Discovery Box2 Kings 15:19-20 
Context15:19 Pul 1 king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem paid 2 him 3 a thousand talents 4 of silver to gain his support 5 and to solidify his control of the kingdom. 6 15:20 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. 7 Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.
2 Kings 23:34-35
Context23:34 Pharaoh Necho made Josiah’s son Eliakim king in Josiah’s place, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died. 8 23:35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho. 9
1 sn Pul was a nickname of Tiglath-pileser III (cf. 15:29). See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 171-72.
2 tn Heb “gave.”
3 tn Heb “Pul.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
4 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 tn Heb “so his hands would be with him.”
6 tn Heb “to keep hold of the kingdom in his hand.”
7 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.”
8 tn Heb “and he took Jehoahaz, and he came to Egypt and he died there.”
9 tn Heb “And the silver and the gold Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver at the command of Pharaoh, [from] each according to his tax he collected the silver and the gold, from the people of the land, to give to Pharaoh Necho.”
