Pekahiah

Pekahiah (meaning: the Lord has opened his eyes or watchfulness of the Lord) was the son and successor of Menahem on the throne of Israel, reigning as the seventeenth king of the northern kingdom for approximately two years (c. 741–740 BC). The biblical account describes his reign in the standard formulaic terms of Israelite apostasy: he did evil in the sight of the Lord and maintained the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat (2 Kings 15:24).

His brief reign ended violently when his military captain Pekah the son of Remaliah conspired against him with fifty men of the Gileadites, assassinated him in the palace at Samaria in the tower of the king's house, and took the throne (2 Kings 15:25). Pekahiah's short reign and violent end exemplify the political instability of the northern kingdom's final decades, a period of rapid succession and repeated assassination that characterized the collapse leading to the Assyrian conquest of 722 BC.