In the Assyrian Room of the British Museum, Wall Cases 14 to 18 contain a valuable collection of inscribed bowls, ostraca, and fragments of records which extend from the days of Assur-resh-shi, down to the end of the Assyrian dynasty. Among them are fragmentary inscriptions from the reign of Tiglath-pileser the Third. He is known in the Scriptures also by his Babylonian name of Pul. In I Chronicles 5:26 both names are found in the one verse, as though the scribe were anxious that the identification should be complete:
And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.
Tiglath-pileser again appears under the name of Pul in II 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.
In the twenty-ninth verse of this chapter, however, his Assyrian name is given alone, as is done in the sixteenth chapter.
In the above cited wall cases, exhibit K 2751, is an inscription of Tiglath-pileser’s setting forth some of his conquests, and an account of certain of his building operations. Among the tributary kings who accepted his yoke, he specifically mentions Ahaz king of Judah.
Modern man is so used to the phenomena that make up the miracle of our modern living that such fascinating possessions as this are not generally appreciated and properly valued. Here, however, we hear again the voice of a man who died in the year 727 B. C. The phenomenon is seen in the fact that in spite of the indescribable vandalism and wreckage wrought by those intervening ages, a fragment of clay persisted, and remained in existence until it could be uncovered from the dust heaps of antiquity by the one generation that desperately needed its testimony and was able to interpret and prize its record!
Here indeed is a dead man who tells tales, and who tells them with such authority and accuracy that the mouth of criticism is stopped and the Word of God completely vindicated. Incidentally, Tiglath-pileser’s record corroborates the prophecy of Isaiah, concerning the destruction of both Israel and Syria, because they had joined their forces to make war upon Judah.
This prophecy is given at length in the seventh chapter of Isaiah and was the instance of introducing the greater prophecy of the final redemption of the people with the coming of Messiah. He was to be identified, according to Isaiah, by means of the miracle of the virgin birth.
When Omri, the general of the armies of Israel, was elevated by popular acclaim to the throne of dominion, he climaxed an astonishing career that left a deep impression upon antiquity. At the beginning of his reign the nation was divided in its allegiance and this division resulted in a civil war that was bitter, though brief. The power and might of Omri quickly pacified and subdued the land, which accepted his dominion, and for twelve years his hand guided the helm of the ship of state. One of his earlier acts was to buy the hill of Samaria for a sum that is given as two talents of silver, which would be in the neighborhood of $4,000 in our reckoning. So impressive was his personality that from his day on to the end of the kingdom, the land of Israel was generally known among the Assyrian peoples as the Land of Omri.