In the Eponym Canon the entries for the two years following the campaign to Pilišta (i.e. 733-732 b.c.) are, “to the land of Dimašqa.” It would therefore seem that, having assured himself of the submission of his north-Phœnician vassals, Tiglath-pileser attacked the northern district of Israel, taking Ijon, Abel-beth-maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali (2 Kings xv. 29). No account of this, however, occurs in the Assyrian inscriptions,[93] which, as already pointed out, are very mutilated for this period. It is possible that the reference to Israel, in the mutilated passage quoted above, relates to this invasion, and possibly also to the payment of tribute by Pekah in order to secure himself against further attacks.
Whether before or after the above is not known, but possibly on the departure of the Assyrians, Rezin (Rezon), king of Syria, made alliance with Pekah, and their combined forces invaded Judah. Ahaz, who was at this time king of Judah, was apparently besieged in Jerusalem, and the king of Syria took advantage of this opportunity to recover possession of Elath, which never fell into the hands of the Jews again (2 Kings xvi. 6).
There is no doubt that Ahaz was hard pressed, and hearing, to all appearance, that the Assyrians were again in the neighbourhood, he sent to Tiglath-pileser a humble message: “I am thy servant, and thy son; come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.” This would in all probability have had but little effect, had it not been accompanied by a goodly amount of gold and silver, taken not only from his own treasury, but also from that of the Temple at Jerusalem. The result was, that Tiglath-pileser [pg 354] went up against Damascus. The Syrian king, however, decided to resist, and a battle was fought in which he was defeated, and obliged to seek safety in flight. With a grim, not to say barbarous, humour, Tiglath-pileser describes his flight and the treatment of his supporters—
“... (like) a mouse he entered the great gate of his city. His chiefs (I took) alive with my hands, (and) I caused them to be raised up and to view his land (on) stakes: 45 camps of soldiers I collected (in the provin)ce of his city, and shut him up like a bird in a cage. His plantations, (fields, orchards (?), and) woods, which were without number, I cut down, and did not leave one ... (the city) Ḫādara, the house (= dwelling-place) of the father of Raṣunnu (Rezon) of the land of the Ša-imērišuites, (the place where) he was born, I besieged, I captured: 800 people with their possessions, ... their oxen, their sheep, I carried off: 750 prisoners of the city Kurussa, ... (prisoners) of the city of the Irmaites, 550 prisoners of the city Metuna, I carried off: 591 cities ... of 16 districts of the land of Ša-imērišu I destroyed like flood-mounds.”[94]
This is immediately followed by an account of the operations against Samsi, queen of Arabia, and the tribes connected with that over which she held sway. After this he states that he set Idi-bi'ilu as governor over the land of Musru. All these passages, however, are exceedingly incomplete, as is also that referring to Samaria, which follows. The shorter account of the expeditions of Tiglath-pileser gives in this place lines of which the following is a translation—
“They overthrew Paqaḫa (Pekah), their king, and I set Ausi'a (Hosea) (upon the throne) over them. [pg 355] Ten talents of gold, ... talents of silver, ... their (tribute), I received, and (brought) them (to the land of Assyria).”
The longer account, from which most of the above extracts have been made, may therefore be completed, with Rost, provisionally, as follows—
“(Pekah, all of whose) cities (I had captured) in my earlier campaigns, and had given over (as a prey, and whose spoi)l I had carried off, abandoned the city of Samerina (Samaria) alone. (Pekah), their king, (they overthrew, and like) a hurricane (I ravaged the land).”
As will be seen, the above agrees closely with the statement in 2 Kings xv. 30—
“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, in the 20th year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.”