Lives of Scripture

Tiglath-pileser III (called Tilgath-pilneser in Chronicles) was the powerful king of Assyria whose westward campaigns reshaped the politics of Israel and Judah in the eighth century BC. He invaded northern Israel during the reign of Pekah, capturing Gilead, Galilee, and the land of Naphtali and carrying their inhabitants into exile in Assyria -- the beginning of the deportations that would culminate in the northern kingdom's fall (2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:26). When Judah's king Ahaz faced an alliance of Israel and Aram-Damascus against him, he stripped silver and gold from the temple and his own palace and sent it to Tiglath-pileser as a bribe, calling himself Assyria's "servant and son" and begging for rescue (2 Kings 16:7-8). Tiglath-pileser obliged, marching against Damascus, capturing it, and killing King Rezin -- but Chronicles records the deal soured Judah rather than saved it: "he came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him," since Ahaz's tribute only bought temporary relief at the cost of Judah's independence and treasury (2 Kings 16:9; 2 Chronicles 28:20-21). Ahaz later traveled to Damascus to meet his new overlord and, struck by an altar he saw there, had a copy built and installed in the Jerusalem temple in place of the LORD's own altar (2 Kings 16:10-16). Isaiah had already warned Ahaz that trusting Assyria instead of the LORD would bring "the king of Assyria" as an instrument of judgment on Judah itself, a warning this alliance fulfilled generations later (Isaiah 7:17).