Person
Pekah פקח
king of Israel for twenty years; under him Assyria took Galilee
Pekah son of Remaliah reigned twenty years. Together with Rezin king of Aram he marched on Jerusalem to depose Ahaz and set up his own man — the very war in which Isaiah went out to Ahaz with the sign of Immanuel.
Ahaz called Tiglath-Pileser to his aid. He came — and took Ijon, Abel-Beth-Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, all Gilead and all Galilee, the land of Naphtali, «and carried their people away to Assyria» (2 Kings 15:29). This is the first deportation of northerners, twenty years before Samaria fell: half the kingdom was gone while its king still lived. Pekah himself was killed by Hoshea son of Elah.
On the timeline
3205 · 556 BCEThe Assyrian Exile of the Ten Tribes3164 · 597 BCEFive Coups in Twenty Years: How the Kingdom of Israel Ended
Sources
Tanakh
- Melachim II (2 Kings) 15:27–31 — the twenty years, Tiglath-Pileser's campaign, and the deportation of Galilee and Gilead
- Isaiah 7:1–9 — the war of Rezin and Pekah against Ahaz and the prophet's words
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.