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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 King 15:20 - 15:20
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To collect the requisite amount, Menahem imposed upon all persons of property a tax of fifty shekels each. יֹצֵא with עַל, he caused to arise, i.e., made a collection. הֹצִיא in a causative sense, from יָצָא, to arise, to be paid (2Ki 12:13). חַיִל גִּבֹּורֵי: not warriors, but men of property, as in Ruth. 2Ki 2:1; 1Sa 9:1. אֶחָד לְאִישׁ, for the individual. Pul was the first king of Assyria who invaded the kingdom of Israel and prepared the way for the conquest of this kingdom by his successors, and for the extension of the Assyrian power as far as Egypt. According to the thorough investigation made by Marc. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs u. Babels, pp. 128ff.), Pul, whose name has not yet been discovered upon the Assyrian monuments, was the last king of Nineveh of the family of the Derketades, who still ruled over Babylon according to Berosus, and the last king but one of this dynasty.
(Note: It is true that some trace of his expedition has been found in the monuments, since an inscription has been deciphered with tolerable certainty, stating that king Minikhimmi of Samirina (Menahem of Shomron or Samaria) paid tribute to an Assyrian king. But the name of this Assyrian king is not determined with certainty, as Rawlinson, and Oppert read it Tiglat-palassar, and suppose Tiglath-pileser to be intended; whereas M. v. Niebuhr (p. 132, note 1) imagines it to be the full name of Pul, since no Assyrian king ever had a name of one syllable like Pul as his official name, and even before that Hincks had detected in the name Minikhimmi the king Menahem who had to purchase the friendship of the Assyrian ruler Pul with 1000 talents of silver. (Comp. J. Brandis, uber d. histor. Gewinn aus der Entzifferung der assyr. Inschriften, Berl. 1856, p. 50.))