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.

Achav's foreign policy decisions throughout the story make the reader wonder. Why did he have clemency on the enemy king? What is the significance of the alliance that is made, and why does it not last? Finally, why was Achav's lenient treatment of Ben Hadad so displeasing to the prophet?

Extra-Biblical Sources

Extra-Biblical sources do not speak of the Israelite wars with Aram discussed above, but they do describe another interaction between the two powers: an alliance made by Ben-Hadad and Achav against the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, in the Battle of Qarqar. Significantly, this took place in 853 BCE, right in between the two sets of battles mentioned in Tanakh.

The Battle of Qarqar is discussed on the Kurkh Monolith,² a stele which describes the various military campaigns that Shalmaneser III 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 Damascus⁵ and Irhuleni of Hamath stood at the head of the alliance, while Achav of Israel provided major military support.⁶ 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.  It should be noted, however, that despite the king's claims, it seems that the battle's outcome was not decisive. None of the listed kings appear to have lost their thrones, and Shalmaneser embarks on several more campaigns to the region in the ensuing years, suggesting that his goals had not been achieved.

Relationship to Tanakh

The information gleaned about the Battle of Qarqar might shed light on Achav's motives in freeing Ben Hadad. According to many scholars,⁷ the statement, "וַאֲנִי בַּבְּרִית אֲשַׁלְּחֶךָּ וַיִּכְרׇת לוֹ בְרִית," apparently relates to the coalition spoken of on the monolith. It is likely that Achav recognized that Assyria was a much bigger enemy than Aram, and that it was politically expedient to make peace with Aram so the two could work together to topple the real superpower. Thus, the two made an alliance, ushering in a few years of cooperation between the countries in which they joined to battle Assyria.  However, once there was relative quiet on the Assyrian front, apparently the coalition broke up and the two resumed their old feud.

If the above reconstruction is correct, one might question the prophet's negative reaction to Achav's deed.  Why was the prophet so upset if Achav' motives were pure and he was acting in the country's best interests?

• Prof. Grossman⁸ points out that the harsh response was in line with the general prophetic opposition to making alliances with foreign nations. Such alliances were looked down upon as they often brought foreign spiritual influences in their wake.⁹ In addition, they expressed the belief that victory is a matter of military power, and not God's doing.¹⁰
• The prophetic wrath might also relate to the events of Chapter 21, and the story of Navot's vineyard discussed there. In that episode Achav allows a judicial farce so as to engineer the death of Navot. The prophet decries Achav's willingness to let a national enemy survive, while killing innocents at home.

The Aftermath: Israel, Aram and Assyria

The Biblical Account – Aram continues to be an enemy of Israel throughout the reigns of the next several kings. At times Aram is victorious, at times Israel:

• Tanakh describes a series of intermittent battles¹¹ between the countries during the reign of Yehoram.  Though Aram sends troops into Israel and even besieges Shomron, time and again Israel is miraculously saved and there is no indication that Aram succeeded in his attempted conquests nor that he gains any territorial advantage.
• The picture shifts during the reigns of Yehu and Yehoachaz, after Chazael became king of Aram.  Chazael attacked throughout the borders of Israel, "מִן הַיַּרְדֵּן מִזְרַח הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ אֵת כׇּל אֶרֶץ הַגִּלְעָד".  During the tenure of Yehoachaz, the situation appears even more dire, "כִּי לֹא הִשְׁאִיר לִיהוֹאָחָז עָם כִּי אִם חֲמִשִּׁים פָּרָשִׁים וַעֲשָׂרָה רֶכֶב וַעֲשֶׂרֶת אֲלָפִים רַגְלִי". Israel is saved only due to Hashem's mercy, who sends them an unnamed "savior" (Melakhim II:13:5)
• This "salvation" extends into the rule of Yoash and Yeravam, who are finally able to defeat Aram. Yoash is victorious over Aram three times, and Yerovam expands Isarel's borders, retrieving "Damascus and Chamat". 

Extra-Biblical Sources – The ups and downs in the relationship between Aram and Israel can be explained by looking at the larger geo-political picture as it emerges from extra-Biblical sources:

• From Shalmanesers annals we know that he continued to attack Aram in years 10, 11, 14, 18 and 21 of his reign.  In these wars, though Aram continues to fight as part of a coalition, Israel is not mentioned, and apparently did not participate.  If so, it is possible that Aram's intermittent fighting and inability to achieve total victory during the reign of Yehoram is related to the fact that Aram is busy on two fronts.
• When Chazael becomes king, he appears to change tactics.  No longer does he work with coalitions, but instead attempts to conquer the whole region, hoping to then be strong enough to conquer Assyria. He is able to do so in large part because towards the end of Shalmaneser's reign and during the reign of his heir, Shamshi Adad, Assyria is involved in civil war and quieting unrest in other parts of her kingdom, leaving Syria-Palestine alone.  This enables Chazael to focus his attention on Israel, and successfully conquer. 

Additional Significance

• "Achav the Israelite"

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

² The stele 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.  It depicts Shalmaneser III standing before four divine emblems: (1) the winged disk, symbol of the god Ashur or Shamash; (2) the six-pointed star of Ishtar (3) the crown of the sky-god Anu and (4) the crescent of the god Sin. The inscription is written in Assyrian cuneiform and runs across the stele.

³ The battle is also mentioned in later editions of the annals of Shalmaneser, and alluded to in the Black Obelisk Inscription, but it is only in the Kurkh monolith that Achav is mentioned by name.

⁴ The inscription goes on to list only 11 names.  As such, it is possible that the phrase "twelve kings" is a scribal error, or, alternatively, that it is simply a schematic expression used to denote a large alliance of enemy kings and does not signify a specific number.  The latter might be supported by the usage of the same phrase in several other places in Shalmaneser's annals.

⁵ Hadadezer is the equivalent of Tanakh's Ben Hadad.

⁶ 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 the next most important member of the coalition. See, though, H. Tadmor, "Que and Musri", IEJ 11:3,(1961):144 and N. Naaman, "Two Notes on the Monolith Inscription of Shalmaneser III from Kurkh," Tel Aviv 3 (1976): 89-106 who point out that the number 2000 is likely a scribal error.  Even the much larger Assyrian army only records having that many chariots.  A. Malamat מלחמות ,ישראל ואשור in היסטוריה צבאית של ארץ ישראל בימי המקרא, ed. Y. Liver (Jerusalem, 1964): 240-261, on the other hand, suggests that Achav might have headed an army composed from other nations in the area who were his vassals or allies (such as Yehuda).  The chariots, thus, did not come from Israel alone.

⁷ See B. Mazar, "מלחמות ישראל עם ארם" in היסטוריה צבאית של ארץ ישראל בימי המקרא, ed. Y. Liver (Jerusalem, 1964): 206-220, A. Grossman, "השימוש ברקע הסטורי בהוראת נביאים ראשונים" in הוראת המקרא (Jerusalem, 1985): 294-297 and Y. Aharoni, "ארץ ישראל בתקופת המקרא" (Jerusalem, 1988): 258-260.

⁸ See article cited above.

⁹ See Melakhim II 16 regarding Achav's alliance with Tiglat Pilesser and his ensuing cultic changes in the Mikdash.

¹⁰ Seeking foreign aid meant that the king failed to recognize that good deeds and observance of Hashem's Torah would bring Hashem's aid, and it is Hashem, rather than a large number of soldiers, who decides war.

¹¹ See Melakhim II 5-7.