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Mesha the Dibonite Recovers his Voice

Our today's journey leads to Moab, the land of thin elevated plateaus cut by narrow valleys, and isolated hilltops.

The highlands offered succulent pastures for numerous head of small cattle. The Hebrew Bible recounts our hero, Mesha, as a livestock magnate, "… Mesha king of Moab raised sheep, and he had topay the king of Israel a tribute of a hundred thousand lambs and thewool of a hundred thousand rams". (1) These figures are worthless iftaken at face value; rather they can indicate the main products of Moab's pastoral economy.

The valleys allowed raising wheat and barley and served as transverse routes crossing the lengthwise King's Highway, one of themain roads which led from the Nile to the Upper Euphrates. The hilltops were fit for forts set up in strategically vulnerable locations.

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Our "cowboy" baron, a faded character, to which Biblical writers inevitably give a cold shoulder, suddenly finds himself in the spotlight and lets his voice be heard. He did it against all odds showing those, who continued to despise his origin and pagan habits, that he was the legitimate king that should be taken into account.

Mesha was born in Moab, a backwater strip of land on the Transjordan Plateau squeezed between the Dead Sea on the west and the desert on the east. The schematic map of the land can be viewed here. (2)

His father Kemoshyat lacked political vision and military ambitions, raising livestock and paying taxes to foreign authorities. He was a typical chieftain "tent-dweller", who completely put up with his destiny, dragging his life through thirtyyears of stagnation, "My father ruled over Moab for 30 years". (3) Mesha disguises his attitude behind the matter-of-fact style which sheds dim light on his predecessor. Though the son avoids uttering any biting remarks, he emphasizes his vantage point. His silence is as eloquent as his speech. The same attitude to their ancestors showed Assyrian monarchs who dubbed them half playfully half contemptuously, "17 kings who lived in tents". (4)

Discovered in 1868 in the vicinity of Dhiban, some seventy kilometers south from Amman, Jordan, the Mesha Stele has become one of the cornerstones of the Biblical studies, supplying heavy ammunition both for Bible fans and critics. It contains the longest inscription in the Moabite language and the most detailed text outside the Holy Book which refers to Israel.

The Moabite Stone, as it is routinely called, is not devoid offlaws, stirring merciless scientific debates. Due to unfortunate circumstances of its purchasing, the stele of black basalt was broken into pieces. Though the remaining items were properly attached, some lines are incomplete, and almost the whole lower partis missing. If the content was symmetric, nearly half of the inscription has gone forever. The Moabite language uses the same purely consonantal script as ancient Hebrew-actually, the two tongues are closely related-and the shape of letters is characteristic for the second half of the ninth century BCE. (5)

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Toward the twilight of his reign, the Moabite king commissionsa stele which sums up his achievements and confirms the legitimacy of his power, taking a backward glance at his reign. The basis of his kingship is the unreserved support of Kemosh, the supreme god ofMoab. However, that was not always the case. Here Mesha takes an angry look at the days of his father, when a large part of the country was oppressed by foreign occupants for the single, though incomprehensible reason that "Kemosh was angry with his land". (6) Later, the divinity obviously changed sides allowing the sovereign to watch the downfall of all his foes after a long and agonizing ordeal, "… for he saved me from all the kings and let me enjoy the sight of all my enemies". (7) The hostilities should have taken a heavy toll on his country but, in retrospect, he is primarily focused on his personal gain.

Mesha exercised his power from Dibon, his favored residence onthe Dhiban Plateau, a triangular tableland bordered with Wadi Mujib (the Arnon River of the Bible) on the south and Wadi Walla on the north. He was proud of his lineage and origin, and even in the days of glory never forgot to mention that he was a local kid, "I am Mesha, the son of Kemoshyat, the king of Moab, the Dibonite". (8) Even in this self-presentation he emphasizes a strong bond between his royal status and his hometown. Later, he mentions the seizure ofan Israelite fort intending "to add it to Dibon". (9) He also tappedhis troops in construction projects, being pretty sure that nobody would question his decisions, "because all Dibon was obedient". (10)

You can't expect the political source to be even slightly objective. The past is manipulated to stay in line with the current ideology of the state. The events are laid out according to a geopolitical rather than chronological principle. The upper part, lines 1-31 up to the expression "the sheep of the land", deals with the royal activities to the north of the Arnon River. The king brings his exploits in the context of the holy war between the supreme deities of Israel and Moab. In other words, Mesha rose against oppressors after he had received a divine sign. That clue might have been a crippling defeat of the Israelite king inflicted by a monarch of Aram Damascus and the downfall of the Israelite ruling house. After all, the author of the inscription claims that "Israel perished utterly forever". (11) Actually, this is no more than wishful thinking-nevertheless, the tragic circumstances

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accompanying the demise of Israel's royal dynasty stirred autocraticaspirations in the heart of the ringleader. That was his moment of truth: whether to put up a rebellion or to give up like his ill-starred father.

Some scholars relate Mesha's revolt to the situation after theAramean conquest of the lion's share of the Israelite territory which occurred in 838-837 BCE. (12) If this assumption is correct, the Moabite vassal rose against King Jehu who had terminated all thebranches of the House of Omri and their intimates. The details of this bloodshed are rendered in 2 Kings chapter 9.

Mesha depicts the past in gloomy hues. Anyway, during the daysof his father Moab became dependent on the Israelite kingdom. Local rulers were deprived of large areas of their land and also had to pay heavy tribute. Foreign kings launched a resettlement program, building fortified cities and forts in the occupied territories. Theinjustice started with Omri, who was "[the] king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days", (13) and was followed by his descendants in the course of some forty years, "Omri had taken possession of theland… he dwelt in it in his days and the sum of the days of his sons: 40 years". (14)

Let's consider if this detail has any historic value. The House of Omri was called after the name of the first dynastic ruler who was succeeded by his son, Ahab, and two grandsons, Ahazia and Joram. The four rulers reigned slightly over forty years, 884-842 BCE. (15) During their tenures, the northern kingdom expanded beyondthe Jezreel Valley as far as Dor, a port city on the Mediterranean Sea, Hazor, in the Upper Galilee, En Gev, on the Sea of Galilee, andborder towns and forts in Moab, such as Ataroth and Jahaz. (16) It seems that there is nothing wrong with Mesha's counting. The thirty years of his father's term stand in line with the forty years of "oppression"; the difference accounts for the days of Mesha before the revolt. These are not symbolic numbers that refer merely to the generation shift.

Assyrian sources typically call the dynasty after the name of its founding father, sometimes ignoring the stubborn facts. Shalmaneser III, compiling the list of his vassals, mentions an Israelite king, ascribing him to the royal line in spite of the factthat he was a usurper, "I received the tribute of …Jehu, [the

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offspring] of the House of Omri". (17) The same information is conveyed on the "Black Obelisk". (18)The tribute includes a list of jewelry objects, weapons, and unspecified amounts of gold, silver, and tin. Adad-Nirari III enlisting his holdings in the Levant, relates to "the land of Omri". (19) Tiglath-pileser III, describing the downfall of the king of Damascus and his allies, refers to the total destruction of "the land of Bit-Humria"-The House of Omri. (20)

The opponents to the Assyrian "world order" were treated differently as if they were impostors; even their link with the ruling family, on which the rulers based the legitimization of theirpower, was explicitly denied. The Kurkh Monolith recounts "Ahab the Israelite" as a member of ill-fated anti-Assyrian coalition against Shalmanaser III in the Battle of Karkar. Though enlisted only the third, this "commoner" possessed the most powerful chariot force andimpressive number of foot soldiers. Hazael, the ruler of Damascus, who seized the power in the coup-d'état, was called the "son of nobody". (21)

The building of forts at Khirbet el-Mudeyine et-Temed (Jahaz) and Khirbet Atarus (Ataroth) shares characteristic features of the Israelite military construction in the 9th century BCE. Both lie on a rectangular podium, an elevated platform constructed over an existing hill shaped by filling and levelling works. Each of them features a casemate compound (encircled by a double wall with small rooms within) surrounded by a broad dry moat and supported by an earthen rampart. Both are protected by a six-chambered gate fortified by towers. Either of them faces the land of Dibon and controls communication lines. (22) The most important of these tracks presumably was the copper route which transported the "red" metal from Khirbet en Nahas in the desert Araba valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Eilat (Aqaba) along the King's Highway as far as Damascus. The radiocarbon analysis shows that this most developed source in the Levant reached the peak of its output between the years 900 and 850 BCE. (23)

At the final days of Joram, Israel experienced a disaster. Thenew king of Damascus, Hazael, had assaulted the northern kingdom andput its numerous cities to the torch. The common destiny was shared by Hazor, Yokneam, Jezreel, Megiddo, Taanach, and the list is not

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over yet. The House of Omri ceased to exist and Jehu, its terminator, survived on behalf of the Assyrian support. The Israelite polity had nearly perished!

That was the moment for Mesha to break the foreign yoke. The Israelite army was obviously called off to fight at other fronts since the Moabite leader didn't mention any pitch battle. His campaigns are short-termed, religiously motivated, and unconditionally successful. In Mesha's view, he overcomes his enemies because his supreme divinity is on his side. To please him, the winner was ready to defile the shrines of his opponents as well as to eliminate all the settlers.

Mesha attacked the Israelite town of Atarot established by theOmrides, "… the king of Israel built Atarot for himself", and settled by the men of Gad, "the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of Atarot from of old". (24) Mesha claims that all the inhabitants wereput to the sword, "I slew all the people". (25) He also humiliated the foreign god dragging his altar before Kemosh. The same fate wasin store for Nevo, where 7,000 men of all ages and gender were wasted. Of course, no twinge of regret is uttered! In addition, the altar hearths (or, in another translation, sacred vessels) of Yahwehwere crushed in front of the Moabite deity. This is the first time that the name of the Jewish god, which in translation means "I am who I am", is mentioned, surprisingly with the connection to the Israelite population in a border town rather than Jerusalem. However, in reality not every enemy citizen was eliminated since, while describing his construction projects, the winner recounts Israelite captives, "I dug the ditches … with prisoners of Israel". (26) He also captured the fort Yahaz which had been abandoned without a fight, "Kamosh drove him [the anonymous king of Israel] out before me". (27)

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The military operations were succeeded by building projects and resettlement programs. In Dibon, Mesha set up a walled acropolis, with the king's house and the temple to the supreme god. He completed a water project, constructing the reservoir inside the walls and demanding that every household should have a cistern. The winner restored ruined cities and consecrated new temples. He threw a bridge across the Arnon. The ruler commissioned two groups of the Moabite people to settle in Atarot and two hundred warriors from noble families to dwell in Yahaz, "I took from Moab two hundred men,all the chiefs thereof, and I established them in Yahaz". (28) In total, the donor claims that he had annexed over one hundred towns-another example of boastful overstatement, showing his insatiable appetite for territories multiplied with his overblown pride, "I ruled [over a] hundred of towns that I added to the land". (29) Actually, he mentions only ten places or so, and not all of them caneven be qualified as towns.

The lower part of the stele deals with the struggle of Mesha against the foreign occupation to the south of the Arnon. The existing few broken lines don't allow us to make far-reaching

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conclusions. However, everything changed when a French scholar, A. Lemaire, managed to read an unintelligible expression in line 31 as "the House of David". This is the beginning of the passage devoted to a short-term campaign aimed at the town of Horonen, "And the house of David dwelt in Horonên". (30) From this we can understand that Mesha's revolt was also directed against the king of Jehuda whohad seized his share of foreign lands which the ambitious Moabite king attempted to reclaim. Even more important is the reference to David who is considered the head of the royal dynasty of Jehuda muchthe same as Omri launched the line of the Israelite kings. This is probably the earliest reference confirming the existence of the Judahite state.

Conclusion

At first sight, Mesha's Stele tells a typical success story whose royal hero managed to transform his backward vassal state intoa self-sufficient independent kingdom within one generation. The Moabite king freely rewrites the past presenting a roster of military victories and building projects to legitimize his authoritarian regime in the eyes of his god and men.

His achievements on the battle field should not be taken for granted since he focuses on the seizure of small towns and forts with no reference to a full-fledged warfare which includes stubborn resistance and lightning counter attacks. The significance of his triumph ought to be assessed in the light of political circumstances. The Israelite state was at its nadir having lost manyterritories to the rising star of Damascus. The Omride Dynasty was eliminated, the army cut short, and the settlers in Moab tried in vain to take refuge in fortified towns. This deterioration of foreign power gave Mesha a good excuse to break with previous agreements and launch a long struggle against oppressors.

The Moabite Stone is a memorial reflecting Mesha's crucial role in the emergence of the territorial state. His enemy's genuine names are disguised by the collective titles of the House of Omri and the House of David. The winner covers their identity to depersonalize his foes and delegitimize their rule. He does it so skillfully that what is left for us is to make educative guesses. The author of the inscription also emphasizes the religious impact of his victories i.e. the triumph of his deity over the god of

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Israel. The defiling of the Yahwistic sanctuary carries devotional overtones where the disgrace of divinity is merged with the humiliation of believers.

However, behind the deceptive façade of victories and construction activities gleams something else. Maybe-just maybe-thisis not the story of gaining territorial integrity but about the price for freedom and restoring one's violated dignity.

(Both illustrations to this article, The Moabite Shepherd and The Moabite Warriors, were created by Irina Tagunova)

Endnotes:

(1) 2 Kings 3:4 NIV at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+3%3A+4&version=NIV

(2) Routledge, B.E. "Moab in the Iron Age", p. 144. Philadelphia, 2004.

(3) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 2 at http://www.specialtyinterests.net/moabite.html

(4) Colon, D. "Ancient Near Eastern Art", p. 231. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995.

(5) Lemaire, A. "The Mesha Stele and the Omri Dynasty" in "Ahab Agonistes", p. 136. London, New York, 2007.

(6) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 5-6.(7) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 4.(8) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 1-2.(9) "Mesha Stele Translation", line21.(10) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 28.(11) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 7.(12) Lemaire, p. 140.(13) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 4-5.(14) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 7-8.(15) Finkelshtein, I. "The Forgotten Kingdom", p. 83.

Atlanta, 2013.(16) Finkelshtein, p. 86, the map of Israel in the days of

the Omrides.(17) Grabe, L.L. "The Kingdom of Israel from Omri to the Fall

of Samaria" in "Ahab Agonistes", p. 75.(18) "I received tribute from Jehu of the House of Omri".

Beyer, B.B. & Arnold, B.T. "Readings from the Ancient Near East", p. 144. Grand Rapids, MI, 2002.

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(19) Rogers, R.W. "Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament",p. 306. New York, 2005.

(20) Grabe, p. 79.(21) Grabe, p. 74.(22) Filkenstein, I. & Lipschits, O. "Omride Architecture in

Moab", pp. 34-36 at http://isfn.skytech.co.il/articles/Omride%20Architecture%20Moab%20ZDPV.pdf

(23) Finkelshtein, I. "The Forgotten Kingdom", p. 114 (a gridof intensity of copper production).

(24) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 10-11.(25) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 11.(26) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 25-26.(27) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 19.(28) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 20.(29) "Mesha Stele Translation", lines 28-29. (30) "Mesha Stele Translation", line 31.