1 Chronicles 5:26 - Homiletics

Pul and Tilgath-pilneser . These two were chosen ministers of God's will, if not ministers of himself. We can identify the date of this punishment which befell the transgressing Israelites east of the Jordan. The visit of the former, in the reign of Menahem ( 2 Kings 15:15-20 ), may be interpreted and might have operated as a lesson and a warning. He was bought off with a thousand talents of silver. It seems to be said with significance," So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land." It was in the reign of Pekah, the usurping successor of Menahem's son Pekahiah, that the completer punishment fell, and Tilgath-pilneser effected the captivity spoken of here and in 2 Kings 15:27-29 . The name Pul cannot, it would appear, be a pure Assyrian name, and there is reason to think it may be identified with Vul-lush (grandson of the Shalmaneser who warred with Benhadad, etc.), a name found on Assyrian monuments, and belonging to a king who reigned at Calah, B.C. 8004750 (see art. "Pul," Smith's 'Bible Dictionary'). Tilqath-pilneser (see notes on 2 Kings 15:6 ) was probably the founder of the lower dynasty of Assyria, and first king of the new empire. His first invasion was one chiefly of Israel and Samaria ( 2 Kings 15:29 ; Isaiah 9:1 ). His second was of a much more significant character. Called in to aid Judah under Ahaz against Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria in alliance, he both conquered these latter and brought into vassalage Judah itself ( 2 Kings 15:37 ; 2 Kings 16:9 , 2 Kings 16:10 ; 2 Chronicles 28:6-8 ; Isaiah 9:1 ). Halah; Habor Hara; Gozan . This enumeration exceeds that of 2 Kings 17:6 by the addition of Hara , important as helping with consistent witness to the antiquity of the region described. Halah ( not the "Calah" of Genesis 10:11 ) is believed to be identifiable with Chalcitis , its verbal resemblance to which comes out a little more evidently in its Hebrew form ( חֲלַח ). A trace of it possibly remains in the name of a hill, Gla , on the Khabour , i.q. Habor of this passage, an important tributary of the Euphrates, and not the "Chebar" of Ezekiel. This name Khabour is found in an Assyrian inscription dating upwards of eight centuries before Christ. The mention of Habor in 2 Kings 17:6 and 2 Kings 18:11 is, in the Authorized Version, made to convey the impression of a place "by" the "river of Gozan," instead of being, what the Hebrew says, "the river of Gozan." Here, on the other hand, Gozan is, in the Authorized Version, incorrectly translated as a river itself, instead of the region of a river. It is, according to the testimony of Layard, a remarkably fertile tract, being the Gauzanitis of Ptolemy, and substantially the Mygdonia of Polybius and Strabo. Hara ; חָרָה , with little doubt, the same as חָרָן , Haran , or Charran ( Genesis 11:31 ), the ancient adopted home of Abraham, in Padan-aram, in Mesopotamia, on the Belik, a small tributary of the Euphrates. It is the Greek Carrhae of Strabo and Polybius. These four names purport to give us, probably in brief, the information that those of the Captivity here alluded to were divided—some to settle at Halab on one river, some in Hara on another, and the rest in the district called Gauzanitis. The region called Halah and that called Gau-zanitis, however, were both watered by the Khabour, and therefore the insertion of the name Haran where it is inserted occasions some difficulty.