The Historians' History of the World 02

This inscription, which is the most ancient monument of Semitic epigraphy, clearly shows us the purely national character of the religions of Palestine. In it, Chemosh plays the part attributed to Jehovah in the books of the Hebrews. If Moab was oppressed by Israel, it was because Chemosh was angered against his people, in the same way as Israel explains its servitude by the anger of Jehovah. If Mesha undertook a war, it was in obedience with the orders of Chemosh: he placed an interdict over the towns and massacred the inhabitants in honour of Chemosh, as Joshua or David did in honour of Jehovah. These are the same ideas and the same expressions. The stele of Mesha concerns political history as well as the religious. The war between Israel and Moab is described in the Bible, and the two versions can be compared. The Moabite version is an official bulletin, that of the Book of Kings bears a legendary character, and the prophet Elisha plays in it the most important part.

[ca. 850-840 B.C.]

Under the reign of Jehoshaphat’s son, called Jehoram or Joram, like the king of Israel, the Edomites made themselves independent of the kingdom of Judah. The Chronicles also mention an invasion of the Philistines and the Arabs, in which all the children of Jehoram perished, excepting Ahaziah who succeeded him. The intrigues of the prophets were then preparing bloody revolutions in Syria and the kingdom of Israel.

Joram, king of Israel, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, son of Jehoram’s sister Athaliah, renewed the attack of Ahab and Jehoshaphat against Ramoth of Gilead, and had no better success. Joram, wounded by the Syrians, returned to Jezreel to establish himself, and his nephew Ahaziah came to see him.

[ca. 840-815 B.C.]

A new revolt was now raised by Jehu, who, having been anointed by the prophets, slew the kings of Israel and Judah, Jehoram and Ahaziah, Jezebel and “all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolk and his priests, until he left him none remaining.”

The priests of Baal, assembled by treachery, were all killed, the temple was overthrown and made into a draught house. These butcheries had an unexpected counterblow in Jerusalem. Of all Ahab’s family there remained only Athaliah, Joram’s widow, and Ahaziah’s mother. She occupied the throne after her son’s death, and as a singular result of Jehu’s crime, the worship of Baal, proscribed in the kingdom of Israel, found a refuge in the kingdom of Judah.

THE MOABITE STONE

Thus is this event described in the Book of Kings: “And when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bed chamber, from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. And he was with her hid in the house of the Lord six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land.”

This story, which furnishes the subject of one of Racine’s masterworks, is more dramatic than probable. The Bible does not tell us of whom this royal family, exterminated by Athaliah, was composed. The brothers and nephews of Ahaziah had been assassinated by Jehu on the road to Samaria; there is no reason why Athaliah should have completed the massacre by killing her grandchildren. If some of the king’s sons remained at Jerusalem safe from the rage of Jehu, no one had more interest in keeping them than the queen mother, as she was their guardian and could legalise her power by reigning in their name. All we know is that six years later the high priest Jehoiada presented a child to the soldiers, telling them that he was Ahaziah’s son, and the last branch of David’s race.

This child was proclaimed king under the name of Jehoash; Athaliah heard acclamations and rushed out of the palace and was slain by order of the high priest. The temple of Baal was invaded, and the high priest Mattan slain before the altar. Jehoiada appointed himself guardian of the new king, who was only seven years old: it was a government ruled by the priests.

The kingdom of Israel was divided for the first time in Jehu’s reign, for it is easier to deal with disarmed people than to cope with strange invasions. Hazael, the usurper, raised, like Jehu, by the prophet Elisha, conquered all the region to the east of the Jordan: “the land of Gilead, the territories of Gath, Reuben and Manasseh, from Aroer on the torrent Arnon to Gilead and Bashan.” The time was not far distant when the kingdoms of Israel and Damascus were to be absorbed by the powerful Assyrian Empire. Hazael, twice beaten by Shalmaneser II, acknowledges his supremacy, Jehu sent him a tribute of gold and silver bars.