Pul = Tiglath-Pileser) and also in Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions. Since Tiglath-Pileser came to the throne in 745 BC, Menahem's tribute would have to be in 745 or later, yet the "longer" chronology gave Pekah, successor to Menahem and Pekahiah, a twenty-year reign that started before this, in 752. These apparent inconsistencies led many scholars to reject all or part of the biblical sources concerning Pekah. D. M. Beegle has maintained that it is impossible to reconcile a twenty-year reign for Pekah with other biblical or with Assyrian history, using this as one of his arguments that the doctrine of the inerrancy of all Scripture cannot be true.
C. Lederer and H. J. Cook: a rival reign in Gilead
In 1887, Carl Lederer proposed that the existence of two apparently contradictory sets of text for Pekah could be explained if there really were two systems in use for reckoning the reign of Pekah, and these were the consequence of a rivalry between Pekah and Menahem. The rivalry began when Menahem slew Shallum, putting an end to Shallum's one month reign . This assumption accounted for all the chronological texts that related four kings of Judah (Uzziah through Hezekiah) to three kings of Israel (Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah), but it apparently was largely ignored by the scholarly community. Then in 1954, H. J. Cook added new considerations to support Lederer's thesis, beyond just the pragmatic "it works." Cook maintained that although the Scriptures did not explicitly state the existence of two rival kingdoms in the north in the latter half of the eighth century BC, their existence could be inferred from passages of the book of Hosea that was written about the time of Pekah and Menahem. Cook showed that although "Ephraim" is sometimes used in Scripture to designate all of the northern kingdom, in various passages of Hosea such as Hosea 5:5, "Israel" and "Ephraim" are not synonymous but refer to separate entities. Cook's thesis in this regard was strengthened when Rodger Young pointed out that the Hebrew of Hosea 5:5 has a vav before Israel and then another vav before Ephraim, which is the Hebrew method of expressing "both. . . and," implying a distinction in this passage between Israel and Ephraim. All translations which have rendered this in some sense as "Israel, even Ephraim" are therefore incorrect (the Holman Study Bible renders the verse correctly, as did the ancient Septuagint). Others who have accepted the Lederer/Cook explanation of the two methods of dating for the time of Pekah are ThieleEdwin R. Thiele
Edwin R. Thiele was an American missionary in China, an editor, archaeologist, writer, and Old Testament professor. He is best known for his chronological studies of the Hebrew kingdom period.- Biography :...
in his second edition of Mysterious Numbers and later, Leslie McFall, Francis Andersen
Francis Andersen
Francis Ian Andersen is an Australian scholar in the fields of biblical studies and Hebrew. Together with A. Dean Forbes, he pioneered the use of computers for the analysis of biblical Hebrew syntax...
and David Noel Freedman
David Noel Freedman
David Noel Freedman , son of the writer David Freedman, was a biblical scholar, author, editor, archaeologist, and ordained Presbyterian minister ....
in their commentary on Hosea in the Anchor Bible Series
Anchor Bible Series
The Anchor Bible project, consisting of a Commentary Series, Bible Dictionary, and Reference Library, is a scholarly and commercial co-venture begun in 1956, when individual volumes in the commentary series began production...
, T. C. Mitchell, in the Cambridge Ancient History, and Jack Finegan in his Handbook of Biblical Chronology.
Assyrian references
Looking at this from the Assyrian side, Stanley Rosenbaum maintains that the records of Tiglath-Pileser IIITiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BC and is widely regarded as the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a civil war and killed the royal family...
demonstrate that the Assyrian king distinguished between two kingdoms in the north of Israel. Tiglath-Pileser says he united the northern part (restored as Naphthali in the text) with Assyria, whereas for the southern part, he wrote, "Israel (bit-Humria) overthrew their king Pekah and I placed Hoshea as king over them." Cook thinks that Menahem's tribute to Assyria in 2 Kings 15:19 also suggests the existence of a rival to Menahem's kingdom:
When Tiglath-Pileser III appeared in the west, Menahem took the opportunity to enlist his support by sending tribute of a thousand talents of sliver, with the idea—as 2 Kings xv 19 puts it—'that he might help him to confirm his hold of the royal power'. This expression may simply indicate Menahem's sense of insecurity in the presence of Assyrian power; but it may equally well indicate the presence of a rival.
Isaiah 7:1,2 speaks of a league between Pekah and King Rezin of Aram that was a threat to Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz and Menahem of Israel (Ephraim) followed a pro-Assyrian policy and were therefore aligned against the coalition of Pekah and the Arameans that sought to withstand Assyria, thus explaining why Menahem felt insecure and sought to buy the support of Assyria.
Pekah as commander under Pekahiah
A major objection to the idea that Pekah headed a kingdom that was rival to Menahem's reign in Samaria is that he is listed as a commander (shalish) of Pekahaiah, Menahem's son, whom he slew (2 Kings 15:25). Young remarks,The objections to Pekah being a rival to Menahem usually center on Pekah’s position as an officer in the army of Pekahiah, Menahem’s son and successor (2 Kgs 15:25). But there is nothing inherently unreasonable about two rivals reaching a détente under which one contender accepts a subordinate position, and he then bides his time until the opportunity comes to slay his rival (or his rival’s son) in a coup. Once the rivalry had begun, the external threat (Assyria) provided compelling reasons for a détente.
Any rivalry between Menahem and Pekah could only appear more and more foolish in light of the growing menace of Assyria. In 733, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned against Damascus, the capital of the Arameans, Pekah's erstwhile ally, and he returned to destroy the city in 732. Pekah must have seen the handwriting on the wall in 733 or earlier, and any feeling for Realpolitik would dictate that it was time for the two rivals to put aside their differences under some sort of accommodation. But Realpolitik would also suggest that this accommodation should not include giving your potential rival a position of leadership in the army, which Pekahiah learned too late.
This is based on inference from the political situation of the time. Gleason Archer showed how inference is used to reconstruct a rivalry in the neighboring kingdom of Egypt that has striking parallels to the Pekah/Menahem rivalry. When Thutmose II
Thutmose II
Thutmose II was the fourth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. He built some minor monuments and initiated at least two minor campaigns but did little else during his rule and was probably strongly influenced by his wife, Hatshepsut...
died, the intended heir was his son Thutmose III
Thutmose III
Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...
, who was still a boy. However, some time not long after the death of her husband (Thutmose II), Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut also Hatchepsut; meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies;1508–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt...
assumed the royal regalia and the title of pharaoh, reigning for 21 years. As he grew older, Thutmose III was given the position of commander of the army, similar to Pekah's position as commander, but still under his aunt and stepmother Hatshepsut. After Hatshepsut died, Thutmose, in an inscription describing his first campaign, said it was in his 22nd year of reign, thereby counting his regnal years from the time his father died, not from the death of Hatshepsut. Thutmose left no explanation for modern historians that his 22nd year was really the first year of sole reign, any more than Pekah or the historian of 2 Kings left an explanation that Pekah's 12th year, the year in which he slew Pekahiah, was really his first year of sole reign. Modern historians rely on a comparison of inscriptions and chronological considerations to reconstruct the chronology of Thutmose III, and there is unanimity among Egyptologists that he counted as his own years the 21 years that Hatshepsut was on the throne, even though no inscription has ever been found explicitly stating this fact. Commenting on the fact that Egyptologists have no problem in reconstructing history using inference of this sort, whereas critics will sometimes not allow the same historical method to be applied to the Bible, Young writes, "Do those who reject the Menahem/Pekah rivalry as improbable also reject as improbable this reconstruction from Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty that Egyptologists use to explain the regnal dates of Thutmose III? How do they explain Hosea 5:5?"