YAHWEH
IN THE MESHA INSCRIPTION
The Mesha stela celebrates the
victories by which the king of Moab secured his realm from a capital in Dibon,
including the eviction of the neighboring kingdom of Israel from key centers.
While the basic exchange between the two kingdoms is clear enough, the conflict
and its participants can too easily be universalized in a way that equates all
the elements Moab as monarchy ruled by Mesha and Kamosh as god of Moab; Israel
as monarchy ruled by Omri as his son; and Yahweh as god of Israel. Even as we
move to biblical evidence for Yahweh before Israel this oldest non-biblical reference
to the clear divine name warrants a closer look.
In first-person voice, Mesha
reports the anger of the god Kamosh against “his land” (‘rṣh), so that
he allowed Omri king of Israel to dominate Moab “for many days” (lines 4-6).
Before launching into the details, the king boasts, “I looked (victoriously)
upon him and upon his house, and Israel disappeared completely and for good”
(line 7) (the intensifying effect of the infinitive absolute with the verb ‘bd
can be understood to refer to Israel’s removal from the land claimed by Moab,
not implying the destruction of that kingdom). The point of departure for Mesha’s
campaign is the fact that Omri has taken possession of “the land of Mehadaba,” using
the same category (‘rṣ) that defined Moab (lines 7-8), and this is what
Kamosh restored to Mesha (lines 8-9). Three settlement-focused victories
follow, before Mesha turns to his building achievements: over ‘Aṭarot, Nebo,
and Yahaṣ (lines 10-21). Israel is mentioned once by name in connection with
each of the three sites: the king of Israel “built” (so, fortified) ‘Aṭarot and
Yahaṣ (lines 10-11, 18-19); and Kamosh tells Mesha, “To take Nebo from Israel”
(line 14). Yahweh appears only in connection with Nebo, the only town that
Mesha empties by sacred slaughter (ḥrm), after which he “took from there
the vessels of Yahweh and dragged them before Kamosh” (lines 17-18).
We read these lines imagining from
the Bible that Yahweh is something like a “national god” for Israel, just as
Kamosh appears to be here for Moab, so that Israel’s defeat is equally Kamosh’s
defeat of Yahweh. Something like this equation does seem to be intended: Israel
is indeed bested by taking Nebo, along with other sites, and the final ritual
act of presenting Yahweh’s sacred objects to Kamosh declares the subordination
of the shrine to the Moabite god in a way that is only possible because of Israel’s
defeat. Yet we should hesitate to assume that we have adequate knowledge of the
context. Mesha never claims that Yahweh was introduced to Nebo only with Omri
and Israel, and sacred sites tend to persist in time. It is possible that the
sanctuary for Yahweh at Nebo preceded Omri’s arrival. Indeed Yahweh of the
Mesha text is aligned with Israel and its Omride kings, and the biblical and
other inscriptional evidence confirms Yahweh’s identification with Israel in
the 9th and 8th centuries. Yet the worship of Yahweh at Nebo need not have
required rule by Israel and incorporation into an entity by that name. Just as
the “men of Gad” (‘š gd) are understood to have occupied “the land of ‘Aṭarot”
from time gone by (line 10), Yahweh may not be a new arrival, though both the
Gadites and Yahweh are defeated by Moab (In Num 32:34, the Gadites [“children
of Gad”] are said to have rebuilt a list of towns identified with Og of Bashan,
including names familiar from the Mesha inscription: Dibon, ‘Aṭarot, Aroer, and
more. There is a connection between Gad and ‘Aṭarot, though it is not specific,
as in the Mesha text). If the Yahweh shrine at Nebo went back to time before
Omri, then it could reflect worship that was not tied to Israel. In such a
reconstruction, Yahweh at Nebo would also be “before Israel,” established
without reference to Israel by name, even as that people had alone existed in
the highlands west of the Jordan River. (Daniel E. Fleming, Yahweh Before
Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2021], 186-88)
Further Reading
2 Kings 3:27 and the ontological existence of other gods
John H. Walton and J. Harvey Walton on 2 Kings 3:26-27
More on the Plurality of the Gods in the Old Testament