The Arabs, perceiving the importance which Europeans attached to this monument, had blown it up; but nearly all the pieces were put together again, and those missing supplemented by the help of an impression, which fortunately had been taken when the inscription was whole. Here is a translation of the principal passages: “I am Mesha, son of Nadab (Chemosh-melesh), king of Moab. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father. I have erected this stone to Chemosh, the stone of deliverance, for he has delivered me from my enemies, he has avenged those that hate me. Omri was king of Israel and oppressed Moab for a long time because Chemosh was angered against his people. The son of Omri succeeded him and said: ‘I will also oppress Moab.’ But in my day Chemosh said: ‘I will cast my eyes on him and over his house and Israel shall perish forever.’”
He then enumerates the towns which he has taken from the king of Israel: “I attacked the town of Ataroth and I took it and killed all the people in honour of Chemosh god of Moab. And I carried away the arel of Dodah[3] and I dragged it along the ground before the face of Chemosh at Kerioth. And Chemosh said unto me: Go and take Nebo from Israel. And I went at night and fought against the town from daybreak until noon, and I took it, and killed all, seven thousand men, for they had been interdicted in honour of Ashtar-Chemosh. And I carried away the arels of Jehovah, and I dragged them along the ground before Chemosh.” Mesha then speaks of the town of Korkhar which he had built, and where wells and canals were dug by the captives of Israel.
This inscription, which is the most ancient monument of Semitic epigraphy, clearly shows us the purely national character of the religions of Palestine. In it, Chemosh plays the part attributed to Jehovah in the books of the Hebrews. If Moab was oppressed by Israel, it was because Chemosh was angered against his people, in the same way as Israel explains its servitude by the anger of Jehovah. If Mesha undertook a war, it was in obedience with the orders of Chemosh: he placed an interdict over the towns and massacred the inhabitants in honour of Chemosh, as Joshua or David did in honour of Jehovah. These are the same ideas and the same expressions. The stele of Mesha concerns political history as well as the religious. The war between Israel and Moab is described in the Bible, and the two versions can be compared. The Moabite version is an official bulletin, that of the Book of Kings bears a legendary character, and the prophet Elisha plays in it the most important part.
[ca. 850-840 B.C.]
Under the reign of Jehoshaphat’s son, called Jehoram or Joram, like the king of Israel, the Edomites made themselves independent of the kingdom of Judah. The Chronicles also mention an invasion of the Philistines and the Arabs, in which all the children of Jehoram perished, excepting Ahaziah who succeeded him. The intrigues of the prophets were then preparing bloody revolutions in Syria and the kingdom of Israel.
Joram, king of Israel, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, son of Jehoram’s sister Athaliah, renewed the attack of Ahab and Jehoshaphat against Ramoth of Gilead, and had no better success. Joram, wounded by the Syrians, returned to Jezreel to establish himself, and his nephew Ahaziah came to see him.
[ca. 840-815 B.C.]
A new revolt was now raised by Jehu, who, having been anointed by the prophets, slew the kings of Israel and Judah, Jehoram and Ahaziah, Jezebel and “all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolk and his priests, until he left him none remaining.”
The priests of Baal, assembled by treachery, were all killed, the temple was overthrown and made into a draught house. These butcheries had an unexpected counterblow in Jerusalem. Of all Ahab’s family there remained only Athaliah, Joram’s widow, and Ahaziah’s mother. She occupied the throne after her son’s death, and as a singular result of Jehu’s crime, the worship of Baal, proscribed in the kingdom of Israel, found a refuge in the kingdom of Judah.
