THE STELE OF MESHA

by David Ross

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The Wars of Mesha

The Stele is, then, wholly useless for establishing an absolute chronology. Notwithstanding, many scholars have attempted to compose a relative chronology. What follows is a (very) rough outline of Mesha's campaigns and some of his building activities. Not all can be placed within a convenient time-frame. I am operating under the assumption that most building activities took place after the war, excepting those to do with siegecraft (e.g. city walls and reservoirs).

One starts with the status of the gd of the Stele. The conventional wisdom equates it to the legendary Israelite tribe of Gad; indeed, one of my earlier sources for this project felt free to translate it as such (without any hint that the translation had gained weight in the process: Matthews and Benjamin, p. 112). Against this conservative view, Nadav Na'aman noted that Mesha emphasizes Gad's ancestral claim to the land, and further that Mesha accused the King of Israel of building Ataroth "for himself" (Na'aman p. 87). Were it not for the Bible, a partisan and distant text, we should see the Gadites as a Moabite tribe recently conquered by the Israelites.

The Bible implies that the whole of Moab was under Israelite subjection. Mesha had his own reasons for going along with that assessment, for that made his achievements seem all the more glorious. Fortunately, the Stele lets slip a few tangible facts. While all Moab was certainly subject to Israel, "subjection" meant different things to different Moabites. Dibon was autonomous enough to sustain its own dynasty, religion, and identity. Medeba was not. On the contrary, Mesha had to take Medeba's cities by force, to repopulate them with Moabites, to build new cities, to justify his activities in print, and even (it is suggested) to build temples to his deity Chemosh (Na'aman, p. 86). Not only did Nebo belong to "Israel" (not just the "king of Israel"), but its citizens prized an object of YHWH. Uncoincidentally, one of Israel's premier deities bore the name "YHWH" or "YHW" or "YW" (as shown by the archaeological record - Mazar, p. 410, 447). This suggests that Medeba had been directly annexed to the House of Omri and supported a sizable population of resident Israelites.

The next name of note is that of Omri.

I must digress briefly, on the grand alliance Jehoram was supposed to have mustered against Moab. It seems unthinkable; even granted the biblical thesis that Judah and Edom were self-determined nations at the time, why should they have cared if Israel lost Moab's tribute? Moreover, the evidence for this alliance in the Stele rests on a very slender thread. Lemaire, a very respected (and ethical) scholar, noted recently that the Stele may refer to the "house of David", and therefore possible Judaean involvement. Na'aman believes this [d]wd is actually a [d]wd[h], and that it is connected with 'r'l dwdh from Nebo (from line 10: p. 88-92), but 'r'l dwdh has its own problems. I have found no less than four wildly divergent translations: "the sacred vessels of Daudoh" from Na'aman, "the fire-hearth of his uncle" from KC Hanson, "Arel, its chieftain" from Matthews and Benjamin, and "the altar of his beloved" from the Associates of Biblical Research. The possible parallel '[r']ly yhwh in lines 17-18 doesn't help, because it too is a controversial reconstruction.

However, this alliance is well within the bounds of historical plausibility. First, who is to say that "Daudoh" is not just another word for the Judaean "David"? Second, it is very possible that the House of Omri held an overlordship over the regions the Bible would call Judah and Edom. In contemporary extra-Palestinian records, the kingdom of Bit Humri / Israel was the only kingdom noted between Tyre, the Jordan, and Egypt. It was not Judah who furnished the thousands of troops for the battle of Qarqar in 853 BCE, prior to Mesha's revolt; it was Israel. According to the Bible, Judah was linked to Omri's dynasty through marriage and direct relation - in fact, so was the leading Canaanite city of Tyre. The reader will certainly recognize Jezebel of Tyre, who married Ahab; and perhaps their daughter Athaliah, the future tyrant of Judah. Both within and without the Book of Kings, the House of Omri was fully capable of coercing the peoples of Judah and Edom into military adventures.

The Stele could raise another, more chilling possibility. Mesha recorded an attack upon the city of Ataroth, which the King of Israel had built, and the slaughter of "all of the people of the town as a ryt [satiation] to Chemosh ... settl[ing] in the city the men of Sharon ... and Maharith" (lines 11-13). He went on to take Nebo, a greater city; he described that slaughter in more detail, "the entire population of 7000 men, women, and children" (lines 14-18), even using the term herem. If this genocidal massacre preceded the war, then it is possible that Moab's neighbours perceived a common threat and reacted accordingly.

Whether or not the Stele records an alliance, it certainly records a time when Israel "was fighting against" Moab. At one point "The King of Israel" moved his headquarters to the Israelite-built citadel of Jahaz, very close to Dibon, but in the course of time he lost it to Mesha (lines 18-19). The rest of the war must be culled from Mesha's offhand boasts.

"Chemosh drove [the king of Israel] out" (line 18) of Jahaz, and Mesha resettled it with 200 elite warriors (lines 20-21). He also built Qarhoh, complete with "gates and towers", and ordered its citizens, "Let each of you make a cistern for himself in his house!". (lines 21-26) The Stele records a dedication in Qarhoh, but it was found in Dhiban; Qarhoh was probably the citadel of Dibon (Gray 3/8; and c.f. Dearman). By this time Mesha had captured enough Israelites that he could organize them on ditch-digging detail (line 26).

Some cities were "destroyed" after the war (Beth-Bamoth and Bezer: line 27), probably as a direct result of it. Beth-Bamoth, or "House of the High Place", could be the biblical "Bamoth-Ba'al", or "High Place of the Lord" in Moab (Num 22:41-23:5, Joshua 13:17). A "Bezer" is named as a Levitical city and a city of refuge (Deut 4:43; Joshua 20:8, 21:36; 1 Chron 6:78). The Bible does not record their fates; they were probably minor cities destroyed and rebuilt by Mesha in the course of his incursion into Medeba. Bezer may have undergone a name change to biblical Be'er or perhaps Bozrah (Jer 48:24).

Mesha then went on to attack Horon-en to the south (line 32, Dearman transl.). In context, Mesha must have conquered it; moreover, by the time of Isaiah, Horonaim had become a Moabite city (15:5).

There was no second offensive. The Stele of Mesha was able to speak of events "halfway through" (as opposed to "during") the reign of the bnh of Omri against whom he revolted. The author knew the approximate span of that reign; therefore he had already outlived that reign. Also, by boasting that "Israel has been defeated forever," the author felt it to be a time when Israel was at its weakest. Jehoram (k. 841 BCE) was almost certainly the king in question; Mesha dedicated the high place at Qarhoh circa 840 BCE. Mesha had created a strong kingdom, which remained independent until the Assyrian invasions.

Geography

These cities have striking similarities:

• They started out as Israelite, usually of Reuben, Gad, or Levi
• They are next seen as Moabite cities in prophetic curses

According to Mesha, Moab was bordered north and west by the tribe of Gad, but not Reuben. Even in the Bible, two Reubenite towns were given over to other tribes: Dibon went to Gad and Jahaz went to Levi. Reuben appears to have been more a tribe of legend than history.

Strangely, the kingdoms of Ammon and Edom, which had held a pivotal role in the foundation of the Israelite kingdom (1 Sam 11:0-7 NRSV, 2 Sam 8) are also not mentioned here. Shalmaneser affirmed that Ammon did exist as a region at the time of the battle of Qarqar. Ammon furnished perhaps 1000 troops; the exact number is unclear. Shalmaneser did not mention an Ammonite king or chief. It is best to await furthur evidence.

The Stele of Mesha is thus an extremely impressive historical source. It confirms Gad as a subgroup between Israel and Moab. It confirms that Israel / the House of Omri had once been the regional overlord. It confirms that Dibon was the administrative centre of the kingdom, and that sheep were staples of Moab's economy. It strongly implies that Omri was a historical figure. For those interested, it fills the Biblical gap concerning why so many Israelite cities, like Jahaz and Nebo, started out Israelite and ended Moabite. Most of all, it gives a contemporary account of how Moab became an independent kingdom, independently of the Bible, thus bringing this event closer to the realm of historical fact.

The Moabite Stone and Israelite Beliefs

The Bible holds that the Moabites, with the neighbouring Ammonites, were at least kinsmen if not fellow tribesmen. One very early legend ("early", because it comes from a "J"-passage in the Pentateuch) claims that the peoples of Moab and of Ammon were descended from by-blows of Lot (J / Gen. 19:37), Abraham's nephew (J / Gen. 11:27). The Moabite Stone further shows that Moab, Israel, and the Bible shared almost the same language.

They appear to have shared similar beliefs, as well. Mesha's patron deity, Chemosh, ruled over the land and the people in it. If Moab was oppressed by Israel, it was because "Chemosh was angry at his people," and if Moab prospered, it was because "Chemosh dwelt there." Likewise, an early stratum in the Book of Judges frames each period of subjection, "The Israelites did what was displeasing to YHWH". Notably, in neither case does the national God give a reason for His fury; contrast this against the Deuteronomist's rationale for the destruction of Samaria (2 Kings 17:7-18) and some of his expansions to Judges (Judges 3:7b). In both early Israel and Moab, the national deity had total control over national affairs, and was portrayed as a vengeful tyrant requiring appeasement.

One question remains - was Moabite religion truly monotheistic? The MI refers to a god with the intriguing name "Ashtar-Chemosh". "Yahweh of Samaria", who according to Mazar was the Northern Kingdom's equivalent of the God of Jerusalem, had a female consort - Asherah; Ashtar-Chemosh might have been a variant of Ishtar. J. Gray has pointed out, however, that it might also have been a variant of Attar, the Canaanite morning star (Dearman p. 221). As for other gods, Nabu survives in Nebo, and Horon in Horonaim; but then, both cities lay outside Mesha's kingdom until he conquered them, so they may be of pre-Moabite lineage. The numerous place-names with the "Ba'al" element can be disregarded, as "Ba'al" means simply "Lord". There is no real evidence, one way or another, that Moab had or did not have a monotheistic religion - or even a Samaritan duotheism.

The Bible bears witness to a Moabite understanding of conquest very similar to Israel's. This is made explicit in Judges 11:23-24: "Now since the LORD, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over? Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the LORD our God has given us, we will possess." The Moabite Stone bears this out. Chemosh ordered Mesha, "Go, take Nebo from Israel!" just as Yahweh had ordered Joshua to take Ai (Joshua 8:1). Chemosh "drove out" the invaders from his land; Yahweh regularly fought on the side of Israel (Joshua 10:42, Judges 4:15). Since all victories took place by the intercession of the god, the god received credit for them; Mesha and the biblical judges did not boast of their own prowess, but of the favour of the national deity.

Both the Bible and Moab believed in herem, the "ban", as an instrument of holy warfare (contrary to Matthews & Benjamin, herem does not mean "holy war" itself). The workings of this unholy sacrament were simple. First, the king would promise to kill the entire population (including women and children), and to give certain items over to the treasury of the god; then, the king would enforce the ban. The clearest example of this practice, as Matthews and Benjamin noted, is recorded in Joshua 6:17-21. Joshua put Jericho under the ban: "men and women, young and old, even the oxen and sheep and donkeys, massacring them all."

Failure to carry out the ban to the fullest was considered a heinous crime. In 1 Samuel 15:1-3, Samuel ordered Saul to place Amalek under herem. "But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs--everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed" (15:9) When Saul tried to defend his actions, Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king." (15:22-23)

In his memorial, Mesha "slew all the people of [Ataroth] as a ryt to Chemosh," and "slew the entire population [of Nebo] ... for I heremed it to Ashtar-Chemosh." According to the laws of herem, once he had put the city under the ban, he could not spare a soul. Just as Jephthah could not go back on his promise to grant YHWH his daughter (Judges 11:30-40).

The two versions of ritual massacre are strikingly similar, but there may have been some differences. Chemosh demanded the holiest religious icon of the city, but perhaps nothing else; the livestock of the city, too, may have been spared. The Book of Joshua is a narrative of a purer form of warfare and so depicts a purer form of the ban. Yahweh demanded "all the silver and all the gold, all the things of bronze and things of iron" (Joshua 6:19); all the rest was to be destroyed, the livestock to be slaughtered with the inhabitants. The ban against Ai was less strict; Joshua was permitted "goods and cattle" (Joshua 8:2).

Mesha built a number of "houses" (bt): the "house of Diblat-en" and the "house of Baal-Meon" (line 30), possibly the "[house of Mehde]ba" (line 29). These could be place-names, but then there would be a redundancy between beth-Baal-Meon here and the city of Baal-Meon in line 9. Some scholars translate "beth" to mean "temple", rather than as part of the place names. This incidentally explains why Mesha was so proud that he "established there... the flocks of the land". In Omri's days, he used to pay his tribute in sheep. Now that he had earned his country's independence, he could offer the sheep to Chemosh.

Will There be More?

The ancient Jewish historians compiled the books of Kings and Chronicles from every source available; since they worked after the Babylonian Exile, such sources must have been rare at the time. Stelae would have comprised the bulk of these sources, had any survived; might there not be an Israelite Stone or a Josiah Inscription?

There are passages in the Bible with similarities to extant stelae in Egypt, Assyria, and elsewhere. Matthews and Benjamin cite 1 Kings 16:23-24, which concerns the relocation of Israel's capital to Samaria, and Redford cites five more:

• Solomon's Red Sea fleet out of Ezion-geber (1 Kings 9:26-28) - success
• Jehoshaphat's fleet wrecked at Ezion-geber (1 Kings 22:47-49) - failure
• Revolt of Edom and Lebonah under J[eh]oram (2 Kings 8:20-22) - failure
• Amaziah's defeat of Edom (as no. 5)
• Azariah's rebuilding of Elath (2 Kings 14:7,22) - success

reproduced from Redford p. 328

All of these are very terse passages - "he rebuilt Elath and recovered it for Judah", for example. Mesha, too, did not try for poetic effect (this is in total contrast with Ramesses II, whose inscriptions were so poetic that Shelley based his Ozymandias upon one). Redford also points out that the emphasis of the five passages is on "building and political hegemony". The Stele of Mesha, of course, is concerned with exactly those subjects; in what else must a king take pride?

It is, therefore, highly unlikely that the Moabite Stone is alone in this region. It may be only a matter of time before there arises an inscription from the Israelites themselves. We may have one already: Dr Halpern has given a strong case that 2 Samuel 8 is a transcription of a Stele of David! (Perhaps he'd like to put up a website of his own :^)

The Stele of Mesha is a cultural and historical gold mine, even too much so; its very authenticity has often been called into question. Ultimately, it is a work of propaganda rather than of history, so it leaves open more questions than it answers - but then, so do all other historical sources. One cannot provide a ryt to History.

Bibliography

• Dearman, A.,editor, 1989, Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab
• Freidman, RE, 1997, Who Wrote the Bible? 2nd ed.
• Matthews, & Benjamin, D. C., 1988, Old Testament Parallels
• Mazar, A., 1992, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible
• Na'aman, Nadav "King Mesha and the Foundation of the Moabite Monarchy" Israel Exploration Journal 47.1-2 (1997) 83-92 -+-
• Redford, D., 1992, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
• Volkmar, Fritz and Davies, Philip R, editors, 1996, The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States
• The Jerusalem Bible and NIV

More Moabite Links

Note that most Moabite Stone sites tend towards the Bible-confirmation school. Apart from bias, these sites are generally of a high quality.

• The Moabites by Warren Doud, Grace Notes. An OK overview, but he takes the Bible at its word. I would personally not grant legends and midrash like 2 Chron 20, Ruth, and the Pentateuch equal standing with the proto-history of Kings.
• Moab Revisited by Art Bull. Falls into the same trap, but at least this one ignores 2 Chron 20.
• Mesha, King of Moab - ChristianAnswers.Net Line-by-line exegesis of the text, by Bryant Wood of the Associates for Biblical Research. Useful but maddeningly Schliemannesque. "Bible and Spade" is their actual motto.
• Mesha Stele by KC Hanson, PhD, at St Olaf. Includes statistics, translation, discussion questions, and select bibliography.
• MESHA STELA (IRON AGE, 9th c. B.C.E.):. ANET., pp. 320-321. Translation only.

Sites Which Link To This One

• Cisterne sto ivot zanèe. By Zdenko Franic, in Croatian. I must confess I know nothing of Serbian, Croatian, nor Bosnian but it is nice to see another link. July 1997.
• ABZU. Why didn't anyone tell me? The Oriental Institute of Chicago has had me as an authoritative WWW resource for over a year! Well, here's the link. 28 January 1997.
• A Piece from the Moabite Stone. The Moabite-Phoenician alphabet for use on the 'Web. By James Kass. 30 April 1999.

		www.owlnet.rice.edu/~efx/hpotw.html (brace yourself...) www.owlnet.rice.edu/~indigo/gsotd/ www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ravi/india/index.html
		Limited Area Search of the Ancient World

Sites Which Used To Link To This One

• Tel Dan Inscription. Discussion of the famed House of David stele they dug up in 1994. By George Athas. Now empty HTML as of 30 April 1999. I'm not sure he ever linked here, but he said he would.
• LookSmart. When my site moved, I dutifully notified LookSmart. They didn't listen. They kept that dead link to my old site for (I kid you not) ten months. If they still consider my site worthy, I haven't heard. I'm keeping the award here anyway. 13 February 1997 - Dec(?) 1998.

16 June, 1999: Oops. Bad mistake on the translation. I'd gotten the 'r'l dwdh mixed up with the ::mumble:: of yhwh. Thanks José Cadena. It's about time for one of my biannual trips to the Rice library. While I'm at it I'll also find out about Idrimi, the legendary 13th-century king of Alalakh.

30 April, 17 May, 1999: I needed to refresh some links, and to make some kind of distinction between the religion of the Judaean Bible and that of the Israelites of Samaria. Lately I've also had it brought to my attention that a "House of Omri" does not presuppose an historical person of that name.

19 July, 1998: The big news is that I found another article, by Nadav Na'aman. His conclusions are very speculative, but he has at least dispelled an infestation of factoids which had crippled this project for (literally) years.

I regret to add that the source of those factoids was, once again, Old Testament Parallels by Matthews and Benjamin. This is not the first time their translation has led this project astray. Now, those two wrote that book decades ago, and their decisions may have seemed right at the time. And Don Benjamin was the RELI 240 professor for whom I wrote this project in the first place. But for crying out loud, when someone makes an interpolation on the scale of "[the Israelite tribe of] Gad" based on two lousy consonants, Gimel-Daleth, then he should at the very least use brackets. I can only recommend that undergraduate students avoid that book like the plague until its errors are fixed. (God knows what became of the other translations in that book.)

(1-6 July) I found a few other sites which put in links to this one. Although I don't remember anyone writing me for permission, I did look at the sites in question. I am pleased to report that they are high-caliber scholarly works. I hereby grant ABZU and Franinc retroactive permission to direct their readers to this site.

Special thanks to those who have written me so far; some of them are real live PhD's! (I was tempted to ask for autographs. :^) The paragraph above concerning the consequences of NOT following herem was inspired by a letter I received from a distinguished professor (but alas! I didn't get his name). So was the idea of including "last update date", and of the caveat above concerning the dot under the "h" in herem (actually, the whole Caveat intro stems from that). And I got the Hanson link from Dr Hanson himself. YHWH bless you and keep you ~*

This page is Copyright (c) Feb 9, 1998 and is the property of the owner, that is, the David Ross who uses this email account. All rights reserved. Feel free to link to this site, but if you wish to quote from it (or if I've unintentionally violated any copyright laws), please write me. I also like comments. :^)

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