Achav, Aram, and the Battle of Qarqar/0

Achav, Aram, and the Battle of Qarqar

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Biblical Sources

Melakhim I 20 and 22 discuss the foreign relations between Aram and Israel during the reign of Achav. 

• In Chapter 20, Ben Hadad, the king of Aram initiates war, and is defeated. He and his servants surrender, don mourning garments, and approach the Israelites in the hopes that Achav will have mercy and spare them death. Somewhat surprisingly, Achav greets him without malice, saying "הַעוֹדֶנּוּ חַי אָחִי הוּא." Ben Hadad offers to return to Achav certain Israelite cities previously conquered by Aram and the two make an alliance.¹ The prophetic reaction to Achav's actions is severe, and the king is told that he will pay with his life for having sent Ben Hadad free.
• Chapter 22 tells of another battle between Aram and Israel, which takes place just three years after the previous one. This time, Achav is the initiator, and the point of contention is Aram's possession of Ramot Gilad.  During the war, Achav meets his death as an archer innocently hits him by arrow, fulfilling the prophecy of Chapter 20.

Extra-Biblical Sources

Extra-Biblical sources do not speak of the Israelite wars with Aram discussed at the end of Sefer Melakhim I, but they do describe other interactions between the the two powers.  The most well known of these is the alliance made by Ben-Hadad and Achav against Shalmaneser III in the Battle of Qarqar, which, significantly, took place in the years right in between the two battles mentioned above.

The Battle of Qarqar is recorded on the Kurkh Monolith,² a stele which depicts the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, and describes the various military campaigns he undertook in the first six years of his reign.³  According to the stele, in 853 BCE, the Assyrians met a coalition of "12 kings" at Qarqar in Syria.⁴ Hadadezer of Damascus and Irhuleni of Hamath stood at the head of the alliance, while Achav of Israel provided major military support.⁵ After delineating the number of soldiers and chariots supplied by each king, Shalmaneser declares himself victorious, and claims to have slain 14,000 of his enemies.⁶

Relationship to Tanakh

¹ The verse is ambiguous regarding who initiated the alliance, Achav or Ben Hadad.

² The monument was discovered by J. Taylor in 1861 and is named after the location in which it was found. It is currently housed in the British Museum. The stele is made of limestone and stands about 7 feet tall. 

³ The inscription is written in Assyrian cuneiform.

⁴ The inscription only lists 11 names.  As such, it is possible that the phrase "twelve kings" is simply a scribal error, or, alternatively, that it is simply an expression used to denote a large alliance of enemy kings and does not signify a specific number.

⁵ The inscription attributes to him 2000 chariots (which is more than that of all the other countries combined) and 10,000 soldiers. In addition, he is listed third, suggesting that he was an important member of the coalition.

⁶ Despite the king's claims, since Shalmaneser embarks on three more campaigns in the area over the next few years, it seems that the battle's outcome was not decisive.