[JSOT 81 (1998) 3-14]

T HE TEL DAN STELA AS A PIECE OF R OYAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

André Lemaire
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Histoire et Philologie, Sorbonne,
45-47 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France

The discovery of several fragments of an Aramaic stela in Tel Dan, in

1993 and 1994, and their quick publication by Abraham Biran and
Joseph Naveh, has been followed, also very quickly, by more than sixty
articles (see the Further Reading section, below). They are not all of the
same interest and will not be discussed here in detail. But they show the
place taken at once by this inscription among biblical and historical
scholars. I hesitate to write again about this famous stela since my own
dating and historical interpretation, in 1994, 1 of fragment A has been
largely confirmed by the publication of fragment B, so that, now, I find
myself in general agreement with the reading and historical inter-
pretation of the editio princeps of fragment B. Furthermore, thanks to
A. Biran, I have checked myself, in the Hebrew Union College
museum, the placement of fragments A and B and I agree with the pre-
sentation of the editio princeps which seems to me the most probable,
even if not practically certain. I should like here to try reading these
fragments as parts of a royal stela in the classical historiographic style
of this period, and, eventually, clarify a few points in reading and
philological or historical interpretation.
Text:
1'. . . . . . . . . . ]MR.‘[ . . . . . . . . . . . . ]WGZR[ . . .]
2'. . . . . . ].’BY.YSQ[. . . . . .BH]TLÓMH.B’B[. .]
3'. WY⁄KB.’BY.YHK.’L[.’BHW]H.WY‘L.MLKY[⁄]
4'. R’L.QDM.B’RQ.’BY[.W]YHMLK.HDD[.]’[YTY.]

1. See, instead, my article ‘Epigraphie palestinienne: nouveaux documents. I.

fragment de stèle araméene de Tell Dan (IXë s. av. J.-C.)’, Henoch 16 (1994),
pp. 87-93.
4 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 81 (1998)

5'. ’NH.WYHK.HDD.QDMY[.W]’PQ.MN[.]⁄B‘[. . . .]
6'. Y.MLKY.W’QTL.ML[K]N[.TQ]PN.’SRY.’[LPY.R]
7'. KB.W’LPY.PR⁄.[QTLT.’YT.YW]RM.BR.[’Ó’B.]
8'. MLK.Y⁄R’L.WQTL[T.’YT.’ÓZ]YHW.BR[.YWRM.ML]
9'. K.BYTDWD.W’⁄M.[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .’]
10'. YT.’RQ.HM.L[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]
11'. ’ÓRN.WLHY[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Y(H)W’.M]
12'. LK.‘L.Y⁄[R’L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]
13'. MÍR.’L[. . . . . . . . . .

Translation:
1'. [.....................].......[...................................] and cut [.........................]
2'. [.........] my father went up [....................f]ighting at/against Ab[....]
3'. And my father lay down; he went to his [fathers]. And the king of I[s-]
4'. rael penetrated into my father’s land[. And] Hadad made me—myself
—king.
5'. And Hadad went in front of me[, and] I departed from ...........
[.................]
6'. of my kings. And I killed two [power]ful kin[gs], who harnessed two
thou[sand cha-]
7'. riots and two thousand horsemen. [I killed Jo]ram son of [Ahab]
8'. king of Israel, and I killed [Achaz]yahu son of [Joram king]
9'. of the House of David. And I set [.......................................................]
10'. their land ...[.......................................................................................]
11'. other ...[......................................................................... and Jehu ru-]
12'. led over Is[rael...................................................................................]
13'. siege upon [............................................................

Without inferring anything certain or even probable from the few

letters in line 1', let us note that the last letter of line 2' is fragmentary.
Actually it seems better to read it as a B, rather than a P. As already
noticed in the editio princeps, the parallel syntagma BHLTÓMH B- is
already attested in the Mesha stela, line 19. However, the eventual pro-
posed restitution [BH]TLÓMH B’B[Y does not seem to fit the context
since ’BY is clearly the subject at the beginning of lines 2' and 3'. Fur-
thermore, we shall see below that the restitution ‘LWH after YSQ is not
certain and that it is possible to propose an alternative restoration.
At the middle of line 3', the reference to the death of the previous
king seems practically certain: YHK.’L.[’BHW]H, ‘he went to his
[ancestors]’. If so, Y⁄KB probably describes a previous situation, when
he was lying in his bed. This interpretation of Y⁄KB seems to be
confirmed by two biblical texts:
 L EMAIRE The Tel Dan Stela 5

1. 2 Kgs 8.7-15 tells how, before Hazael became king of Aram,

his predecessor was ill and finally died in his bed.
2. 2 Kgs 8.28 and 9.15-16 tell us how, after being injured in
fighting in Ramoth-Gilead, Joram of Israel ‘was laid up’
(¡øk∑b) in Jezreel.
These parallels suggest that Y⁄KB refers to the illness of the previous
king, and more precisely that it could be the consequence of injuries in
a battle. In fact BHTLÓMH of line 3' seems parallel to bëhillå˙ÿmô of 2
Kgs 8.29 and 9.15. According to this interpretation, there was probably
a mention of the previous king being injured in the lacuna of the middle
of line 2' (taking the place of the proposed restitution of ‘LWH). The
general mention of the death of a king injured in a battle may have a
parallel in the, unfortunately, fragmentary lines 15-16 of the Panamuwa
inscription remembering Panamuwa death during the siege of Damas-
cus by Tiglath-pileser III.2.
At the beginning of line 4', the editio princeps understands QDM as a
temporal adverb: ‘formerly, previously’. However such an interpreta-
tion does not fit the immediate context: why mention a previous attack,
several years earlier, of the king of Israel exactly between the death of a
king and the coronation of his successor? As noted already in 1994 and
also translated by N. Na’aman,3 QDM is rather here a local adverb
specifying the verb WY‘L: the king of Israel entered, advanced, pene-
trated into the kingdom of Damascus and he did it exactly when its king
died, leaving perhaps no son and a difficult succession. Apparently, the
moment of the Israelite attack was not random but chosen on purpose.
What about the fact that Hazael, ‘a son of nobody’ according to an
inscription of Shalmaneser III,4 could call Hadadezer/Adadidri his
‘father’? This is not new in the royal historiographical tradition of the
ancient Near East. It is well known in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom5
and probably attested in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, especially for

2. See Tropper, Die Inschriften von Zincirli (ALASP, 6; Münster: Ugarit-

Verlag, 1993), pp. 121-22.
3. N. Na’aman, ‘Hazael of ‘Amqi and Hadadezer of Beth-Roheb’, UF 27
(1995), p. 389.
4. ANET, p. 280.
5. See G. Posener, Littérature et politique dans l’Égypte de la XIIë Dynastie
(Paris: Champion, 1956), p. 3; D. Devauchelle, ‘Le chemin de vie dans l’Égypte
ancienne’, in R. Lebrun (ed.), Sagesses de l’Orient ancien et chrétien (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1993), pp. 91-112 (96) n. 1.
6 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 81 (1998)

Tiglath-pileser III.6 In the Bible itself, David once calls Saul ’åbª, ‘my
father’ (1 Sam. 24.11). So, one should not be surprised that Hazael,
whose father is not known, could call Hadadezer: ‘my father’. It was a
traditional way to present oneself as a legitimate successor.
Actually, as already well indicated by the editio princeps, lines 4'–5':
[W]YHMLK.HDD[.]’[YTY.]’NH, ‘and Hadad made me—myself—
king’, are a clear hint that the succession between Hadadezer and
Hazael was not natural. Zakkur I, line 3, Panamuwa lines 6-7 and sev-
eral biblical texts (1 Sam. 8.22; 15.11-35; 1 Kgs 1.43; 12.1-20) show
clearly that in ancient north-west semitic historiography, the factitive of
MLK was generally introduced when the succession was unusual and,
somehow, problematic.
How can a national god make an ordinary man a king? How did
Hadad make Hazael king? As I tried to show elsewhere,7 epigraphical
(Zakkur I, lines 3 and 11-15) and biblical parallels (1 Sam. 10.1-24;
11.12-24; 16.12-13; 1 Kgs 11.35-37; 18.16; 2 Kgs 9.1-10) suggest that
it was by a divine oracle transmitted by a prophet. The new king, who
could not justify his kingship by his father’s, used to justify it by a
prophetic oracle in his favour and lines 4'-5' refer implicitly to such a
prophetic oracle in favour of Hazael.
In fact the Bible reports two prophetic oracles in favour of the king-
ship of Hazael, not from Hadad but from Yahweh:
1. 1 Kgs 19.15, Elijah at Horeb receives the order of anointing
‘Hazael to be king of Aram’.
2. 2 Kgs 8.7-15, Elisha says to Hazael: ‘Yahweh has revealed to
me that you will be king of Aram.’
Without arguing in details, one can note four points:
1. The Aramaic stela and the biblical tradition seem to agree that

6. See, for instance, P. Garelli, in P. Garelli and A. Lemaire, Le Proche-Orient

asiatique. II. Les empires mésopotamiens, Israël (Nouvelle Clio; Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1997), p. 105: ‘il se donne dans une inscription, pour un
fils d’Adadnârâri III, l’une des listes royales le présente comme un fils d’Assur-
nârâri V’.
7. ‘Oracles, politique et littérature dans les royaumes araméens et transjor-
daniens (IXë-VIIIë s. av. n. è.)’, in J.-G. Heintz (ed.), Oracles et prophéties dans
l‘Antiquité (Travaux du Centre de Recherche sur le Proche-Orient et la Grèce
antiques, 15; Paris: De Boccard), pp. 171-93.
 L EMAIRE The Tel Dan Stela 7

prophetic oracles justified Hazael’s kingship, which was not

natural.
2. From the Aramaic point of view, that is to say in the Aramaic
stela, only Hadad, the main god of Aram, could legitimate
Hazael as a king of Aram and this presentation is historically
probable.
3. The mention of a Yahwist oracle in favour of Hazael is
surprising. It probably aimed to settle an internal Israelite
political problem, that is, to justify the politics of Elisha who
exhorted Israelites to submit to Hazael.8
4. This prophetical Elisha interpretation was finally referred to
the authority of Elijah to have it more easily accepted.
As noted in the editio princeps, the following sentence WYHK HDD
QDMY, ‘and Hadad went in front of me’, has several parallels in
Assyrian texts9 and in the Hebrew Bible (Deut. 1.30; 31.8). One notes
that, if the national god ‘walks’ in front of the king, that is to say in
front of the marching army, the national god ‘stands’ with him when
the king must resist to a siege (see Zakkur I, line 14: [’NH ’Q]M ‘MK;
Hadad 2.3; Ps. 94.16).
The precise meaning of the next sentence (lines 5'-6') is very uncer-
tain even if it clearly refers to a counter-attack by Hazael. ⁄B‘ could be
part of a toponym as well as the number ‘seven’, and MLKY could
mean ‘my (vassal) kings’ as well as ‘my kingdom’ or ‘my kingship’.
The following sentence, lines 6'-7', is practically complete and needs
a detailed examination. It was understood by the editio princeps as:
‘And I slew [seve]nty kin[gs], who harnessed thou[sands of cha]riots
and thousand of horsemen (or: horses)’.
This reading and interpretation of the first words present four
difficulties:
1. If the order ‘number + name’ is frequent in Late Aramaic, the
inverse order ‘name + number’ is more usual in Old
Aramaic.10 Actually it is attested immediately after: ’LPY
RKB W’LPY PR⁄.

8. The text reads hinn∑h-zo’t hårå‘åh m∑’∑t YHWH: 2 Kgs 6.33 (see 13.3); cf.
Lemaire, ‘Oracles’, pp. 177-80.
9. For instance Nergal in the Kurkh Monolith.
10. S. Segert, Altaramäische Grammatik (Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie,
1975), p. 344 § 6.4.2.3.2.
8 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 81 (1998)

2. If ‘seventy’ is a well-known number, especially in stories of a

coup d’état with the killing of ‘seventy sons of the king’ (see
Panamuwa lines 3-4; Judg. 8.30; 9.2-56; 2 Kgs 10.1-7), there
is apparently no parallel to a king claiming to have killed
‘seventy’ other kings.
3. By this time, there were probably only 32 kings in the whole
of Transeuphrates,11 and if Hazael succeeded, for a while, to
dominate all these kingdoms,12 he probably did not kill all
these kings!
4. Palaeographically, the reading ‘seventy’ is based only on a
very small fragment of a letter which is interpreted as part of
an ‘ayin but could also be part of another letter.
For all these reasons, we have to look for another reading which could
better fit the context and the usual style of royal historiography.
N. Na’aman already has proposed reading: W’QTL ML[K]N
[’D]RN, ‘and I slew mighty kings’,13 and one could quote the parallel
Phoenician syntagma MLKM ’DRM in the inscription of Kilamuwa
(lines 6-7) as well as MMLK<T> ’DR in the Eshmun’azor inscrip-
tion.14 However ’DR is a Phoenician or Hebrew word but does not
seem to be attested in Aramaic. We have to look for another solution!
A detailed examination of the very fragmentary letter shows that it
could also very well be part of a pe (see the top of the pe above, line
5'). Therefore it is possible to read [.TQ]PN, ‘powerful’, as in the Ara-
maic syntagma malëkªn taqqªpªn of Ezra 4.20 pertaining precisely to the
kings of Jerusalem. But this syntagma presents another problem: it
could be a plural or a dual, as we have M’TN in the Mesha stela. Even
if one cannot be certain, a dual interpretation seems preferable here
since the syntagma is precisely followed by the mention of killing two
kings.

11. See ‘Joas de Samarie, Barhadad de Damas, Zakkur de Hamat. La Syrie-

Palestine vers 800 av. J.-C.’, in S. A˙ituv and B.A. Levine (eds.), A. Malamat
Volume (Eretz-Israel, 24; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993), pp. 148-57.
12. See A. Lemaine, ‘Hazaël de Damas, roi d’Aram’, in D. Charpin and
F. Joannès (eds.), Marchands, diplomates et empereurs: Etudes sur la civilisation
mésopotamienne offertes à P. Garelli (Paris; Éditions Recherche sur les Civil-
isations, 1991), pp. 91-108 (97).
13. ‘Hazael of ‘Amqi’, p. 388.
14. See also KAI 19.6.
 L EMAIRE The Tel Dan Stela 9

A similar problem—plural or dual interpretation—appears in ’LPY

RKB W’LPY PR⁄. The editio princeps of fragment A had translated
’LPY PR⁄, ‘two thousand horsemen’. Later on, influenced by Mur-
aoka’s article, the editio princeps of fragment B translates: ‘thousands
of chariots and thousands of horsemen’. However, Muraoka presented
not a clear-cut solution but only a suggestion. Furthermore, he appar-
ently did not know a clear attestation of a dual on an eighth-century
BCE Aramaic weight which the editio princeps of fragment B is fully
entitled to mention. Clearly ’LPY could be a dual as well as a plural.
Actually a dual interpretation fits much better the literary and histori-
cal context for two reasons:
1. The Mesha stela as well as many Assyrian royal inscriptions
show that, by this time, it was very common, in royal inscrip-
tions, to give the number (eventually the rounded number) of
the enemy.15
2. As I already noted in 1994, these numbers have to be com-
pared to those of the Israelite army at the battle of Qarqar,
only 12 years earlier. As is well known, the Kurkh Monolith
gives ‘two thousand chariots’ for the army of Ahab the
Israelite, exactly the number of chariots mentioned by Hazael
in the Dan stela.
It cannot be a coincidence and, from this comparison, we may probably
draw two conclusions:
1. The number given in the Kurkh Monolith included not only
the Israelite chariots but also the Judaean ones, as in the Dan
stela.
2. The Assyrian scribe or engraver made a mistake in describing
the Israelite army, not because he increased the number of
chariots from 200 to 2000, as proposed twenty years ago,16

15. See, for instance, A.R. Millard, ‘Large Numbers in the Assyrian Royal
Inscriptions’, in M. Cogan and I. Eph’al (eds.), Ah! Assyria … Studies in Assyrian
History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to H. Tadmor (Scripta
Hierosolymitana, 33; Jerusalem: Magnes Press/Hebrew University, 1991), pp. 213-
22; M. de Odorico, The Use of Numbers and Quantifications in the Assyrian Royal
Inscriptions (State Archives Assyria Studies, 3; Helsinki: Helsinki University
Press, 1995).
16. N. Na’aman, ‘Two Notes on the Monolith Inscription of Shalmaneser III
from Kurkh’, Tel Aviv 3 (1976), pp. 89-106 (97-102); see also De Odorico, The Use
10 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 81 (1998)

but, as I proposed already in 1994, because he forgot to men-

tion the number of horsemen, this last one being the same as
the number of chariots: 2000.
In conclusion, regarding the interpretation of this important historical
sentence, we have to understand that Hazael was proud, not of having
defeated two petty kings, but for being victorious against two powerful
allied kings and their armies.
The following two sentences give only a few details about this battle
with the name of the enemies: Joram (probably to be written without H
as already seen by W.H. Schniedewind17) and Achazyahu, king of the
‘House of David’. Although there were many discussions about the
syntagma BYTDWD, there is no epigraphical and historical problem
about it. Parallel to the mention of Israel, it fits very well the content of
this fragmentary inscription as it fits clearly the fragmentary line 31 of
the Mesha stela. 18 Actually both inscriptions probably date from the
same period, the last quarter of the ninth century, and Mesha was very
probably an ally or vassal of Hazael. The mention of B(Y)T DWD by
two enemies of Judah very probably reveals that it was part of the
official diplomatic language of this period.
The claim of Hazael to have killed Joram of Israel and Achazyhau of
Judah clearly contradicts the detailed story of Jehu’s coup d’état in 2
Kgs 9.1–10.28. Who really killed the two kings, Hazael or Jehu’s parti-
sans? Without entering into details here, it seems clear enough that the
main narrative of 2 Kgs 9.1–10.28 is probably close to the event,19
while the Dan stela may have been engraved twenty or thirty years
later. One should note here, after B. Halpern20 and W.H. Schniede-
wind, 21 that we have a very interesting parallel double claim in

of Numbers, pp. 104-105.

17. ‘Tel Dan Stela: New Light on Aramaic and Jehu’s Revolt’, BASOR 302
(1996), p. 80.
18. See my article, ‘La dynastie davidique (byt dwd) dans deux inscriptions
ouest-sémitiques du IXë s. av. J.-C.’, SEL 11 (1994), pp. 17-19.
19. See, for instance, J.A. Montgomery and H.S. Gehman, The Books of Kings
(ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1951), p. 399: ‘a practically contemporary docu-
ment’. Actually it was probably used to legimate Jehu’s coup d’état at the begin-
ning of his reign.
20. ‘The Construction of the Davidic State: An Exercise in Historiography’, in
V. Fritz and P.R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States
(JSOTSup, 228; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 47 n. 10.
21. ‘Tel Dan Stela’, p. 84.
 L EMAIRE The Tel Dan Stela 11

contemporary Assyrian royal inscriptions. In the Kurkh monolith again,

it is said that nobles, ‘with their own weapons’, killed Giammu, their
lord (on the Balih),22 but in the Marmorplatte, about fifteen years later,
Shalmaneser III claims to have killed Giammu himself. 23 This parallel
gives us another hint that Hazael is boasting here and that the Dan stela
was probably not engraved immediately after 841 but several years
later, at least late enough in Hazael’s reign, when he controlled Israel,
Judah and most of Transeuphrates.
Like the Mesha stela, the fragmentary text we have is typical of a
memorial stela intended ‘as propaganda boasting of Hazael’s victo-
ries’24 against Israel and Judah. This stela is still more fragmentary than
the Mesha one and the text we have is only part of the beginning of a
‘summary royal inscription’, probably engraved in the second part of
Hazael’s reign, c. 826–805/3 BCE. As in the Zakkur and Mesha stelae,
we can only guess that this royal inscription originally dealt not only
with Hazael’s victories but also with his royal buildings.25 Even if it is
propaganda, to be dealt with critically, this fragmentary text is a small
piece of Aramaic royal historiography which contains important histor-
ical informations and interpretations about the kingdoms of Damascus,
Israel and Judah in the second half of the ninth century.

FURTHER READING

A˙ituv, S., ‘On A. Biran and J. Naveh, “An Aramaic Inscription from Tel Dan” ’ (1994),
Qadmoniot 27, p. 63.
—‘Suzerain or Vassal? Notes on the Aramaic Inscription from Tel Dan’, IEJ 43 (1993),
pp. 246-47 (cf. corr. IEJ [1994], p. 156).
Barstad, H.M., and B. Becking, ‘Does the Stele from Tel-Dan Refer to a Deity Dôd?’
(1995), BN 77, pp. 5-31.
Becking, B., ‘Het “Huis van David” in een pre-exilische inscriptie uit Tel Dan’, NedTTs 49
(1995), pp. 108-23.
—‘The Second Danite Inscription: Some Remarks’, BN 81 (1996), pp. 21-30.
Ben Zvi, E., ‘On the Reading “bytdwd” in the Aramaic Stele from Tel Dan’, JSOT 64
(1994), pp. 25-32.

22. ARAB, I, §610.

23. Cf. E. Michel, ‘Die Assur-Texte Salmanasars (858–824). 6. Fortsetzung’,
WdO 2 (1954), pp. 32, 13-14.
24. Schniedewind, ‘Tel Dan Stela’, p. 85.
25. Pace V. Sasson, ‘Some Observations on the Use and Purpose of the waw
Consecutive in Old Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew’, VT 47 (1997), pp. 116-17.
12 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 81 (1998)

Biran, A., ‘The Aramaic Stele from Tel Dan’, The Israel Museum Journal 12 (1994),
pp. 57-60.
—Biblical Dan (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994), pp. 274-78.
—‘Biblical Dan and the House of David Inscription: From the Late Bronze Age to the Iron
Age’, in S. Gitin et. al. (eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition, Thirteenth to
Early Tenth Centuries BCE (Festschrift Trude Dothan; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration
Society, 1998), pp. 479-81.
Biran, A., and J. Naveh, ‘An Aramaic Inscription of the First Temple Period from Tel
Dan’, Qadmoniot 26 (1993), pp. 74-81.
—‘An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan’, IEJ 43 (1993), pp. 81-98.
—‘The Dan Inscription: The Mazzebot and the Marketplaces’, Qadmoniot 28 (1995), pp.
39-46.
—‘The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment’, IEJ 45 (1995), pp. 1-18.
Biran, A., and H. Shanks, ‘ “David” Found at Dan’, BARev 20.2 (1994), pp. 26-39.
Chapman, R.L., ‘The Dan Stele and the Chronology of Levantine Iron Age Stratigraphy’,
Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 13 (1993–94), pp. 23-29.
Cross, F.M., ‘Paleography and the Date of the Tell Fakhariyeh Bilingual Inscription’, in
Z. Zevit et al. (eds.), Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and
Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1995), pp. 393-409.
Cryer, F.H., ‘A “betdawd” Miscellany: dwd, dwd’ or dwdh?’, SJOT 9 (1995), pp. 52-58.
—‘King Hadad’, SJOT 9 (1995), pp. 223-35.
—‘Of Epistemology, Northwest-Semitic Epigraphy and Irony: The “bytdwd/House of
David” Inscriptions Revisited’, JSOT 69, (1996) pp. 3-17.
—‘On the Recently-Discovered “House of David” Inscription’, SJOT 8 (1994), pp. 3-19.
Davies, P.R., ‘bytdwd and swkt dwyd: A Comparison’, JSOT 64 (1994), pp. 23-24.
—‘ “House of David” Built on Sand: The Sins of the Biblical Maximizers’, BARev 20.4
(1994), pp. 54-55.
Demsky, A., ‘On Reading Ancient Inscriptions: The Monumental Aramaic Stele Fragment
from Tel Dan’, JANES 23 (1995), pp. 29-35.
Dietrich, D., ‘dåw•d, dôd und bydwd’, in Veritas Hebraica, Alttestamentliche Studien E.
Jenni, TZ 53 (1997), pp. 17-32.
Dijkstra, M., ‘An Epigraphic and Historical Note on the Stela of Tel Dan’, BN 74 (1994),
pp. 10-14.
Dion, P.E., Les Araméens à l’âge du Fer: histoire politique et structures sociales (EBib
NS, 34; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1997), pp. 194-95.
—‘Syro-Palestinian Resistance to Shalmanezer III in the Light of New Documents’, ZAW
107 (1995), pp. 482-89 (488-89).
Emerton, J.A., ‘New Evidence for the Use of Waw Consecutive in Aramaic’, VT 44 (1994),
pp. 255-58.
Freedman, D.N., and J.C. Geoghegan, ‘ “House of David” is There!’, BARev 21.2 (1995),
pp. 78-79.
Garbini, G., ‘L’iscrizione aramaica di Tel Dan’, in Atti della Accademia nazionale dei
Lincei, Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, rendiconti (Rome: Accademie
nazionale dei Lincei, 1994), IX.V.3, pp. 461-71.
de Geus, C.J.H., ‘Een belangrijke stèle uit Tel Dan, Israël’, Phoenix 41 (1995), pp. 119-30.
 L EMAIRE The Tel Dan Stela 13

Halpern, B., ‘The Construction of the Davidic State: An Exercise in Historiography’, in

V. Fritz and P.R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States
(JSOTSup, 228; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 44-75 (47, 65).
—‘The Stela from Dan: Epigraphic and Historical Considerations’, BASOR 296 (1994),
pp. 63-80.
Kallai, Z., ‘The King of Israel and the House of David’, IEJ 43 (1993), p. 248.
Kaswalder, P., and M. Pazzini, ‘La stela aramaica di Tel Dan’, RivB 42 (1994), pp. 193-
201.
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ABSTRACT

The fragmentary stela found in Tel Dan, erected by Hazael, king of Damascus, is to
be understood in the context of Semitic royal historiography of the ninth–eighth
centuries BCE. Its text makes sense when confronted with the data and formulae of
contemporary Akkadian, Aramaic, Phoenician and Moabite inscriptions, as well as
with the Hebrew books of Kings.