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The Mesha Stele says King Mesha defeated Israel and credits the victory to the god Chemosh, who received items taken from Israel’s god. 2 Kings describes a Moabite win linked to Chemosh, showing both accounts describe the same event from opposite sides.
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Mesha Stele
Moabite Stone
Ancient Near East
And Chemosh said to me, “Go, take Nebo from Israel.” And I went in the night and fought against it from daybreak until midday, and I took it and I killed the whole population: seven thousand male subjects and aliens, and female subjects, aliens, and servant girls. For I had put it to the ban for Ashtar Chemosh. And from there I took Yahweh’s vessels, and I presented them before Chemosh’s face. And the king of Israel had built Yahaz, and he stayed there throughout his campaign against me; and Chemosh drove him away before my face. And I took two hundred Moabite men, its entire division, and I led it up to Yahaz. And I have taken it in order to add it to Dhiban. I have built Qarcho, the wall of the woods, and the wall of the citadel; and I have built its gates; and I have built its towers; and I have built the king’s house; and I have made the double reservoir for the spring in the innermost part of the city.
Date: 830 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
2 Kings 3:26
Hebrew Bible
24 When they approached the Israelite camp, the Israelites rose up and struck down the Moabites, who then ran from them. The Israelites thoroughly defeated Moab. 25 They tore down the cities, and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered. They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree. Only Kir Hareseth was left intact, but the soldiers armed with slings surrounded it and attacked it. 26 When the king of Moab realized he was losing the battle, he and 700 swordsmen tried to break through and attack the king of Edom, but they failed. 27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, so they broke off the attack and returned to their homeland.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The discord among the active deities was reflected in their behavior as patron deities of their respective city-states and nations. The gods could carry their battles into the human realm by ordering their subordinates, the mortal rulers, to carry on wars for them against other gods’ human regents. As an example, a portion of the Mesha inscription illustrates the connection between the rivalry of the gods and the war between kings ...
In this inscription the war between Mesha and the King of Israel was portrayed as a battle between Chemosh and Yahweh. It is not clear, due to a lacuna in the text, what was to be taken from before Yahweh and brought before Chemosh, but whatever it was, it represented the rivalry between the two gods and specifically the supremacy of one over the other. This was not just a territorial skirmish on the part of human beings; in the theology of the Syro-Palestinian world Chemosh and Yahweh were engaged in a determined attempt to add the other god’s territory to his own possessions. To add insult to injury, the devotees of Chemosh took something away from Yahweh and presented it to their god. Warfare on earth as a plane of warfare among the gods may be seen in several sources, so this aspect of the malfunctioning of patron deities is well attested. ..."
Handy, Lowell K.
Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy
(pp. 126-127) Eisenbrauns, 1994
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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