Tiglath-Pileser III.

or Tilgath-Pil-neser, the Assyrian throne-name of Pul. He appears in the Assyrian records as gaining, in the fifth year of his reign (about B.C. 741), a victory over Azariah (= Uzziah in 2Chr 26:1), king of Judah, whose achievements are described in 2Chr 26:6ff. He is first mentioned in Scripture, however, as gaining a victory over Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin of Damascus, who were confederates. He put Rezin to death, and punished Pekah by taking a considerable portion of his kingdom, and carrying off (B.C. 734) a vast number of its inhabitants into captivity (2Kg 15:29; 2Kg 16:5ff; 1Chr 5:6, 1Chr 5:26), the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh whom he settled in Gozan. In the Assyrian annals it is further related that, before he returned from Syria, he held a court at Damascus, and received submission and tribute from the neighbouring kings, among whom were Pekah of Samaria and "Yahu-khazi [i.e., Ahaz], king of Judah" (comp. 2Kg 16:10ff).

He was the founder of what is called "the second Assyrian empire," an empire meant to embrace the whole world, the centre of which should be Nineveh. He died B.C. 728, and was succeeded by a general of his army, Ulula, who assumed the name Shalmaneser IV.