Debated King David Reference on Mesha Stele Solved

Summary: A new digital photography method confirms written records of biblical King David on Mesha Stele.
Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. So King Jehoram [Joram] marched out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. And he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to battle against Moab?” And he said, “I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” – 2 Kings 3:4-7 (ESV)

House of David Inscription on Mesha Stele Confirmed

More physical evidence demonstrating the Bible as a reliable historical document has surfaced concerning a royal Israelite House of David inscription. Using new advanced photographic techniques, the 2,800-year-old Mesha Stele was recently determined to contain clear references to King David that before were highly debated.

The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is one of the oldest and most remarkable artifacts connecting biblical history to the ancient world, but there have been long standing arguments over the possible misidentification of the phrase “House of David.” The area of the inscription that features David’s name is damaged and partly unreadable. Only two of the five letters were clear until now, thanks to a new method of digital photography and a re-examination of the evidence.

Replica of the Moabite Stone. Palestine Government Museum. (credit: Matson Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Crazy Destruction of the Valuable Stele

The Mesha Stele was discovered intact in Jordan, roughly 15 miles east of the Dead Sea, the biblical site of Moab, in 1868 by Anglican missionary Frederick Augustus Klein. The stele was erected by King Mesha of Moab at his capital city of Dibon. Archaeologists date the inscription to around 840 BC.

Stelae (plural of stele) are monuments in the form of upright stone slabs or pillars that are often inscribed. The Mesha Stele is made of black basalt and measures about 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Its 34 preserved lines of text make it the longest ancient inscription ever found on a monument in the area of Israel and Jordan.

Unfortunately, disaster struck a year after the stele was found. Arguments over the possession of the stele led to it being smashed into several fragments by the Bani Hamida tribe (Bedouins) as an act of defiance against the Ottoman authorities. When it became clear that the ownership dispute and bidding war over the stele were about to go in favor of the Ottoman Turks, the Bedouins heated the stele over a fire while pouring water on it causing the stone to explode into pieces.

Luckily, or providentially, a paper mache impression (also called a squeeze) had been taken off the inscription prior to it being broken. Using the impression, the missing portions were able to be reconstructed along with the pieces of splintered stone. The stele now sits safely in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Stele of Mesha, king of Moab, recording his victories against the Kingdom of Israel. Basalt, ca. 800 BC. From Dibon, now in Jordan. (credit: Louvre Museum, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Moabite/Hebrew Language

The language of the inscription is Moabite, very similar to Hebrew. It uses an alphabetic script almost identical to the Old Hebrew (or Paleo-Hebrew) investigated in our film, Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy.

The “Moabite” language was a different dialect of the common language spoken (and written) in this region that could just as well be called an early form of Hebrew. Similarly, the writing on the recently profiled lice comb labeled “Canaanite” is consistent with the other Semitic alphabetic writing that emerged in Egypt and migrated to Canaan at the time of the ancient Israelites. According to the Bible, the people of Moab descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew, so it’s not surprising that their descendants spoke a very similar language.

The relationship between Moabite and the Hebrew of its time is described by Encyclopedia Britannica as differing “only dialectically.” “It is probable that Moabite and Hebrew were, for the most part, mutually intelligible,” according to Dearman and Jackson’s 1989 book Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab.

Moab and Israel had a long history of interchange and conflict in the Bible, with control of certain areas shifting back and forth over the centuries. In fact, the great-grandmother of King David was Ruth, a Moabite who emigrated to Judah.

The Mesha Stele tells the story of Israel’s occupation of lands that King Mesha considered to be part of Moab. It also commemorates the Moabite king’s military victories and building projects. Several other biblical names and events are mentioned on the stele with amazing specificity.

Map of the kingdoms around Israel – showing one opinion for the borders in the 9th century BC. (credit: Erp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mesha Stele Biblical References

References to biblical history contained in the Mesha Stele inscription include:

• ‟YHWH” (This is one of the oldest references to Israel’s God ‟YHWH” outside the Bible. The oldest come from two Egyptian inscriptions and the recently discovered Mount Ebal curse tablet.)

• ‟Israel” – six times (This is the third oldest known use of the name ‟Israel” in an inscription, behind the Berlin Pedestal and the Merneptah Stele.)
• ‟Omri …king of Israel” (Omri reigned in Israel a half-century after the death of Solomon split the nation in two.)
• ‟The men of Gad” (Gad was one of the Israelite tribes that settled east of the Jordan River, north of Moab.)

The text in question on the stone has been proposed to read “House of David” and “Altar of David.” Before now, scholars could not be entirely sure that these references to King David were being correctly deciphered. The Moabite phrase “House of David” consists of five letters but only the first and fourth letters of the series, bet and waw were completely clear. Three letters completing the reference to David were assumed to be taw (like modern Hebrew tav), dalet, and dalet.

Mesha Stele Discovery Site Dibon. (credit: Bashar Tabbah, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Long Withstanding Debate

In 2019, the prominent Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, contested the reference to David in the stele. He claimed the letters had been misidentified. Finkelstein suggested that the king referred to in the stele was Balak, a biblical Moabite who lived 200 years before David.

The archaeology department at Tel Aviv University, where Finkelstein is a professor, has a reputation for being skeptical about much of biblical history. The scholars involved in the study are of like mind when it comes to their view of the early history of Israel in the Bible. This may influence their study and interpretation of ancient inscriptions.

Recent re-examination of the evidence by researchers André Lemaire and Jean-Philippe Delorme has led to a pro-bible conclusion. They published their findings in a late-2022 article entitled “Mesha’s Stele and the House of David” in the winter issue of Biblical Archeology Review. In the article they write:

“In 2015, a team from the West Semitic Research Project of the University of Southern California took new digital photographs of both the restored stela and the paper squeeze. The team used a method called Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), in which numerous digital images are taken of an artifact from different angles and then combined to create a precise, three-dimensional digital rendering of the piece. This method is especially valuable because the digital rendering allows researchers to control the lighting of an inscribed artifact, so that hidden, faint, or worn incisions become visible.”

David in the Mesha Stele – a two-word phrase in line 12, אראל. דודה, translated “its Davidic altar-hearth.”(credit: Louvre Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

More recently in 2018, the Louvre Museum took these new, high-resolution pictures and projected light onto them coming directly through the 150-year-old squeeze paper. This method allowed researchers to gather a much clearer picture of the ancient inscription. By this method, they were able to see evidence of the other three letters, explained Lemaire and Delorme. They concluded that the Mesha Stele is indeed referring to “the House of David.” No doubt, some of those opposed to this reading in the past will continue to question the “David” interpretation, but the new technology has given much new weight to the case that it is David being referenced.

The historicity of biblical King David was also corroborated by the Tel Dan Stele discovered in 1993 that is believed to have been created in 870–750 BC. This stele contains several lines of Aramaic referring to an individual who killed Jehoram of Israel, the son of Ahab and king of the house of David. The account can be found in 2 Kings 9:24.

Conclusion

Exciting new technology is allowing re-examination of ancient artifacts uncovering even more information than before. This new study of the Mesha Stele helps verify that King David did indeed exist and the Bible is an accurate record of history. This is the second clear reference to the House of David from the era of Israelite monarchy. The archaeological world is generally skeptical about David – many saying he never existed as the king of a powerful Israel like the Bible describes, making this discovery so important. We can be confident that we serve a real God, a God who works through history and has provided us with a reliable record of the past.

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TOP PHOTO: Mesha Stele (credit: Louvre Museum, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)