2 Kings 15:30 - Exposition

And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead. By a mutilated notice in the records of Tiglath-pileser, it appears that the revolution here related was the result of another invasion of the Israelite territory by that monarch. "The land of Beth-Croft," he says, " … the tribe … the goods of its people and their furniture I sent to Assyria. Pekah their king [I caused to be put to death?] and Hoshea I appointed to the kingdom ever them; their tribute I received, and [their treasures?] to Assyria I sent". It is probably this invasion of which the writer of Chronicles speaks ( 1 Chronicles 5:26 ) as resulting in the deportation of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. In the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah. This date stands in contradiction with verse 33, where Jotham's entire reign is reckoned at sixteen years, and apparently must be a corrupt reading.