Overview
A round-topped basalt stele, 125 cm high, inscribed in 34 lines in the name of Mesha son of Kemosh-[yat] king of Moab, 'the Dibonite'. The Louvre record says it was engraved shortly after 842 BCE for a sanctuary of the god Kemosh.
Klein saw the complete stone at Dhiban in 1868. A paper squeeze was taken for Clermont-Ganneau; the stone was then broken up by local people, and Clermont-Ganneau recovered fragments that were reassembled with the squeeze as guide. The Louvre bought it from him in 1873.
Mesha says Omri king of Israel oppressed Moab 'many days' because Kemosh was angry with his land, that Omri's son said he too would oppress Moab, and that Kemosh restored the land in Mesha's day. He lists taking Ataroth from the men of Gad, taking Nebo and carrying off 'the vessels of Yahweh' to Kemosh, driving the king of Israel out of Jahaz, and building works at Qarhoh, Aroer, the Arnon road and other towns. The closing lines, damaged, speak of Horonaim.
In its own words
Omri, king of Israel - he oppressed Moab many days, because Chemosh was angry with his land. And his son succeeded him, and he also said I will oppress Moab. ... And I took from there the altar-hearths of Yahweh (Jehovah), and I dragged them before Chemosh.George A. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1916), pp. 363-364 (translated from Smend and Socin 1886).
What the evidence shows
- Basalt, H 125 x W 69 x D 37 cm; incomplete, fragmented, reassembled with restoration (Louvre AO 5066).
- 34 lines of text in Phoenician-type letters, Moabite language (Louvre record).
- Names Omri king of Israel and his son; names Yahweh (the vessels/altar-hearths taken from Nebo); names Kemosh repeatedly; names 'the men of Gad' as dwelling in Ataroth 'from of old'.
- Place names in the text include Medeba, Baal-meon, Kiriathaim, Ataroth, Nebo, Jahaz, Dibon, Aroer, Arnon, Beth-bamoth, Bezer, Beth-diblathan, Beth-baal-meon and Horonaim (Barton 1916 translation).
- Line 31 is damaged; Barton's 1916 translation leaves the passage before Horonaim blank. Its reading is the subject of the 'House of David' dispute.
Open questions
- Line 31 'House of David': Lemaire proposed bt[d]wd; Langlois (Semitica 61, 2019) applied RTI to the stone and the 1868 squeeze and judged it 'hypothetical but ... the most probable reading', pointing to a word divider after the group; Lemaire and Delorme (BAR 48, Nov. 2022) state that new photographs 'clearly establish the presence of the first dalet and confirm the last dalet, while only the letter taw remains somewhat unclear', and conclude: 'we believe the reading btdwd is confirmed once and for all'. Richelle and Burlingame (BAR Spring 2023; BAS, 25 Aug 2023) answer that where the taw should stand 'there are no traces of scribal strokes belonging to a taw, only striations and small depressions', that the dalet on the squeeze depends on choosing which shadows count, and that the reading remains a hypothesis, not a finding. Finkelstein, Na'aman and Römer (Tel Aviv 46, 2019) examined new photographs of the stone and squeeze and concluded the ruler's name had three consonants starting with b, proposing Balak (Num 22-24).
- Timing against 2 Kings: the stele says Omri held Medeba 'his days and half the days of his son, forty years' and that Israel oppressed Moab in the son's days; 2 Kgs 1:1 and 3:5 place Moab's rebellion after Ahab's death. Barton (1916, p. 364) notes that the Bible says nothing of Mesha's revolt as he tells it and Mesha says nothing of the campaign in 2 Kgs 3. How to reconcile 'son' and 'forty years' with the regnal lengths in Kings is an open reading.
- Line 12 'rʾl dwdh' (Barton: 'altar-hearth of Duda'): whether dwdh is a divine name, a title, or a personal name is not settled by the text itself.
Since 2024
- 2022-11Lemaire and Delorme (BAR 48) publish the 2015 West Semitic Research Project RTI photographs and call btdwd 'confirmed once and for all'; press coverage in January 2023. [6]
- 2023-08Richelle and Burlingame reply that the taw shows only striations and the reading stays hypothetical. [7]
Sources
- Musée du Louvre, Département des Antiquités orientales, 'Stèle de Mesha', inv. AO 5066 (MNB 752; KAI 181). link museum record
- Charles Clermont-Ganneau, La stèle de Dhiban, ou stèle de Mesa, roi de Moab, 896 avant J.-C.: lettres à M. le Cte de Vogüé (Paris, 1870). link editio princeps
- George A. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1916), pp. 363-365 ('The Moabite Stone'). link translation
- Michael Langlois, "The Kings, the City and the House of David on the Mesha Stele in Light of New Imaging Techniques," Semitica 61 (2019): 23-47. link study
- Israel Finkelstein, Nadav Na'aman, Thomas Römer, "Restoring Line 31 in the Mesha Stele: The 'House of David' or Biblical Balak?" Tel Aviv 46.1 (2019): 3-11. doi:10.1080/03344355.2019.1586378 link study
- André Lemaire and Jean-Philippe Delorme, "Mesha's Stele and the House of David," Biblical Archaeology Review 48 (Nov. 2022). link study
- M. Richelle and A. Burlingame, 'Why Mesha's "House of David" Remains Hypothetical', Biblical Archaeology Society (Bible History Daily), 25 Aug 2023; abridging their response in Biblical Archaeology Review 49 (Spring 2023) link study (response)
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'limestone inscription'. The Louvre records basalt.
- Old entry: 'Approximately 1 meter tall'. Louvre: 125 cm high, 69 cm wide, 37 cm thick.
- Old entry: 'Discovery: 1868, Charles de Bruck'. The stone was seen by F. A. Klein in 1868 (Barton 1916, p. 363); Clermont-Ganneau secured the squeeze and fragments and sold it to the Louvre in 1873 (Louvre record).
- Old entry: 'the earliest known reference to the name Israel in an inscription outside the biblical tradition'. The Merneptah stele (Year 5 of Merneptah) already names Israel; Barton (1916, p. 311) translates 'Israel is desolated, his seed is not.'
- Old entry asserted that modern researchers overwhelmingly support the 'House of David' reading, citing no evidence. Replaced by the actual evidence on both sides (Langlois 2019; Lemaire & Delorme 2022; Finkelstein, Na'aman & Römer 2019).
- Old entry: 'dating to approximately 850 BCE'. The Louvre gives 9th c., engraved shortly after 842, with Mesha's era c. 830-805.
- Old entry placed it in the 'United Monarchy Period'; the text names Omri and his son, i.e., the divided kingdom (9th c.).
- Claims that the 'House of David' reading was 'confirmed by 2023 imaging': the imaging is the 2015 RTI set, published by Lemaire and Delorme in November 2022 (press, January 2023). They do call the reading confirmed; Richelle and Burlingame (2023) do not accept that. State it as a named dispute, not as a settled result and not as a non-existent study.
Checked against new publications through 2026-09.