01_Dubovský_321_346 28/10/14 10:32 Pagina 338 338 PETER DUBOVSKÝ I suggest that the fact that Menahem’s cruelty is at the center of the narrative provides another reason for the interpretation of the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The usurper Menahem did not hesitate, during his military expansion, to use the cruellest atrocity ever committed during military campaigns. The king who was to guarantee order and justice is now promoting savage ferocity and barbarity. Naturally the brutality and cruelty of the usurpers dis- rupted the moral pillars upon which the Northern Kingdom rested. Seeing these atrocities in terms of retributive justice (Exod 21,22- 25), we can understand Hosea’s prophecy against Samaria (Hos 14,1): “Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open” (NAS). VII. Hyperbolic numbers: financial and economic drain The account of Menahem’s reign is embedded between two reg- nal résumés and states that the king had to pay the Assyrians 1,000 talents of silver in order to save his throne (2 Kgs 15,19-20). H. Tadmor’s study on Menahem’s payment demonstrates that such a large sum was usually paid by a usurper to Assyria so that Assyria would confirm his claim to the throne 36. However, it makes sense to ask: what is the symbolic meaning of this payment? In other words, why did the biblical writers mention this large sum of money and place it at the center of 2 Kings 15? One way of under- standing the symbolic value of this sum of money is to convert 1,000 talents of silver into commodities which could have been ac- quired for this sum of money 37. Naturally this does not mean con- nant Arab Women: Reliefs in Room L of Ashurbanipal’s North Palace”, Or 78 (2009) 394-419. 36 H. TADMOR, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria. Critical Edition, with Introductions, Translations and Commentary (Jerusalem 1994) 276. 37 This estimate is based on several studies which provide the basis for conversion rates: 1 talent = 60 minas = 3,600 shekels; 1 shekel of gold = 15 shekels of silver; 200 cors of grain = 0.166 shekels of silver; 1 daric = 0.737 shekel; see EJ 20, 703-708; ABD I, 1078; F.B. BARAHONA, “Sistema hebreo de pesos”, Aula Orientalis 28 (2010) 25-37, P.J. KING – L.E. STAGER, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY 2001) 199.