Pekah is king of Israel.

He was a captain in the army of king Pekahiah of Israel, whom he killed to become king.

Pekah was the son of Remaliah.

Pekah becomes king in the fifty-second and last year of Azariah, king of Judah, and he reigns twenty years.

In the second year of his reign Jotham becomes king of Judah, and reigns for sixteen years.

Jotham is succeeded by his son, Ahaz in the sev1enteenth year of Pekah's reign.

William F. Albright has dated his reign to 737 – 732 BCE, while E. R. Thiele, following H. J. Cook and Carl Lederer, held that Pekah set up in Gilead a rival reign to Menahem's Samaria-based kingdom in Nisan of 752 BCE, becoming sole ruler on his assassination of Menahem's son Pekahiah in 740/739 BCE and dying in 732/731 BCE.

This explanation is consistent with evidence of the Assyrian chronicles, which agree with Menahem being king in 743 BCE or 742 BCE and Hoshea being king from 732 BCE.

When Pekah allies with Rezin, king of Aram to attack Ahaz, the king of Judah, Ahaz appeals to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

This the Assyrian king obliges, but Judah becomes a tributory of the Assyrian king.