The Moabite Stone

"The skeptics' claim that King David never existed is now hard to defend. Last year the French scholar Andre Lemaire reported a related "House of David" discovery in Biblical Archaeology Review. His subject was the Mesha Stele (also known as the Moabite Stone), the most extensive inscription ever recovered from ancient Palestine. Found in 1868 at the ruins of biblical Dibon and later fractured, the basalt stone wound up in the Louvre, where Lemaire spent seven years studying it. His conclusion: the phrase "House of David" appears there as well. As with the Tel Dan fragment, this inscription comes from an enemy of Israel boasting of a victory--King Mesha of Moab, who figured in the Bible. Lemaire had to reconstruct a missing letter to decode the wording, but if he's right, there are now two 9th century references to David's dynasty."

- TIME Magazine                                 
December 18, 1995 Volume 146, No. 25

Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone)
In the Bible it says that Mesha the king of Moab was paying tribute to Israel and that they suddenly stopped: "Mesha, king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel..." (2 Kings 3:5). Well, Mesha made his own record of this rebellion, and the record has been found. It is known today as "The Mesha Stele" or the more popular designation "The Moabite Stone." It was found in 1868 at Dibon, in Moab. Dibon is located 20 miles east of the Dead Sea. Amazingly enough it was discovered by chance by F.A. Klein, a German missionary who had heard rumors of this stone while visiting the area. It was a bluish basalt stone, about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide, and 14 inches thick, with an inscription from king Mesha. When it was found the Berlin Museum negotiated for it while the French Consulate at Jerusalem offered more money.

The next year some local Arabs, realizing all that was at stake, laboriously hoisted it out of the earth and lit a fire around it, and after pouring cold water on it they chipped away several large pieces which they distributed among a few of them. Later the French re-assembled 669 of the estimated 1100 consonants from the pieces and preserved the inscription. It now remains in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Size and Description

"The most extensive inscription ever recovered from ancient Palestine..."

What is Written on the Stone?

1. "I am Mesha, son of Chemosh[-yatti], the king of Moab, the Dibonite.
2. My father (had) reigned over Moab for thirty years, and I reigned
3. after my father. And I made this high-place for Chemosh in Qarcho . . .
4. because he has delivered me from all kings, and because he has made me triumph over all my enemies. As for Omri
5. the king of Israel, and he humbled Moab for many years (days), for Chemosh was angry with his land.
6. And his son reigned in his place; and he also said, "I will oppress Moab!" In my days he said so.
7. But I ltriumphed over him and over his house, and Israel has perished; it has  perished forever! And Omri took possession of the whole land of Medeba,
8. and he lived there in his days and half the days of his son (Ahab): forty years.
9. But Chemosh restored it in my days. And I built Baal Meon, and I built a water reservoir in it. And I built
10. Qiryaten. And the men of Gad lived in the land of Atarot from ancient times; and the king of Israel
11. built Atarot for himself, and I fought against the city and captured it. And I killed all the people of
12. the city as a sacrifice for Chemosh and for Moab. And I brought back the fire-hearth of his uncle from there; and I brought it
13. before the face of Chemosh in Qerioit, and I made the men of Sharon live there, as well as the men of Maharit.
14. And Chemosh said to me, "Go, take Nebo from Israel."
15. And I went in the night and fought against it from the daybreak until midday, and I took it
16. and I killed the whole population: seven thousand male subjects and aliens, and female subjects, aliens, and servant girls.
17. For I had devoted them to destruction for (the god) Ashtar Chemosh. And from there I took the
18. vessels of Yahweh, and I presented them before the face of Chemosh. And the king of Israel had built
19. Yahaz, and he stayed there throughout his campaign against me; and Chemosh drove him away before my face. And
20. I took two hundred men of Moab, all first class (warriors), and I led it up to Yahaz. And I have taken it
21. in order to add it to Dibon. I have built Qarcho, the wall of the woods and the wall of
22. the citadel; and I have built its gates; and I have built its towers; and
23. I have built the house of the king; and I have made the double reservoir for the spring in the innermost part of the city.
24. Now the innermost part of the city had no cistern, in Qarcho, and I said to all the people, "Each one of you shall make
25. a cistern in his house." And I cut the moat for Qarcho by using Israelite captives.
26. I have built Aroer, and I constructed the military road in Arnon (valley).
27. I have built Beth-Bamot, for it had been destroyed. I have built Bezer, for it lay
28. in ruins. And the men of Dibon stood in battle formation, for all Dibon were in subjection. And I am the king
29. over the hundreds in the towns which I have added to the land. And I have built
30. Beth-Medeba and Beth-Diblaten and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I brought there . . .
31. flocks of the the land. And the House of [Da]vid dwelt in Hauranen, . . .
32. Chemosh said to me, "Go down, fight against Hauranen!" I went down . . . and Chemosh restored it in my days . . ."
    

What The Bible Says (Compare)
II Ki 3:4-5 "Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheepbreeder, and he regularly paid the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs and the wool of one hundred thousand rams. But it happened, when Ahab died, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel."
(NKJ).

Who Were the Moabites?
The existence of the Biblical "Moabites" were in question by most historians until the recent discovery of the Moabite Stone. The Moabites were a West-Semitic people who lived in the mountains east of the Dead Sea, Trans-Jordan (now considered west- central Jordan) and they flourished in the 9th century BC. They are known mainly through the Old Testament and from the inscription on the Moabite Stone. Scholars have dated their culture from about the late 14th century BC to 582 BC, when they were conquered by the Babylonians, according to the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century AD).

According to the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 19:30-38), the Moabites belonged to the same ethnic stock as the Israelites, having descended from Moab, a son of Lot, who was a nephew of the first Hebrew, Abraham. There are many mentions in the Bible about the Moabites. King Saul in the 11th Cent. B.C. fought against them, David's great grandmother Ruth was from Moab (Ruth 4:17-22), and it was in Moab that David sought refuge from King Saul (1 Samuel 22:3-4). Sanballat, who in Nehemiah's time was associated with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arab against the Jews (<Neh. 2:10,19>; etc.), was a Horonite. If this name is derived from Horonaim, Sanballat was a Moabite, as he is quite often regarded.

"Yahweh"
One important note that is often overlooked is the mention of Yahweh in verse 18 of the Mesha inscription. It appears that king Mesha knew about the Israleite God Yahweh and says he took "the vessels of Yahweh and presented them before the face of Chemosh" his god. 

"Chemosh"
Chemosh, the national deity of Moab, is mentioned throughout the Mesha Stele inscription. In the Bible Chemosh is mentioned in (Num. 21:29; Judg. 11:24; 1 Kin. 11:7,33; 2 Kin. 23:13; Jer. 48:7,13,46). The great King Solomon was led astray by taking Moabite princesses for his harem (1 Kings 11:1-8) and erecting near Jerusalem a shrine dedicated to Chemosh.

The god whom the Moabites believed protected their nation was Chemosh:

"Chemosh was an ancient West Semitic deity, revered by the Moabites as their supreme god. Little is known about Chemosh; although King Solomon of Israel built a sanctuary to him east of Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7), the shrine was later abolished by King Josiah (2 Kings 23:13). The goddess Astarte was probably the cult partner of Chemosh."

- Encyclopædia Britannica             

"King Omri and His Son"
The Inscription also makes reference to King Omri of Israel (reigned c. 884-c. 872 BC), and his son, who we know as king Ahab. king Omri is mentioned in 1 Kings 16:23-28, and is knwon for reconquering the Moabite lands that had been lost since Solomon's death in 922 BC, when Israel split into two kingdoms.

"The House of David"
Line 31 is very significant. In 1993 a stela was discovered at Tel Dan in northern Israel mentioning the "House of David" (Bible and Spade, Autumn 1993: 119-121). This  inscription provided the first mention of David in a contemporary text outside the Bible. The existence of kind David has been in question by scholars for centuries. At about the same time the Dan stela was found, French scholar Andre Lemaire was working on the Mesha Inscription and determined that the same phrase appeared there in line 31 (Bible and Spade, Summer 1995: 91-92). Lemaire was able to identify a previously indistinguishable letter as a "d" in the phrase "House of David." This phrase was used commonly in the Old Testament for the Davidic dynasty.

Something Interesting To Note
Many a critic of the Bible have scoffed at the alleged contradiction in the Scriptures where (Deut. 2:29) it would appear at first sight that both Moab and Edom granted the request of Israel to be allowed to pass through their territory, but when you compare (Num. 20:18-21) and (Deut. 23:3-4) it seems to show that both Moab and Edom utterly refused. But careful investigation in context removes the difficulty and gives us a clear idea of the whole situation. Israel's request in (Num. 20:17) was permitted IF they would cross the territory of Edom by the royal highway.

The Moabite Language
The language of Moab was merely a dialect of Hebrew, differing from biblical Hebrew only in some minor details. The Moabite language differed only dialectally from Hebrew, and Moabite religion and culture were very closely related to those of the Israelites.

Unger makes mention that:

"The inscription on this stone in a remarkable degree supplements and corroborates the history of King Mesha recorded in (2 Kin. 3:4-27). It affords evidence of the knowledge of alphabetic writing in the lands of the Jordan."

and Sayce comments:

"The art of writing and reading can have been no new thing. As soon as Mesha has shaken off the yoke of the foreigner, he erects an inscribed monument in commemoration of his victories. . . . It is the first and most natural thing for him to do, and it is taken for granted that the record will have numerous readers. . . . Moreover, the forms of the letters as they appear on the Moabite Stone show that alphabetic writing must have been long practiced in the kingdom of Mesha. They are forms which presuppose a long acquaintance with the art of engraving inscriptions upon stones, and are far removed from the forms out of which they must have developed. Then, again, the language of the inscription is noteworthy. Between it and Hebrew the differences are few and slight. It is a proof that the Moabites were akin to the Israelites in language as well as in race, and that like their kinsfolk they had adopted the ancient 'language of Canaan.' The likeness between the languages of Moab and Israel extends beyond the mere idioms of grammar and syntax. It is a likeness which exists also in thought" (Sayce, Higher Crit. and the Mon., p. 364).

What Happened to the Moabites?
Exactly as the Bible had predicted the Moabites were conquered. Moab had become a tributary of Assyria by the late 8th century BC and was conquered by the Babylonians in 582 BC, upon which the Moabites disappeared from history. Their territory was resettled by the Nabataeans in the 4th-3rd century BC.

Isaiah, in his "burden against Moab" (Isa. 15-16; 25:10), predicts, in poetic lamentation, the fall of Moab reducing it to a small and feeble remnant (16:14).

Isa 15:1-3 "The burden against Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste and destroyed, because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste and destroyed, He has gone up to the temple and Dibon, to the high places to weep. Moab will wail over Nebo and over Medeba; on all their heads will be baldness, and every beard cut off. In their streets they will clothe themselves with sackcloth; on the tops of their houses and in their streets everyone will wail, weeping bitterly." (NKJ)

Isa 25:10-12 "For on this mountain the hand of the LORD will rest, and Moab shall be trampled down under Him, as straw is trampled down for the refuse heap. And He will spread out His hands in their midst as a swimmer reaches out to swim, and He will bring down their pride together with the trickery of their hands. The fortress of the high fort of your walls he will bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, down to the dust. (NKJ)

The name Moab became a typical byword for the enemies of God.

Written by Rusty Russell (Bible History Online)                          

Webmaster: rusty@bible-history.com

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