Elah
Elah was the father of Hoshea, the last king of Israel.
Biography
This Elah is identified in 2 Kings 15:30 and 17:1 as the father of Hoshea, the last king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Though Elah himself held no recorded throne, his son Hoshea came to power by conspiring against and assassinating King Pekah, seizing the Israelite crown around 732 BC. Hoshea's nine-year reign ended with the Assyrian conquest of Samaria in 722 BC, bringing the northern kingdom to a permanent end. Elah thus occupies a sobering position in Israel's history as the father of the king who presided over the nation's final collapse. The absence of any personal biography for Elah in the text focuses attention entirely on his son, whose compromised alliances with Egypt and rebellion against Assyria sealed Israel's fate.
Significance
Elah's significance lies in the son he fathered and the historical moment that son's reign represented. The destruction of the northern kingdom under Hoshea fulfilled the long-repeated prophetic warnings that covenant unfaithfulness would bring divine judgment through foreign powers (Deuteronomy 28; Amos 2:6-16). As father of Israel's last king, Elah stands at the threshold of one of the most theologically momentous events in the Old Testament, the end of the northern tribes as a sovereign people. His story, told entirely through his son's fate, underscores the scriptural theme that a nation's choices ripple through generations, and that God's patience with persistent rebellion has limits.
Verse Appearances (4)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- Tyndale House, Cambridge (n.d.) Translators Individualised Proper Names with all References (TIPNR). STEPBible. Available at: https://www.stepbible.org. [CC BY 4.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]