The Moabite Rebellion and the Mesha Stele/0

The Moabite Rebellion and the Mesha Stele

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Biblical Sources

Melakhim II 3 tells how Mesha, the King of Moav, had originally paid tribute to Israel, but rebelled after the death of Achav. As a result, Yehoram made an alliance with Yehoshafat, the king of Judah, and with Edom to retaliate. With Hashem's aid,  Israel was able to smite Moav, but despite the initial success, the battle ended without a clear victor. The verses are ambiguous, but suggest that, in desperation, the King of Moav had offered his son as a sacrifice,¹ leading to "great wrath on Israel."  Though the nature and reason for this "wrath" is unclear, it led to the premature end of the battle and the return of the troops to Israel.

Extra-Biblical Sources: The Mesha Stele

The Moabite rebellion is attested to outside of Tanakh, as it is discussed in detail in an inscription known as the Mesha Stele or the Moabite Stone, a victory monument erected by Mesha, King of Moav. The monument was discovered by a missionary named Frederick Klein in 1868 in Dhiban (Biblical Dibon)² and is presently in the Louvre Museum in Paris.³

The inscription opens by describing Moav's servitude to Israel, declaring that Omri, King of Israel had "humbled Moav many years, for Chemosh⁴ was angry at his land". Mesha then tells how, in the days of Omri's son, he was able to triumph over Israel and end their oppression, claiming: "Israel has perished forever".  The rest of the stele discusses both Mesha's victories (including his defeat of Medeba, Atarot, Yahaz, and Nevo, cities north of the Arnon River) and his fortifications and building projects. It ends with a description of his attack against the Horanim, in the south.⁵

Relationship Between the Sources: The War

The Biblical and Moabite accounts of the war differ drastically. Sefer Melakhim gives the impression that Moav was almost decimated, and includes no account of any Moabite victories. The Mesha Stele, in contrast, says nothing of Moav's near-defeat, and, instead, reports the capture of Israelite territory and the slaughter of its citizens. As such, scholars debate the relationship between the sources and whether the campaign described in the stele occurred during, before, or after the events mentioned in Tanakh:

I. Mesha's campaign preceded the battle described in Tanakh

• Suggested reconstruction of events – According to Y. Liver,⁶ the Moabite campaign described on the stele preceded the battle with the three kings, and constituted the revolt which prompted their attack.⁷ If so, Moav's rebellion was marked not only by his ceasing to pay tribute, but by his embarking on a military campaign in which he managed to conquer significant Israelite territory.  Liver suggests that the Moabite conquests began towards the end of Achav's reign⁸ when he was preoccupied with Aram, and unable to retaliate. Mesha took advantage of the situation to re-occupy land previously held by Moav, and conquer several new areas.⁹ He then fortified the region to prevent the anticipated counter-attack by Israel. The attack on Horanim, described at the end of the stele, might have been slightly distinct, as the city, lying on the border with Edom, was likely conquered from them rather than from Israel.

• Impact on understanding Tanakh – This reconstruction might shed light on several aspects of the Biblical account:

• Attack from south – Liver explains that Yehoram's seemingly odd decision to attack from the south was likely prompted by Mesha's newly built fortifications in the north, and the desire to avoid the drawn out sieges which would be needed to conquer them.¹⁰
• Edom's participation –  The Edomites joined the alliance not simply because they were vassals of Yehoshafat¹¹ but because they had a personal interest in fighting Moav, as their land, too, had been taken by Mesha.
• Yehoshafat's participation – R"E Samet¹² suggests that Yehoshafat viewed the battle as a religious war.  According to the stele, Mesha had taken the "vessels of Hashem" from what was apparently some holy site in Nevo, and placed them before his god, Chemosh.  Yehoshafat joined Yehoram mainly to rectify this desecration of Hashem's name.¹³ 
• Harshness of attack – If Moav's revolt was military in nature, and included both the slaughter of many Israelites and a desecration of Hashem's name, this could explain why Yehoram did not suffice with conquest, but also took  harsh punitive measures to ruin Moav's land, destroy its trees and close up their wells.¹⁴
• Moav maintains independence – Liver suggests that the decision to attack from the south meant that the outcome of the battle needed to be "all or nothing".  Israel had managed to subdue the southern region of Moav, but never reached the northern areas which Moav had re-occupied. As such, despite the initial victories, there was no contiguous Israelite territory, and thus, no way to hold onto the defeated towns.

II. Mesha's campaign followed the battle described in Tanakh 

• Suggested reconstruction of events – In contrast to the reading proposed above, S. Horn¹⁵ and N. Na'aman¹⁶ suggest that the military victories described in the stele took place after the events described in Tanakh. According to Horn, Moav emerged from the battle against Israel ravaged, but still independent, and quickly went from the defensive to the offensive.¹⁷ Na'aman suggests instead, that some of the events mentioned in the stele might have first occurred during the reign of Yehu, when Mesha allied with Chazael of Aram as he attacked Israel.¹⁸  To support this reconstruction, Horn argues that the fortifications described in the stele must have taken many years to build, and this could not have been accomplished in the short time span between Achav's death and Yehoram's attack.¹⁹ It is more likely that they were built after the battle to ensure that Israel did not attempt a second attack. The stone's descriptions of the rebuilding of destroyed cities also suggest that the events took place in the aftermath of the war, as the need to rebuild was a direct result of the devastation wreaked by the Israelite alliance. Similarly, Mesha's building of water reservoirs and cisterns might have stemmed from Yehoram's having plugged the Moabite springs ("וְכׇל מַעְיַן מַיִם יִסְתֹּמוּ").
• Impact on understanding Tanakh –

Relationship Between the Sources: Chronology

According to Sefer Melakhim, Moav rebelled after the death of Achav, and the Israelites attempted to re-subjugate them in the time of Yehoram. The Mesha Inscription, on the other hand, records that Omri dominated Moav "in his days and half the days of his son: 40 years," at which point Chemosh returned it to Moav's hands.  How is the stele's dating to be understood; does it correlate with the chronology laid forth in Tanakh, or is the stele presenting an alternative?

• At first glance, the stele's dating appears to contradict itself.  According to the first part of Mesha's words, the rebellion occurred in the middle of Achav's reign ("half the days of his son").  On the other hand, the phrase "forty years" suggests that the revolt occurred about 6 years after Achav's death, since Omri and Achav reigned for only 34 years between them.²⁰  The discrepancy suggests that at least one of the two phrases needs to be reinterpreted.
• Many, thus, suggest that the number forty should be understood as "generation."²¹ In addition, the phrase "half the days of his son" might not be meant literally, but rather expresses the length of an incomplete reign.²²  If so, the inscription might set the revolt towards the end of Achav's reign (as per Y. Liver above).²³ This is quite close to Tanakh's dating, especially since it might have taken a couple of years before the revolt was at full strength.
• Others²⁴ have suggested that the word "son" (בנה) means descendant,²⁵ and posit that the inscription is saying that Israel dominated Moav during the reigns of Omri, Achav, Achazyah and halfway through the reign of Yehoram, which would amount to about 42 years.  [The number forty mentioned in the inscription would then be a round number.]²⁶  This would match the second approach above which suggests that Mesha's campaign took place only after Yehoram's battle.²⁷ 

Additional Significance of the Stele

• Earliest extra-Biblical reference to Hashem -– The inscription bears the earliest extra-Biblical reference to Hashem, with lines 17-18 reading: "ואקח. משמ. א[ת כ]לי יהו-ה "

• Earliest extra-Biblical reference to the House of David – According to the reconstruction of Andre Lemaire,²⁸ line 31 contains a reference to the House of David.²⁹  If he is correct, this is the earliest extra-Biblical reference to the Davidic dynasty.

¹ See RashiMelakhim II 3:27About R. Shelomo Yitzchaki who explains the story in this manner.  R"Y KaraMelakhim II 3:27About R. Yosef Kara and RadakMelakhim II 3:27About R. David Kimchi (in the name of his father), however, suggest that Mesha sacrificed the heir to the throne of Edom, which caused Edom to get angry at his allies and the alliance to break up.

² F. Klein saw the stone intact, but was, unfortunately, one of the last Europeans to do so. Before it was purchased, the stele was smashed into many fragments by local Bedouin. Eventually many of the fragments (amounting to more than 600 of the original 1000 words) were recovered and pieced together, and the missing sections were largely reconstructed based on a freeze (a papier-mâché impression) done of the inscription before it was broken.  For a full discussion of the story behind the discovery, attempts to purchase, and breaking of the stone, see S.H Horn, "The Discovery of the Moabite Stone", The Word of the Lord Shall Go  Forth, Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman (Indianna, 1983): 497-505.

³ The stele is made of basalt stone and stands about four feet high and two feet wide and dates to c. 840 BCE (though see discussion regarding the timing of the events and erection of the monument below).  According to most scholars, the inscription is written in Moabite (a language very similar to Biblical Hebrew), using the Old Hebrew / Phoenician alphabet. According to the stele, the reason for its composition was the erection of a sanctuary for the Moabite god, Chemosh, who had made Mesha victorious over his enemies.

⁴ Chemosh is the Moabite god.

⁵ Since the last couple of lines of the stele have not survived, it is not clear if the inscription originally contained some type of festive ending after describing this last victory.

⁶ Y. Liver, "מלחמותיו של מישע מלך ממואב עם ישראל", in היסטוריה צבאית של ארץ ישראל בימי המקרא, ed. Y. Liver (Tel Aviv, 1964): 221-244.  See also A. Olmstead, History of Palestine and Syria to the Macedonian Conquest (New York, 1931): 389–393.

⁷ In other words it provides the background for Tanakh's statement, "וַיִּפְשַׁע מֶלֶךְ מוֹאָב בְּמֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל". Liver even suggests that the stele might have been erected before the retaliatory attack by Israel.

⁸ See the discussion regarding the dating of the revolt below.

⁹ He points that the stele does not actually describe active battles, and never depicts an enemy king or his army.  This might suggest that Mesha's actions were directed at individual cities which did not have the protection of Israel's armed forces (which were preoccupied elsewhere) and that none of them required drawn out battles. As such, he was able to accomplish all that is described in the stele fairly quickly, in the span of a few years.

¹⁰ P. Stern, however, questions that if the Gadites had been subjugated by Mesha in Atarot, in the North, as suggested by the stele, would not Yehoram have wanted to enter via a northern route so as to save his compatriots as quickly as possible?

¹¹ See, for example, MalbimMelakhim II 3:8About R. Meir Leibush Weiser who explains his participation in this manner.

¹² See his article,"המלחמה במואב".

¹³ R. Samet goes further to suggest that Yehoram himself acted out of purely military and political reasons, caring nothing about the desecration of Hashem's name and only about the restoration of his lands and glory.  Hashem, though, did not think of Yehoram as deserving of his territory and found his motives for war problematic. At the smae time, though, Yehoshafat;s motives were pure.  This leads to the ambivalent attitude towards the war.  While Hashem wants Moav punished, He does not want Yehoram to be the victor. As such, He aids the nation in taking vengeance, but does not allow a full victory.  

¹⁴ See Y. Elitzur, "עולת מישע" in "ישראל והמקרא" (Ramat Gan, 2000): 162, n. 26, who writes, "לאחר שבזז מישע את כל כלי הקודש ממקדש ה' בנבו וסחבם לפני כמוש, ולאחר שטבח את יושביהם של ערי ישראל מאיש עד אשה ואת יושבי ערים אחרות שבה העביד בפרך, אפשר להבין טעמה של אותה הוראת שעה חמורה הנוגדת את מצוות התורה"

¹⁵ See his article, "Why the Moabite Stone Was Blown to Pieces",  BAR 12:3 (1986): 50-61.

¹⁶ See "בין כתובת מלכותית לסיפור נבואי: מרד מישע מלך מואב בהארה היסטורית," Zion 66:1 (2001): 5-40.

¹⁷ According to such a hypothesis, the events described in the stele constitute the "קֶצֶף גָּדוֹל עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל" described at the end of the account in Melakhim.

¹⁸ He claims that the line "וישראל. אבד. אבד. עלמ", though hyperbolic, could refer to the time of Yehu when much of the eastern bank of the Jordan was in the hands of Aram.

¹⁹ Since Tanakh portrays Yehoram as retaliating soon after the revolt began,

²⁰ Omri reigned for twelve years and Achav for twenty-two.

²¹ See, for example, L. Liver cited above, N. Na'aman cited above, and B. Bonder "Mesha's Rebellion Against Israel" JANES 3 (1970-71): 83-88. 

²² See Y. Liver.  R"E Samet compares it to the same phrase in Yirmeyahu 17 "עֹשֶׂה עֹשֶׁר וְלֹא בְמִשְׁפָּט בַּחֲצִי יָמָו יַעַזְבֶנּוּ" which does not mean that a person will necessarily lose his wealth at exactly the midpoint of his life, but that the money will not last until his death.  See also Tehillim 102:25, "אַל תַּעֲלֵנִי בַּחֲצִי יָמָי".  This, too, does not refer specifically to the middle of one's life, but is rather a request not to die early.

²³ See above that he suggests that Moav took the opportunity to revolt when Achav was involved with his wars against Aram.

²⁴ See sources cited by N. Na'aman, ibid. p.14-15.

²⁵ Such usage is found in Tanakh as well.

²⁶ Alternatively, as above, "half his days" is not meant literally, but is rather a way of saying that the revolt took place partway through his reign, in which case forty could be an exact number.  Additionally, if the numbers of the king's reigns include partial years, it is also possible that forty is meant literally.

²⁷ The statement, then, is not dating the cessation of tribute which marked the rebellion (and occured, as Tanakh states, with Achav's death), but rather the campaign which successfully returned occupied Moabite lands to Moav.

²⁸ See A. Lemaire, "“House of David” Restored in Moabite Inscription", Biblical Archaeology Review 20:3 (1994):30-37.

²⁹ Not all agree.  See, for instance, N. Neeman, "בין כתובת מלכותית לסיפור נבואי: מרד מישע מלך מואב בהארה היסטורית", Zion 66 (2011): 5- 40, who questions the reconstruction and raises an alternative possibility, that the phrase should read "בתדודה" (the House of Doda).