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Menahem from Guillaume Rouillé's Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum
For the Khazar ruler of the same name, see Menahem (Khazar). For the medieval poet and philologist, see Menahem ben Saruq.

Menahem, (Hebrew: מְנַחֵם, Modern Menaẖem Tiberian Mənaḥēm, from a Hebrew word meaning "the consoler" or "comforter"; Greek: Manaem in the Septuagint, Manaen in Aquila; Latin: Manahem; full name: Hebrew: מנחם בן גדי‎, Menahem Ben Gadi) was a king of the northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Gadi, and the founder of the dynasty known as the House of Gadi or House of Menahem.

In the Bible[edit]

Menahem's ten year reign is told in 2 Kings 15:14-22. When Shallum conspired against and assassinated Zechariah in Samaria, and set himself upon the throne of the northern kingdom, Menahem - who, like Shallum, had served as a captain in Zechariah's army - refused to recognize the murderous usurper. Menahem marched from Tirzah to Samaria, about six miles westwards and laid siege to Samaria. He took the city, murdered Shallum a month into his reign (2 Kings 15:13), and set himself upon the throne. (2 Kings 15:14) According to Josephus, he was a general of the army of Israel.[1]

He brutally suppressed a revolt at Tiphsah.[2] He destroyed the city - which has not been located - and put all its inhabitants to death, even ripping open the pregnant women. (2 Kings 15:16) The Prophet Hosea describes the drunkenness and debauchery implied in the words "he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam." (2 Kings 15:18 and Hosea 7:1-15)



Menahem became king of Israel in the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Azariah, king of Judah, and reigned for ten years. (2 Kings 15:17) According to the chronology of Kautsch,[3] he ruled from 743 BC; according to Schrader, from 745 to 736 BC. William F. Albright has dated his reign from 745 to 738 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 752 – 742 BC.[4]

Menahem seems to have died a natural death, and was succeeded by his son Pekahiah.[5]

Tributary of Assyria[edit]




To pay the tribute, Menahem exacted fifty shekels of silver - about 1¼ pounds or 0.6 kg - from all the mighty men of wealth of the kingdom. (2 Kings 15:20) To collect this amount, there would have had to be at the time some 60,000 "that were mighty and rich" in the kingdom. After receiving the tribute, Tiglath-Pileser returned to Assyria.[6] However, from that time the kingdom of Israel was a tributary of Assyria; and when Hoshea some ten years later refused to pay any more tribute, it started a sequence of events which led to the destruction of the kingdom and the deportation of its population.


  1. ^ Antiquities of the Jews. 9:11:1 at WikiSource
  2. ^ 'Tiphsah' is the name in the Masoretic text. Modern commentators and translators prefer the reading Tappuah (disambiguation page), following the Lucian recension of the Septuagint. Place name 'Tappuah' has been identified with modern Taffuh.
  3. ^ Hist. of O.T. Literature, 185
  5. ^ 2 Kings 15:22
  6. ^ "Menahem", Jewish Encyclopedia


Regnal titles
Preceded by
King of Israel
752 – 742 BC
Succeeded by