Tiglath-Pileser III

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 (741 BC), a victory over Azariah[?] (who is called Uzziah in 2 Chr. 26:1), king of Judah, whose achievements are described in 2 Chr. 26:6-15. 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 (734 BC[?]) a vast number of its inhabitants into captivity (2 Kings 15:29; 16:5-9; 1 Chr. 5:6, 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. 2 Kings 16:10-16).

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

From Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)