From the Death of Ahab to the Captivity of the Ten Tribes - Flavius Josephus

And indeed this prophet prophesied many other things besides these
concerning Nineveh, which I do not think necessary to repeat, and I here
omit them, that I may not appear troublesome to my readers; all which thing
happened about Nineveh a hundred and fifteen years afterward: so this may
suffice to have spoken of these matters.
Footnotes:
1. Dr. Wall, in his critical notes on 2 Kings 15:20, observes, "that when
this Menahem is said to have exacted the money of Israel of all the
mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give Pul,
the king of Assyria, a thousand talents, this is the first public money
raised by any [Israelite] king by tax on the people; that they used before
to raise it out of the treasures of the house of the Lord, or of their own
house; that it was a poll-money on the rich men, [and them only,] to
raise œ353,000, or, as others count a talent, œ400,000, at the rate of œ6
or œ7 per head; and that God commanded, by Ezekiel, ch. 45:8; 46:18,
that no such thing should be done [at the Jews' restoration], but the king
should have land of his own."
2. This passage is taken out of the prophet Nahum, ch. 2:8-13, and is the
principal, or rather the only, one that is given us almost verbatim, but a
little abridged, in all Josephus's known writings: by which quotation we
learn what he himself always asserts, viz. that he made use of the
Hebrew original and not of the Greek version]; as also we learn, that his
Hebrew copy considerably differed from ours. See all three texts
particularly set down and compared together in the Essay on the Old
Testament, page 187.
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