Tel Dan Stele

The Tel Dan Stele is the name of an Aramaic inscription on a basalt slab, found in three fragments at Tel Dan in northern Israel in 1993 and 1994. The first piece was spotted in July 1993 by Gila Cook, a member of the Hebrew Union College expedition directed by Avraham Biran. The king who set up the stele is not named in what survives, but most scholars identify him as Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus. Its phrase bytdwd, read as "House of David," is the earliest widely accepted reference to David's royal house outside the Bible. It is displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

What the Inscription Says

Biran published the inscription with Joseph Naveh, an epigrapher. Christopher Rollston, writing for the Society of Biblical Literature's Bible Odyssey in 2014, bases his translation on their edition. In it the king recalls that "Israel had gone formerly into the land of my father," and that "Hadad made me king." He goes on to claim that he killed "[Jeho]ram son of [Ahab]," the "King of Israel," and "[Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram]," the "king of the house of David." The bracketed letters are the editors' restorations, which make the two victims Joram, Ahab's son, king of Israel, and Ahaziah, son of Jehoram king of Judah, of the house of David. Rollston reads that title as naming David's dynasty rather than David himself.

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The Bible's Account

In Scripture the LORD promises David, "Your house and kingdom will endure forever before Me" (2 Samuel 7:16). When the kingdom divided in 931 BC, at the start of the Divided Monarchy, the narrator says that "Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David" (1 Kings 12:19). Later the LORD commanded that Hazael be anointed king over Aram and Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and said that Jehu would put to death whoever escaped the sword of Hazael (1 Kings 19:15-17). At Damascus, Elisha told Hazael that the LORD had shown him Hazael would be king over Aram, and the next day Hazael spread a wet cloth over the face of Ben-hadad king of Aram and reigned in his place (2 Kings 8:7-15).

Ahaziah, king of Judah in 841 BC, joined Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel from 852 to 841 BC, to fight Hazael at Ramoth-gilead, where the Arameans wounded Joram (2 Kings 8:28-29). Jehu, anointed king over Israel, then shot Joram between the shoulders, and Ahaziah was shot as he fled and died at Megiddo (2 Kings 9:6, 24, 27). Jehu had been told to strike down the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:7), and these deaths began Jehu's purge; he reigned over Israel from 841 to 814 BC. As restored by its editors, however, the stele has its king claim both killings, while 2 Kings 9 says Jehu killed Joram (Jehoram of Israel) and Ahaziah. Rollston suggests that Hazael and Jehu, both usurpers, were working together, so that both could claim the killings.

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The Find and the Debate

The stele was broken in antiquity, and some of its pieces were later reused in a wall. Cook noticed letters cut into a stone in a wall by the ancient plaza. Two smaller pieces that fit each other turned up in June 1994. Ziony Zevit, in a 2002 article in the journal Biblica, calls the fragments a ninth-century BC Aramaic victory inscription. How the 1994 pieces fit with the 1993 piece has been debated, and one proposed arrangement separates them entirely. Rollston notes that some scholars read the phrase bytdwd differently, but that the majority consider "house of David" to be "the only compelling translation." By contrast, a proposed reading of the same phrase in line 31 of the Mesha Stele is disputed.