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19 Pul[a] king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem paid[b] him[c] 1,000 talents[d] of silver to gain his support[e] and to solidify his control of the kingdom.[f] 20 Menahem got this silver by taxing all the wealthy men in Israel; he took fifty shekels of silver from each one of them and paid it to the king of Assyria.[g] Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 15:19 sn Pul was a nickname of Tiglath-Pileser III (cf. 15:29). See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 171-72.
  2. 2 Kings 15:19 tn Heb “gave.”
  3. 2 Kings 15:19 tn Heb “Pul.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
  4. 2 Kings 15:19 tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 75,000 pounds of silver (cf. NCV “about seventy-four thousand pounds”); NLT “thirty-seven tons”; CEV “over thirty tons”; TEV “34,000 kilogrammes.”
  5. 2 Kings 15:19 tn Heb “so his hands would be with him.”
  6. 2 Kings 15:19 tn Heb “to keep hold of the kingdom in his hand.”
  7. 2 Kings 15:20 tn Heb “and Menahem brought out the silver over Israel, over the prominent men of means, to give to the king of Assyria, fifty shekels of silver for each man.”

19 Then Pul[a](A) king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem gave him a thousand talents[b] of silver to gain his support and strengthen his own hold on the kingdom. 20 Menahem exacted this money from Israel. Every wealthy person had to contribute fifty shekels[c] of silver to be given to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria withdrew(B) and stayed in the land no longer.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 15:19 Also called Tiglath-Pileser
  2. 2 Kings 15:19 That is, about 38 tons or about 34 metric tons
  3. 2 Kings 15:20 That is, about 1 1/4 pounds or about 575 grams