After the death of Ahab, king of Israel, his dynasty did not last very long. God raised a rebellion led by Jehu who put to death the last king descended from Ahab as well as his hated widow Jezebel. Jehu became king of Israel in 887 BCE and went to all the cities of his kingdom to eliminate the descendants and supporters of the dynasty of Ahab. He then had all the prophets of Baal who resided in the kingdom of Israel executed. But he left in place the two golden calves that Jeroboam had fashioned for the sites of Dan and Bethel.
Let's look at the continuation of the historical and biblical chronologies (for earlier dates, refer to the previous articles since Adam):
year 2781 (979 BCE): death of Solomon; revolt of Jeroboam; split of the kingdom
year 2801 (958 BCE): reign of Asa in Judea
year 2834 (926 BCE): Omri, king of Israel, establishes his capital in Samaria
year 2839 (921 BCE): death of Omri; his son Ahab reigns over the kingdom of Israel
year 2857 (903 BCE): Ahab pardons Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, after defeating him
year 2860 (900 BCE): death of Ahab; death of the prophet Elijah
year 2866 (894 BCE): Jeroham, second son of Ahab, reigns over the kingdom of Israel
year 2872 (888 BCE): Ahaziah, grandson of Josephat, reigns in Judea
year 2873 (887 BCE): Jehu kills Jeroham son of Ahab and Ahaziah king of Judea
year 2873 (887 BCE): end of the dynasty of Omri and Ahab; Jehu king of Israel
God showed relative mercy towards Jehu despite the golden calves:
And the Lord said unto Jehu: 'Because you have done well in executing that which is right in My eyes and have done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in My heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.' (II Kings 10:30)
But the beginnings of the end of the wicked kingdom of Israel began at this time:
In those days the Lord began to cut [the kingdom of] Israel short; and Hazael [king of Aram] smote them in all the borders of Israel: from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, from Aroer, which is by the valley of Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan [the Golan]. (II Kings 10:32-33)
So Hazael, king of Aram (part of modern Syria), began to conquer all the territory of the Israelite kingdom located east of the Jordan river, in the territories of Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh, including Gilead. The biblical text mentions that he attacked the Israelites on all the borders, including obviously the northern border of Israel. This northern border was guarded by the city of Dan (where the cult of one of Jeroboam's two golden calves was located) which had been fortified by Ahab. It was there, in the archaeological excavations of Tel Dan at the northern tip of Israel, that an important stele was found in 1993: it bears witness to these events and constitutes one of the two rare archaeological discoveries that mention the "House of David" (the other is the Mesha Stele), namely the descendants of David as a royal dynasty. This stele is now exhibited at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The text is in Hebrew in the proto-Hebrew script, which was used at the time in Israel and Judea. Here is an excerpt of this text transcribed in 1998 by the French historian André Lemaire, line by line:
[.....]..[.............] and cut [..............]
[.....] my father went up [......f]ighting at/against Ab[...]
And my father lay down, he went to his [fathers]. And the kings of I[s-]
rael penetrated into my father's land[. And] Hadad made myself king
And Hadad went in front of me[, and] I departed from .... [....]
of my kings. And I killed two power[ful] kin[gs], who harnessed two thou[sand cha-]
riots and two thousand horsemen. [I killed Jo]ram son of [Ahab]
king of Israel, and I killed [Achaz]yahu son of [Joram king]
of the House of David. And I set [......]
their land [.......]
other ...[............ and Jehu ru-]
led over Is[rael ............]
(source: Wikipedia)
Hazael had succeeded Ben-Hadad as king of Aram who had a temporary peace with Ahab king of Israel after several conflicts. But who killed the two kings, Jeroham (also written Joram) king of Israel son of Ahab, and Ahaziah of the house of Judea (dynasty of David)? It was Jehu. However, since Hazael later defeated Jehu's forces at Dan and took the northern territory of the kingdom of Israel, Hazael appropriated Jehu's victory over these two Israelite kings. In other words, the logical sentence is that Hazael defeated Jehu, Jehu defeated both kings, therefore Hazael defeated both kings. The appropriation of facts is common in History which, as they say, is written by the victors!
The importance of the Tel Dan stele is the mentions of the "king of Israel" and the "house (dynasty) of David". After its discovery, there was a controversy over the interpretation "house of David" because, before this discovery in 1993, some historians had convinced themselves that Israel had not been a kingdom, and that David had been a legendary character. But both the Tel Dan stele and the Mesha stele came to confirm the same terms, kingdom of Israel and house of David. The controversy was defeated, except perhaps for a few diehard historians who continue to deny the discoveries.
To return to the home page of articles on this theme of "the Bible is true", click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
February 2025
Comments