Many times in recent decades and over the past two hundred years, archaeological finds have confounded skeptics and unbelievers, and given evidence in support of the Bible. One such find is the “Moabite Stone”, aka “The Mesha Stele”. I’m here summarizing the description of this stele and how it came to light, as told in two video documentaries noted below.
The stele, an extra-Biblical (non-Biblical) document, confirms the names of Biblical kings, a Moabite king as recorded in Scripture, and certain events also recorded in Scripture, particularly in 2 Kings chapter 3. It was created to commemorate military victories against a back-slidden Israel.
In the 1800s skeptics commonly argued (as they still do) that the Bible didn’t contain real history-it was all “myth” and fiction. The Moabite stone was found by Frederick Klein in 1868, a protestant missionary, among a Bedouin tribe, at the ancient city of Dibon, now in the modern state of Jordan. The site is precisely on the route the Bible says Israel took into the promised land. If you know your Bible, you will know that the Moabites were not willing for Israel to pass through their land into Canaan, and there was immediate animosity between the two.
When Klein first discovered the stone the Bedouin had no idea of its value. However, once Klein admitted how important it was (as he had to in order to buy it) they were unwilling to part with it, and began to put word out about it in influential circles in order to solicit the highest bid for it. Klein and assistants attempted to get a papier-mâché type impression of the stone, but were attacked by the Bedouin. They escaped with their lives and an incomplete impression. This is the stuff of an Indiana Jones movie!
At this point the Ottoman Turks became involved. Hating the Turks, the Bedouin broke the stone and hid the pieces rather than let the Turkish authorities have it. However, eventually most of the pieces were recovered, and with the incomplete paper impression made, along with a detailed drawing Klein had made when he first found the stone, it was pieced together, and has been on display in the Louvre since 1873.
The Moabite stone dates to the 9th Century BC (or for revisionists, BCE). It marks a rebellion of Moab against Israel. It begins,
“I am Mesha, Son of Komosh, King of Moab”.
2 Kings 3:4 reads:
Now Mesha king of Moab raised sheep, and he had to pay the king of Israel a tribute… (2 Kings 3:4).
The stele speaks of how Moab was oppressed by Omri, king of Israel. Omri is named in Scripture, and that he was the son of Ahab:
“In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned twelve years, six of them in Tirzah… “In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years” (1 Kings 16:23 and 29).
2 Kings describes how Moab rebelled against Israel:
But after Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel (verse 5).
Twelve of the cities Mesha recorded on the stone that he conquered are named in the Bible, and in line 19 of the stone inscription, Mesha mentions the name of Israel’s God, “YHWH”, or “Yahweh”. A further study of the stone has revealed the title, “The House of David”, another confirmation that the skeptics have also mistakenly rejected David as being a real king of Israel.
You can learn more of the details and related things most particularly in Joel Kramer’s video noted below.
NOTES
YouTube videos:
Discovering the Moabite Stone… Matches the Bible! (Joel Kramer’s channel is “Expedition Bible”).
King David-The Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries: Digging for Truth episode 142 (Associates for Biblical Studies).
Fuel for Faith 