Mesha Stele

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Mesha Stele

The Mesha Stele (popularized in the 19th century as the "Moabite Stone") is a black basalt stone, bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC Moabite King Mesha, discovered in 1868 at Dhiban (biblical "Dibon," capital of Moab) now in Jordan. The Stele is notable because it is thought to be the earliest known reference to the sacred Hebrew name of God - YHWH. It is also notable as the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to ancient Israel, and French scholar André Lemaire reported that line 31 of the Stele bears the phrase "the house of David" (in Biblical Archaeology Review [May/June 1994], pp. 30–37).^[1]

The inscription of 34 lines is written in the Moabite language. It was set up by Mesha, about 850 BC, as a record and memorial of his victories in his revolt against the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of king Ahaziah after the death of Israel's king Ahab.

The stone is 124 cm high and 71 cm wide and deep, and rounded at the top. It was discovered at the ancient Dibon now Dhiban, Jordan, in August 1868, by Rev. F. A. Klein, a German missionary in Jerusalem. "The Arabs of the neighborhood, dreading the loss of such a talisman, broke the stone into pieces; but a squeeze (or papier-mâché impression) had already been obtained by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, and most of the fragments were recovered and pieced together by him".[8] The squeeze (which has never been published) and the reassembled stele (which has been published in many books and encyclopedias) are now in the Louvre Museum.

[edit] Description

The stele measures 44"x27"^[2] and describes:

1. How Moab was conquered by Omri, King of Israel, as the result of the anger of the god Chemosh. Mesha's victories over Omri's son (not mentioned by name), over the men of Gad at Ataroth, and at Nebo and Jehaz;
2. His public buildings, restoring the fortifications of his strong places and building a palace and reservoirs for water; and
3. His wars against the Horonaim.

[edit] Consistency with the Bible

עמרי מלך ישראל (Omri king of Israel) explicitly mentioned on the stele

The inscription has strong consistency with the historical events recorded in the Bible including corresponding events, names, and places. For example, Mesha is recorded as the King of Moab in 2 Kings 3:4:

“Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.”^[3]

Chemosh is mentioned in numerous places in the Bible as the national god of Moab (1 Kings 11:33, Numbers 21:29 etc...).^[4]

The reign of Omri, King of Israel, is chronicled in I Kings 16^[5], and the inscription records many places and territories (Nebo, Gad, etc...) that also appear in the Bible.^[6]

Finally, 2 Kings 3 recounts a revolt by Mesha against Israel, to which Israel responded by allying with Judah and Edom to suppress the revolt:

“4. Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. 5. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6. So King Jehoram marched out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. 7. And he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, "The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to battle against Moab?" And he said, "I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses." 8. Then he said, "By which way shall we march?" Jehoram answered, "By the way of the wilderness of Edom." 9. So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom... 26. When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. 27. Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.”^[7]

The stele as photographed circa 1891

[edit] Possible inconsistencies with the Bible

Some scholars have argued that an inconsistency exists between the Mesha Stele and the Bible regarding the timing of the Moabite revolt. The issue partly rests on the date of the stele, and whether or not the stele refers to the revolt taking place during the time of Omri's son Ahab or a later descendant, probably^{[citation needed]} Jehoram as stated in the Bible. The scholars who challenge the timing argue that the inscription indicates that Mesha’s revolt occurred during the reign of Omri’s "son", who was King Ahab.

The opposing viewpoint states that in the ancient near east the word "son" often meant any descendant, rather than the direct male heir as used in the modern West.^{[8][unreliable source?]} So “son of Omri” was a common designation for any male descendant of Omri and would have been used to refer to Jehoram. Assuming that “son” means “descendant,” an interpretation consistent with the common use of language in the ancient near east, the Mesha Stele and the Bible are consistent^{[original research?]}.

The debate focuses on the following text:

“Omri was the king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab for many days, for Kemosh was angry with his land. And his son replaced him; and he said, "I will also oppress Moab"...And Omri took possession of the whole land of Madaba; and he lived there in his days and half the days of his son: forty years: And Kemosh restored it in my days”. ^[9]

[edit] Correlations with the Hebrew language

With the exception of a very few variations, such as -in for -im in plurals, the Moabite language of the inscription shares much in common with an early form of Hebrew, known as Biblical Hebrew.^[10] The language of ninth century BC Moabite inscriptions is an offshoot of the Canaanite language commonly in use between the fourteenth to eighth centuries BC in Syria-Israel.^[10] The form of the letters here used supplies very important and interesting information regarding the history of the formation of the alphabet, as well as, incidentally, the arts of civilized life of those times in the land of Moab. This ancient monument, recording the heroic struggles of King Mesha with Omri and Ahab, was erected about 850 BC. Here "we have the identical slab on which the workmen of the old world carved the history of their own times, and from which the eye of their contemporaries read thousands of years ago the record of events of which they themselves had been the witnesses."^{[citation needed]}

Aside from the similarity of language, the stele indicates a considerable similarity of relgious concepts between the Moabites and their contemporary Hebrew neighbors/enemies: A country's bad fortunes and defeat by enemies are explained by the national god having been being "angry with his people"; when a war leader emerges who is on good terms with the god, the god speaks to him and directly instructs him to attack specific places, and the attack is assured of success; the people of conquered cities are massacred, such wholesale massacres being pleasing to the god - the root H-R-M (חרמ) used in the stele is the same used in the same context in the Book of Joshua. At the same time, all these concepts are used with an opposite polarity to the way they appear in the Bible: Kemosh, invariably castigated whenever mentioned in a Biblical verse, is here the beloved and worshiped god, while YHWH is the enemy god to be pulled down and humiliated.

[edit] Possible reference to the House of David

In 1994, after examining both the Mesha Stele and the paper squeeze of it in the Louvre Museum, the French scholar André Lemaire reported that line 31 of the Mesha Stele bears the phrase "the house of David" (in Biblical Archaeology Review [May/June 1994], pp. 30-37).^[1] Lemaire had to supply one destroyed letter, the first "D" in "[D]avid," to decode the wording. The complete sentence in the latter part of line 31 would then read, "As for Horonen, there lived in it the house of [D]avid," וחורננ. ישב. בה. בת[ד]וד. (Note: square brackets [ ] enclose letters or words that have been supplied where letters were destroyed or were on fragments that are still missing.) Most scholars find that no other letter supplied there yields a reading that makes sense^{[dubious – discuss]}. Baruch Margalit attempted to supply a different letter there: "m," along with several other letters in places after that. The reading that resulted was "Now Horoneyn was occupied at the en[d] of [my pre]decessor['s reign] by [Edom]ites."^[11] However, Margalit's reading has failed to attract any significant support in scholarly publications^{[citation needed]}.

In 2001, another French scholar, Pierre Bordreuil, reported (in an essay in French) that he and a few other scholars could not confirm Lemaire's reading of "the house of David" in line 31 of the stele.^[12]

Whereas the later mention of the "House of David" on a Tel Dan stele fragment was written by an Aramaean enemy king, this inscription comes from a Moabite enemy of Israel, also boasting of a victory. If Lemaire is right, there are now two early references to David's dynasty, one in the Mesha Stele (mid-9th century) and the other in the Tel Dan Stele (mid-9th to mid-8th century).^[13][14]

In 1998, another scholar, Anson Rainey, translated a puzzling two-word phrase in line 12 of the Mesha Stele, אראל. דודה, as "its Davidic altar-hearth".^[15]

[edit] Identifications of Mesha and David

The identifications of the biblical Mesha, king of Moab, and of the biblical Omri, king of the northern kingdom of Israel, in the Mesha stele are generally accepted by the scholarly community, especially because what is said about them in the narrative of the Mesha stele agrees well with the narrative in the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles.

The identification of David in the Mesha stele, however, remains controversial. This controversy stems partly from the fragmentary state of line 31 of the Mesha stele and partly from a tendency since the 1990s, largely among European scholars, to question or dismiss the historical reliability of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). In Europe, P. R. Davies, Thomas L. Thompson, and Niels P. Lemche show a strong tendency to reject biblical historicity, whereas André Lemaire, K. A. Kitchen, Jens Bruun Kofoed, and other European scholars are exceptions to this tendency. Many scholars lean in one direction or the other but actually occupy the middle ground. In general, North American and Israeli scholars tend to be more willing to accept the identification of the biblical King David in the Mesha stele. The controversy over whether ancient inscriptions confirm the existence of the King David mentioned in the Bible usually focuses less on the Mesha stele and more on the Tel Dan stele.

[edit] Text in Hebrew

The text, in Moabite, transcribed into modern Hebrew letters:

1. אנכ. משע. בנ. כמש.. . מלכ. מאב. הד
2. יבני | אבי. מלכ. על. מאב. שלשנ. שת. ואנכ. מלכ
3. תי. אחר. אבי | ואעש. הבמת. זאת. לכמש. בקרחה | ב[נס. י]
4. שע. כי. השעני. מכל. המלכנ. וכי. הראני. בכל. שנאי | עמר
5. י. מלכ. ישראל. ויענו. את. מאב. ימנ. רבן. כי. יאנפ. כמש. באר
6. צה | ויחלפה. בנה. ויאמר. גמ. הא. אענו. את. מאב | בימי. אמר. כ[...]
7. וארא. בה. ובבתה | וישראל. אבד. אבד. עלמ. וירש. עמרי. את א[ר]
8. צ. מהדבא | וישב. בה. ימה. וחצי. ימי. בנה. ארבענ. שת. ויש
9. בה. כמש. בימי | ואבנ. את. בעלמענ. ואעש. בה. האשוח. ואבנ
10. את. קריתנ | ואש. גד. ישב. בארצ. עטרת. מעלמ. ויבנ. לה. מלכ. י
11. שראל. את. עטרת | ואלתחמ. בקר. ואחזה | ואהרג. את. כל. העמ. [מ]
12. הקר. רית. לכמש. ולמאב | ואשב. משמ. את. אראל. דודה. ואס
13. חבה. לפני. כמש. בקרית | ואשב. בה. את. אש. שרנ. ואת. אש
14. מחרת | ויאמר. לי. כמש. לכ. אחז. את. נבה. על. ישראל | וא
15. הלכ. הללה. ואלתחמ. בה. מבקע. השחרת. עד. הצהרמ | ואח
16. זה. ואהרג. כלה. שבעת. אלפנ. גברנ. ו[גר]נ | וגברת. וגר
17. ת. ורחמת | כי. לעשתר. כמש. החרמתה | ואקח. משמ. א[ת. כ]
18. לי. יהוה. ואסחב. המ. לפני. כמש | ומלכ. ישראל. בנה. את
19. יהצ. וישב. בה. בהלתחמה. בי | ויגרשה. כמש. מפני | ו
20. אקח. ממאב. מאתנ. אש. כל. רשה | ואשאה. ביהצ. ואחזה.
21. לספת. על. דיבנ | אנכ. בנתי. קרחה. חמת. היערנ. וחמת
22. העפל | ואנכ. בנתי. שעריה. ואנכ. בנתי. מגדלתה | וא
23. נכ. בנתי. בת. מלכ. ואנכ. עשתי. כלאי. האש[וח למי]נ. בקרב
24. הקר | ובר. אנ. בקרב. הקר. בקרחה. ואמר. לכל. העמ. עשו. ל
25. כמ. אש. בר. בביתה | ואנכ. כרתי. המכרתת. לקרחה. באסר
26. [י]. ישראל | אנכ. בנתי. ערער. ואנכ. עשתי. המסלת. בארננ.
27. אנכ. בנתי. בת. במת. כי. הרס. הא | אנכ. בנתי. בצר. כי. עינ
28. ----- ש. דיבנ. חמשנ. כי. כל. דיבנ. משמעת | ואנכ. מלכ
29. ת[י] ----- מאת. בקרנ. אשר. יספתי. על. הארצ | ואנכ. בנת
30. [י. את. מה]דבא. ובת. דבלתנ | ובת. בעלמענ. ואשא. שמ. את. [...]
31. --------- צאנ. הארצ | וחורננ. ישב. בה. ב
32. --------- אמר. לי. כמש. רד. הלתחמ. בחורננ | וארד
33. ---------[ויש]בה. כמש. בימי. ועל[...]. משמ. עש
34. -------------- שת. שדק | וא

[edit] Translation

Note that in the original text some words start at the end of a line, but end at the beginning of the next. Where possible, this translation reflects this writing.

1. I am Mesha, son of Kemosh[-yat], the king of Moab, the Di-
2. -bonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reign-
3. -ed after my father. And I built this high-place for Kemosh in the 'citadel,' a high place of [sal-]
4. -vation because he saved me from all the kings, and because showed me the downfall of all my adversaries. Omr-
5. -i was king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab for many days,because Kemosh was angry with his
6. land. And his son replaced him; and he also said, "I will also oppress Moab". In my days he spoke thus.
7. But I was victorious over him and his house. And Israel suffered everlasting destruction, And Omri had conquered the lan-
8. -d of Madaba, and he dwelt there during his reign and half the reign of his son, forty years. But Kemosh
9. returned it in my days. So I [re]built Baal Meon, and I the water reservoir in it. And I bu[ilt]
10. Qiryaten. The man of Gad had dwelt in Ataroth from of old; and the king of Israel
11. built Ataroth for him. But I fought against the city and took it. And I slew all the people [and]
12. the city became the property of Kemosh and Moab. And I carried from there its Davidic altar hearth and I
13. dragged it before Kemosh in Qerioit, and I settled in it men of Sharon m[en]
14. of Maharit. And Kemosh said to me, "Go! Seize Nebo against Israel." so I
15. proceeded by night and fought with it from the crack of dawn to midday, and I to-
16. -ok it and I slew all of them: seven thousand men and boys, and women and gi-
17. and maidens because I had dedicated it to Ashtar Kemosh I took [the ves-]
18. -sels of YHWH, and I dragged them before Kemosh. And the king of Israel had built
19. Yahaz, and he dwelt in it while he was fighting with me, but Kemosh drove him out before me. so
20. I took from Moab two hundred men, all his captains. And I brought them to Yahaz, And I seized it
21. in order to add (it) to Dibon. I (myself) have built the 'citadel', 'the wall(s) of the forest' and the wall
22. of the 'acropolis'. And I built its gates; And I built its towers. And
23. I built a royal palace; and I made the ramparts for the reservo[ir for] water in the mid-
24. -st of the city. But there was no cistern in the midst of the city, in the 'citadel,' so I said to all the people, "Make [for]
25. yourselves each man a cistern in his house". And I hewed the shaft for the 'citadel' with prisoner-
26. -s of Israel. I built Aroer, and I made the highway in the Arnon.
27. I built Beth-Bamot, because it was in ruins. I built Bezer, because it was
28. a ruin [with] the armed men of Dibon because all of Dibon was under orders and I ru-
29. -led [ove]r [the] hundreds in the towns which I have annexed to the land. And I bui-
30. -lt Medeba and Beth-Diblaten and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I carried there [my herdsmen]
31. [to herd] the small cattle of the land. And as for Horonaim, the [Ho]use of [Da]vid dwelt in it [wh]ile
32. [it fought with me and] Kemosh [s]aid to me, "Go down, fight against Hauranen". And I went down [and I fou-
33. -ght with the city and I took it and] Kemosh [re]turned it in my days. Then I went up from there te[n...]
34. [...a high] place of justice and I [...]

[edit] See also

Ancient Near East portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mesha Stele

• List of artifacts significant to the Bible
• Tel Dan Stele
• Merneptah Stele
• David

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Biblical History The Jewish History Resource Center — Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Louvre collection — includes a large modern photo of the stele
• The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901–6: "Moabite Stone," includes a translation of part of the inscription.
• Translation from Northwest Semitic Inscriptions
• Watch a video Video recorded at museum finding Jehovah's name.

[edit] For Further Reading

In chronological order:

• Franz Praetorius (1905-6), "Zur Inschrift des Meša`", in: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 59, pp. 33–35; 60, p. 402.
• Dearman, J. Andrew (Ed.) (1989). Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab. Archaeology and Biblical Studies series, no. 2. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press. ISBN 1-55540-357-3.
• Davies, Philip R. (1992, 2nd edition 1995, reprinted 2004). In Search of 'Ancient Israel' Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
• Horn, Siegfried H., "The Discovery of the Moabite Stone," in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth, Essays in Honor of David Noel Friedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, (1983), Carol L. Meyers and M. O'Connor (eds.), pp. 488–505.
• Lemaire, André (1994). "'House of David' Restored in Moabite Inscription." Biblical Archaeology Review 20 (3) May/June, pp. 30–37.
• Margalit, Baruch ("1994"). "Studies in NWSemitic Inscriptions," Ugarit-Forschungen 26. Page 317 of this annual publication refers to "the recent publication (April, 1995) of two additional fragments" of another stele, therefore, the 1994 volume was actually published sometime after April 1995. On the Mesha stele inscription, see p. 275.
• Parker, Simon B. (1997). Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions: Comparative Studies on Narratives in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511620-8. See pp. 44–46 for a clear, perceptive outline of the contents of the inscription on the Mesha stele.
• Rainey, Anson F. (2001). "Mesha and Syntax." In J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham (Eds.), The Land That I Will Show You, pp. 300–306. Supplement Series, no. 343. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 1-84127-257-4.
• Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (2004). Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. Academia Biblica series, no. 12. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature. See pp. 95–110 and 265-277. ISBN 1-58983-062-8.

This article incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.