PHACEIA (Hebr. Péqáhjáh). – King of Israel, 17th after the division of the Kingdom. Manahem (v.) his father, and reigned for about two years (737–736 B.C.). His religious and moral conduct was reprehensible, as was generally that of the rulers of the separate Kingdom of Israel. He was killed in the tower of the royal palace, the victim of a conspiracy plotted by PHARES (v.), who usurped the throne; with him the 7th dynasty came to an end (II Reg. 15:23–25).
With P., Argob and Arie perished; the fifty men of Gilead who, according to the Vulgate, would have perished together with P., were instead, according to the Masoretic text, on the side of the conspirator Phacee, perhaps himself also a native of Gilead.
BIBL.: O. Hellmann, De chronol. libri Regum, Rome 1914, pp. 557–63; G. Ricciotti, Storia d'Israele, I, Turin 1934, p. 419. Gaetano Stano