But perhaps the most probable supposition is, that he was a pretender to the Assyrian crown, never acknowledged at Nineveh, but established in the western (and southern) provinces so firmly, that he could venture to conduct an expedition into Lower Syria, and to claim there the fealty of Assyrians vassals.

Or possibly he may have been a Babylonian monarch, who in the troublous times that had now evidently come upon the northern empire, possessed himself of the Euphrates valley, and thence descended upon Syria and Palestine.

Berosus, it must be remembered, represented Pul as a Chaldaean king; and the name itself, which is wholly alien to the ordinary Assyrian type, has at least one counterpart among known Babylonian namies.
The time of Pul's invasion may be fixed by combining the Assyrian and the Hebrew chronologies within very narrow limits.

Tiglath-Pileser relates that he took tribute from Menahem in a war which lasted from his fourth to his eighth year, or from B.C.742 to B.C.738.

As Menahem only reigned ten years, the earliest date that can be assigned to Puls expedition will be B.C.752, while the latest possible date will be B.C.
746, the year before the accession of Tiglath-Pileser.