Did Another God Defeat Israel in the Bible?

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]So, Second Kings does preserve a victory account partially, but in not a complete victory. Moab is not returned into the [music] correct vassal position. They're able to hold out at the end, which does align with what the Moabite Stone tells us that Mesha is able to throw off this power because his god Chemosh is on their side, and so they're able to go back and take cities like Nebo from Israel, and we have a different series of conquests and fights that take place there, but they tell the same story.

[00:00:30]There are fights that are taking place.

[00:00:32]We were able to throw off some of that power. That's a parallel that we do get between these. The stone doesn't tell us anything about a child [music] sacrifice.

[00:00:38]>> No.

[00:00:41]Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Bible & Archaeology Podcast. I am Jordan Jones. I'm here today with Mary Kate.

[00:00:46]Mary Kate, how are you doing today? I'm good. How are you, Jordan? I am good. We have a fun story today.

[00:00:51]>> Yeah, we'll talk about Second Kings 3.

[00:00:53]Why are we talking about Second Kings 3?

[00:00:56]Because we're going to be talking about the Moabite Stone. We're going to be talking about the Moabite Stone.

[00:00:59]>> Stele. And this is good. Double names.

[00:01:02]Same thing.

[00:01:03]>> As with some good things in life. Yeah.

[00:01:06]Moabite Stone, Mesha Stele, same deal.

[00:01:09]Second Kings 3 as a text that aligns with it and a whole bunch of political mess that goes with it.

[00:01:15]>> Conversation around the object in the story. The story This is a thing that, as you were telling me, you were diving into the depth of YouTube shorts on contextualizing this, for lack of better words. What do you mean contextualizing this?

[00:01:32]>> Oh, you know, just the Mesha Stele is our biggest proof of X, Y, and Z. And it goes down every train it of what it's proving. What are the most common it is proving?

[00:01:44]>> Oh, well, you know, proof of God, proof of God's will, proof of like Israel's power. And it's like, you know, did you read the story or the stone? The first two surprised me.

[00:01:56]>> Really? As the things they would come for. I have seen it before as >> What do you Like, what do you see it as?

[00:02:02]Well, the the things I've seen it come up as are the early archaeological evidence of early reference to It has a reference to >> Well, I was going on like the bad ones.

[00:02:12]Like, I was going for those like the like the graphics, you know that voice.

[00:02:16]It's all AI stuff.

[00:02:17]>> Yeah, all that AI voice.

[00:02:18]>> So, we will be an AI-free episode for you today. If you have questions about the Moabite Stone, the Mesha >> talk in that monotone. Yeah, we will do our best to go through and do that.

[00:02:26][laughter] Tell a little bit of the story of the thing, the artifact, its relationship to the text, and a lot of very fun characters that are happening in it, and an odd ending.

[00:02:35]Yeah. We can say.

[00:02:36]>> odd ending.

[00:02:37]>> There is an Well, that was that the odd ending was a big part of it as well.

[00:02:41]There is a weird ending to the to this story that doesn't go how you expect it to go given the role of certain characters like the prophet Elisha and Elisha, Elisha, two names, same name, different pronunciations for the same person, as well as some kings that the Bible is in favor of, Jehoshaphat, Yeah. other kings that the Bible doesn't love so much, but there's a whole bunch of people taking place here. So, where do you want to start to walk through this story? Let's talk about the stele itself. Let's talk about it. Okay. So, it was discovered in 1868.

[00:03:14]Yeah, we always get the weird ish discovered, found, shown. Well, so the story of it's >> Well, it's broken by Yeah, the story of its find, discovery being shown to is always a little bit Yeah, this hard when we're dealing with this period of time because there's a missionary F.A. Klein who finds it, discovers it, or is shown this stone by individuals who know it exists cuz they live there and they have seen it before. Word gets back to the scholarly community like French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau who then sends people out to make a squeeze of it, to make an impression.

[00:03:50]Like, a squeeze is you take all this wet paper, you put it up against the thing, smash it into the imprints because the stone has an inscription that's carved into it. And so, by pushing the wet paper into those divots, we have the reverse of it. It's a nice way Think of it like doing the shading over the top of thing with a piece of paper and a pencil. It's the same.

[00:04:09]In the process of that, something takes place, people are upset, and the stone is broken up.

[00:04:15]Those pieces that are known, you can go see what it remains of this in the Louvre.

[00:04:21]And you'll see parts of the stone that are the original stone, and then parts that are fill in where those impressions came in handy to say, "Well, what text is missing based off of what came into these gaps?" It's not perfect because the squeeze isn't perfect, but we can have an idea of what goes into these places. And the stone itself, its inscription is Moabite with a Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew script coming from the 9th century. So, there is there is an archaeological object.

[00:04:49]>> Yeah.

[00:04:50]It's a big thing. It's a large stone.

[00:04:52]It is important one because it tells the story that we do get in 2 Kings 3 from >> the story. the Moabite perspective, and because it has names like uh some things you might want, Omri from the Bible. It also has a reference to the divine name inside of it. So, there's a lot of stuff that then comes up when you see this. I just when you're diving into the YouTube short side of this, how do they talk about the stone?

[00:05:18]Like it's it's the same way they talk about Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on a name. They You know, it's the reference to Israel.

[00:05:26]It's the the talk about the kings of Israel. The >> Like the way they talk about the Tel Dan. Yeah. Yeah, same thing as Tel Dan.

[00:05:33]Yeah. That Why did Tel Dan escape my mind?

[00:05:35]>> [laughter] >> This is one that comes up in those things, right?

[00:05:37]>> you know? It's the it's the emphasis on the kings of Israel. Israel's been here for so long. It's that sticking it as far back in the past as you can get.

[00:05:47]And I don't know. It's I'm I'm looking at it from a very not me personally, but the media I'm consuming on it is very biased in the sense that it wants to elevate the kingdom of ancient Israel.

[00:06:00]Even though this this stone is like we came in there and we killed them all.

[00:06:07]The stone's perspective on this is a it makes sense in some ways to gravitate towards it as an old thing. There's a natural draw in being an archaeological object that is old, that has references to some names that the Bible has. That has all the factors to get people's attention and to want to pull you in.

[00:06:25]Because there is then a somewhat parallel text description of events in the Bible in 2 Kings 3. Well, that's such the emphasis because they are paralleled in a way.

[00:06:38]>> They are paralleled in a way >> true. Oh, without being parallel. They both talk about conflict between Moab and the northern kingdom of Israel. We are in a period of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. If you're taking the the Bible's idea that there was a monarchy and then a divided monarchy, right? We're in that framework when we're talking about this because we're dealing with 2 Kings.

[00:07:00]The northern kingdom of Israel had taken the kingdom of Moab under its control as a vassal.

[00:07:08]>> Yeah, let's talk about this relationship.

[00:07:10]>> So, this is an important backstory into this that you need to You need to know this. When you're thinking about the story that we get in Kings and the story that we have from Moab's perspective, this vassal type of relationship is extremely common.

[00:07:25]And it functions in a lot of different hierarchies.

[00:07:28]We can think of it on the big scale of the Assyrians. They have lots of kingdoms that are under them as vassals, but you don't just have to be the Assyrians. No, you can be a smaller, but still a a kingdom with vassals.

[00:07:41]>> You can be the northern kingdom of Israel. It's how the treaties work.

[00:07:44]>> You are a regional player.

[00:07:46]>> you, you give us things. It all slides downhill. There's multiple steps on the ladder. You don't have to be at the top of the ladder to have somebody underneath you. And so, which we're going to see in this story, because the northern kingdom of Israel had a dominant relationship to the kingdom of Moab.

[00:08:01]>> Mhm. They also had a dominant relationship to the kingdom of Judah.

[00:08:05]And so, when Moab, eventually, following the death of King Ahab, decides, "We don't want to be in a vassal relationship to you anymore, and we're going to rebel." The northern kingdom then says, "Hey, we need to suppress this."

[00:08:16]>> Yeah. They call on the southern kingdom of Judah to get you in line as someone The text is a little bit different about it, but that is subservient to us.

[00:08:25]>> Mhm.

[00:08:26]Who themselves have a dominant relationship to the kingdom of Edom. So, they tap Edom, and so we get it operating in multiple ways just in this one story. Yeah, we get this ladder of hierarchies. You have a ladder of powers.

[00:08:37]>> But I Yeah, that's I mean, that's the necessary context to understand that they're not just going and fighting.

[00:08:42]They're in a a certain dynamic where one has power over the other, and the other one's mad about it now. It is the ongoing political fights that we get, and you have the idea coming through in both the Moabite Stone and in the text of 2 Kings 3 that the northern kingdom of Israel, under Omri, Omri, Ahab, had this dominance over Moab. But following the death of Ahab, Moab decides it doesn't want to play this game anymore. And so, the Moabite Stone is telling that story of its rebellion from the Moabite perspective, and 2 Kings 3 is telling that story from the Judahite perspective. It is also drawing on, "Well, what is the northern kingdom of Israel doing as we go through this?" And there's a lot of names, I think, we also need to put forward as we tell this story, because we have King Mesha of Moab as one figure. We're We're with the 9th century here, Mid-9th century.

[00:09:38]And going back earlier than that into the early 9th century for who starts this ball rolling because we need to go back in time to Omri Mhm. as a king that emerges in the northern kingdom of Israel who really expands >> Yeah. Starts the dynasty.

[00:09:52]>> of the northern king. This is the start of the Omrites. And that kingdom under Omri reaches east over the Jordan and expands itself into the area just south of what is the the kingdom of Aram Aram-Damascus and above the Moabites. So you have this little little wing that goes out above them on the other side of the Dead Sea. And that is the part that for the Moabites, they are trying to to push themselves back up against. Ahab had continued this, but following their death in battle against the Arameans, that gives the opportunity for the Moabites to do this thing and we want to go and throw something off. And you have some of this in the biblical text talking about Ahab's battles against the Arameans.

[00:10:35]>> Mhm. And you have the idea of this in the Moabite Stone that in these fights, their attention is having to go elsewhere. They're having to spend their military power fighting the Arameans.

[00:10:45]And with the death of a king, Ahab dies, his son Ahaziah comes in, only rules for 2 years, dies falling off the roof, falls through the lattice. There's a whole weird story about him trying to get the prophet to help and Elijah says no and you die. And then Ahaziah is followed by Jehoram of Israel. And that's the king that according to 2 Kings 3 is the one that is leading the fight against Mesha. The stone itself is a little more vague because it talks about the son of Omri.

[00:11:16]>> Mhm.

[00:11:17]But there we should be thinking about >> language.

[00:11:19]>> Yeah, we got to be thinking dynastically.

[00:11:21]>> Yeah, son of son of.

[00:11:22]>> So son, is it Omri's son Ahab? Is it Omri's grandson Ahaziah? Is it Omri's grandson Jehoram? The thing that seems to line up the best is it's going to be Jehoram, the grandson of Omri, but Omri is the dynastic name. The son of you doesn't have to just be your son. And so, Jehoram is the one that's coming in to say, "We are going to go ahead and try to bring you back into line as had been the state under my father and my grandfather before me. I want to restore the extent of the kingdom." And are they successful?

[00:11:59]Well, Well, kind of. Slightly. They are kind of successful because he goes around and says basically, "The dominant power that I had is waning or is in trouble. They seem to The Moabites seem to think that they can throw me off.

[00:12:14]I'm going to call on the southern kingdom of Judah >> Mhm. Jehoshaphat, king of the southern kingdom of Judah at this time, to come to my aid as he had done for my father.

[00:12:24]Mhm. Jehoshaphat had answered a similar call for Ahab to fight with Ahab against the Arameans in a battle which Ahab ends up dying, and so maybe not a good sign.

[00:12:34]>> Maybe not the most reliable one.

[00:12:36]>> for you coming in, but that is a fun tie between these cuz Jehoshaphat plays >> thought about that.

[00:12:40]>> a similar role in each of these, which is a reason to maybe have some suspicions over the way the story is being told to you because you have the northern king making a call to the southern king, same guy, Jehoshaphat.

[00:12:52]>> Mhm. He answers. The answer that we get in each story If you pull up the stories of 2 Kings 3 and you go and look at 1 Kings 22, there's going to be language parallels Mhm. in the response that my horses are yours. You're going to have the same call of, "Let's get a prophet. Can we talk to a prophet real quick? I'd really love to check with the prophet."

[00:13:11][laughter] >> to consult someone first. And so, you have these things that make you go, "How has the story been nudged to fit into a mold?" Mhm.

[00:13:18]The text is more concerned with protecting Jehoshaphat as the king of Judah, and you have more protection of Jehoshaphat that happens in Chronicles than what you get in the book of Kings, but Jehoshaphat gets in line, brings Edom in line, and they do go to start the suppression of Moab, which does work in part. They are partially successful in battle, but they don't end up successfully crossing the finish line, which is an interesting problem given what the prophet tells them. Yeah, so the prophet So the the the interesting thing at the finish line is a a sacrifice. We do get We get an interesting child sacrifice.

[00:13:59]>> Yeah, at the wall. That takes place by the kingdom of Moab, by King Mesha, in response to a battle that isn't going his way. So if we Let's do a quick SparkNotes summary of >> go through 2 Kings 3. Once we get into 2 Kings 3, you have the backstory, you have the kings that are going to be fighting with each other. They get together, they band up and say, "We're going to go on a little battle here, have a fun time.

[00:14:19]>> We're going to go march out against this." Jehoshaphat really wants to talk to a prophet and they ask for Elisha.

[00:14:24]Elisha.

[00:14:26]Well, a fun part of this though is, where do they find Elisha? Elisha's a northern prophet.

[00:14:31]>> Elisha's knocking about in the camp, well, just outside the camp.

[00:14:34]>> The military camp that they have that is moving towards going through Edom, moving towards Moab.

[00:14:39]>> yeah. Elisha's got a tent outside. Why does this prophet have a tent following along outside of this camp? Well, just in case he's needed. It seems to fit the bill. Yeah. In case he's needed, he does happen to be handy. Is it a little bit weird? It is a little bit.

[00:14:54]>> Is a Is a war prophet a thing? Well, Elisha has a lot of connections into this in the books of Kings cuz you're going to see him coming up again with Ben-Hadad and with Jehu that Elisha has on the one hand those stories of him as the wonder worker that is doing some of those old-timey prophet types of things and the prophet that is more of a court style prophet, the prophet connected to the changing of power and to kings. So he's outside the tents. He He's in his tent outside the army's tents, let's say.

[00:15:22]And so it was available. Someone says, "Oh, yeah, that guy is around."

[00:15:26]He doesn't want to participate in this because he does not like the northern kings, but on the account of Jehoshaphat, the text tells us, "Okay, I'll participate even though we have nothing that talks about a relationship."

[00:15:38]>> Yeah, he wants them to go talk to the other prophets.

[00:15:40]>> Nothing Nothing that leads to why Elisha would like Jehoshaphat other than the text probably is more in favor of Jehoshaphat, so the prophet should be on board with that guy, but there's no backstory to say here's why he likes him. Does that connect in any way with what he prophesizes?

[00:15:55]He is kind of >> does that like cuz we've been talking about like why didn't they Well, change the text, but They don't This is one that could feel like a why don't they change it given the outcome. The outcome spoiler alert, if you haven't read the book yet, is they're not fully successful in battle. Elisha's prophecy though is that they are going to be successful, and it's a bit of a two-faced prophecy. The first is that there's going to be the wadi will be filled with water.

[00:16:22]And then after that, verse 18, "This is only a trifle in the sight of the Lord, for he will also hand Moab over to you.

[00:16:29]You shall conquer every fortified city and every choice city. Every good tree you shall fell, all the springs of water you shall stop up, every good piece of land you shall ruin with stones."

[00:16:40]The next day the water starts to flow.

[00:16:42]Immediate fulfillment of the first part.

[00:16:44]The kings look on this favorably. Great things are going to go our way. They are successful in that >> in fulfilling the first half of tearing down cities, too. Cuz the Moabites see all the water, the water looks red to them. They think these three kings >> they've all killed each other. fought with each other. You took care of our water for us.

[00:17:03]>> did it Yeah, they're like they did it for us. Let's go.

[00:17:05]>> No problem. We're just going to come loot your tents. And they show up and it doesn't go that way. And so then they start to get overrun. And in that way then the kings do start to go in and attack cities. And if we go to verse 25, the cities they overturned and every good piece of land everywhere they threw a stone until it was covered. Every spring of water they stopped up. So, that was successful also. They The prophecy was water's going to come, the wadi's going to fill, and do these things to the cities. Over Okay, they do start to do that. Maybe the text ends in 25 and look, we are successful.

[00:17:38]But then But the text doesn't end with verse 25.

[00:17:41]When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through the opposite opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. Then he took his firstborn son who was to succeed him and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall, and a great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.

[00:18:02]That's kind of a shocker. The The surprising turn of events is you are doing well Yeah.

[00:18:07]>> until you're not. And you're not doing well at the end because a child sacrifice takes place.

[00:18:11]>> Yeah, that's kind of surprising.

[00:18:14]It is a surprising turn of events and a surprising wrinkle into the text because we have, as we just said, the prophet says you're going to be you're going to be good. Is this a trifle for the Lord?

[00:18:27]It's fulfilled in part.

[00:18:28]>> Mhm.

[00:18:29]It's not fulfilled fully because you don't complete the full conquest.

[00:18:33]So, Second Kings does preserve a victory account partially, but not a complete victory. Moab is not returned into the correct vassal position. They're able to hold out at the end, which does align with the Moabite stone tells us that Mesha is able to throw off this power because his god, Chemosh, is on their side, and so they're able to go back and take cities like Nebo from Israel, and we have a different series of conquests and fights that take place there, but they tell the same story. There are fights that are taking place, we are able to throw off some of that power. That's a parallel that we do get between these.

[00:19:12]The stone doesn't tell us anything about a child sacrifice.

[00:19:15]>> No.

[00:19:16]The text does, but there's reasons to ask questions about what it is saying.

[00:19:22]Yeah, why is why do we have a child sacrifice? Cuz we could have ended at 25. Would have made Israel both look better, but also are we the child sacrifice works? The child sacrifice Like I think that's I think that's a point that I haven't been able to get across or like get over cuz Why does it work?

[00:19:40]>> Why does it work? Because it works other times, too. The other time that most naturally comes up is probably going to be Jephthah's daughter in your mind.

[00:19:48]Another battle story. There we've got a difference of I'm making a vow to dedicate whatever comes out first.

[00:19:54]According to the text, it ends up being Jephthah's daughter and a sacrifice takes place. But a place where battle and a sacrifice resulting in >> two entities are inherently connected in the time that we're at. The judge is standing in a leadership role as Mesha is standing in as the king.

[00:20:10]>> Yeah.

[00:20:11]The pushing of child sacrifice onto the other >> Yeah, the pushing of That's normal.

[00:20:16]>> No, that is normal and I think like that's where my mind first went is okay, we're going to push the sacrifice onto the other.

[00:20:23]But it's not a condemnation cuz it works.

[00:20:26]>> There is no There is no condemnation of it. If you end it 27, which is where it ends, a great wrath comes on, so they withdrew and returned to the land. There is no addendum that says and for this King Mesha whatever was punished or is evil or we don't have any of that.

[00:20:41]>> Yeah. There is no bad thing about it.

[00:20:44]You can argue and a lot of people do argue, well, the effect that it happened is supposed to horrify you and this great wrath, we see this in Josephus' version trying to explain why does the sacrifice work? There it is that they are so taken aback by what's happened that it's inhumanity and pity they withdraw. They're so horrified by what you, King Mesha of the Moabites, are willing to do to win, we are withdrawing from this battle because we are terrified of what you have done. We feel pity for the person that you've killed.

[00:21:17]Maybe there's some fear of divine contagion taking place here. It's a weird attempt to justify what's going on that divine wrath comes in and you have to withdraw.

[00:21:27]>> Why does a divine wrath come in? Who's divine wrath? Is it Chemosh?

[00:21:31]>> question you have to ask is who's divine wrath.

[00:21:33]>> are we battling like our god versus the Moabites' god in the sky? Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:21:40]>> Always a god there.

[00:21:41]>> Big wrath, yeah. Any battle that we see >> But that's so is a deity battle.

[00:21:45]>> Yeah, so is our sacrifice goes up to Chemosh. The sacrifice is there >> And then he's like, "Oop, full."

[00:21:52]To get the idea. Yeah, well, is it a feeding? Is this a feeding? Is this an appeasing? Is this a blood for the sake of blood?

[00:21:59]There's different ways to read through what the sacrifice is supposed to do or how it's supposed to act in different instances.

[00:22:05]But the phrase itself, that great wrath that you see, this is something that we get in the biblical text in other instances where it is associated with the divine the divine wrath. In the case of the Hebrew Bible, if you go to Deuteronomy 29:27, "The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath and cast them into another land." Jeremiah 21:5, "I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and mighty arm in anger and fury and in great wrath." There it is, the great wrath, divine wrath associated with the god of the text.

[00:22:38]>> Mhm.

[00:22:39]So, if we come to 2 Kings >> So, are we giving power to the Moabite god? Cuz that's what it kind of feels like.

[00:22:44]>> Is it their god's great wrath or is it your god's great wrath that drives you back? It's most likely, if we're reading it in the context of taking the Moabite stone as a parallel here.

[00:22:54]>> Mhm.

[00:22:55]They say that it is my god, Yeah.

[00:22:58]>> Chemosh, who charges me and who gives me success in these things.

[00:23:01]>> Mhm.

[00:23:03]They offer the sacrifice, their god is brought on side, and we end up winning in battle. So, you have, on the one hand, something that's odd because the child sacrifice works. It appeases the god and brings them in. It is further odd because now we have a text that is also attesting to, in its perspective, the efficacy of foreign gods in battle.

[00:23:28]They are not powerless.

[00:23:30]>> No. They are able to drive them back.

[00:23:32]>> powerless. They can drive back the coalition of Israel and Judah and Edom.

[00:23:36]That your god is not sufficient to stand up in the face of this. You can be driven back by this great wrath. You're forced to return to your land, and you're not able to bring Moab back into a place of submission. This is probably part of why you don't get this story in Chronicles.

[00:23:53]>> Yeah. You get this story in Kings. Not everything from Kings is repeated in Chronicles. Not everything in Chronicles is seen in Kings. And this is one of those stories from Kings that doesn't make it over.

[00:24:03]>> Mhm.

[00:24:04]Why? Well, it's probably some of this stuff.

[00:24:06]>> Yeah. What is it saying about >> is like, "Child sacrifice working? Cut that out."

[00:24:12]>> No interest there. And we have additional stories of Jehoshaphat in the story of Chronicles that are creating him into a larger and more positive character.

[00:24:19]>> Mhm. That his association with the Omride dynasty, by being a vassal, by fighting with you in battle, being on the losing side of battles, that's not the most positive depiction that we might want to have for you as one of these kings. And so, this story doesn't make itself across trying to potentially address a number of these things like the child sacrifice, like, is the prophet wrong?

[00:24:41]>> Mhm. Does Does the prophet's voice not fully come through?

[00:24:44]>> Well, the text is like dancing around if he's wrong because they did the right things. They just didn't win.

[00:24:52]But if you don't complete it, >> Is that Yeah. If you don't complete the thing, is it done? Well, does it does the prophecy have to have a timeline?

[00:25:01]Does the prophecy have to have a timeline? Well, in the textual way, no, cuz you can always keep returning to it and the prophecy can go towards something else.

[00:25:09]In this instance, as is a lot of the cases for prophecy, you're talking about the thing right in front of your nose.

[00:25:14]And so, the implication is this is going to be your word for your battle, what takes place now.

[00:25:20]And you will see people give the apologetic answer that Well, Wati does run with water.

[00:25:26]>> Yeah. And look, the text does say they do these things.

[00:25:29]The problem is They don't succeed in their in their end goal. You don't finish it. Yeah. And you'll see people say, "Well, but the prophecy doesn't say Elisha doesn't say you will return them into this position. So, oh look, we got a loophole and you got a way out." I mean, that that's fine.

[00:25:46]You can go that path. It doesn't explicitly say that, but you do have a bit of stacking of problems in this of how is the text talking about relationships between kings? How is the text talking about the role of the prophet? You also get a difference in the way the prophet has to speak in this. There's the accompaniment of music, which is not uncommon. Go and look at when Saul himself goes into prophetic trance. The role of music here is something that we see, but not always. Here you get that example.

[00:26:15]A prophecy that maybe is fully coming through, maybe isn't. The child sacrifice that does work, that maybe shouldn't be seen in the way that it's working. The divine wrath that is definitely associated with the deity, but likely not the deity that attacks, the deity of the Moabites, who is now successful in battle. All of these things are the parts that are weird when you want to try to point to 2 Kings 3 and the Moabites don't just say something like whatever proof the TikTok algorithm was feeding you last night when you were looking for these things.

[00:26:42]I was on YouTube shorts. I don't know if that one's any different.

[00:26:45]>> It's not. I don't the AI I don't get in that realm on TikTok as much. You escape you escape that sphere when you're going into this?

[00:26:53]Yes. I I Well, that's good.

[00:26:56]But let's talk about this in the modern sense then. Talk I one thing before we do, that I think we should put forward for people who are saying I don't agree that the sacrifice there is needing to bring about divine wrath. The great wrath, sure we have it showing up going with the divine wrath, but does it have to?

[00:27:16]And this largely goes off of the idea of being uncomfortable, let's say, with the Moabites being able to summon their deity, the idea of deities fighting in battle in this way, that that sits outside of it.

[00:27:29]I would put forward the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 and 19. Okay.

[00:27:35]When Hezekiah is under siege He's like a bird in a cage.

[00:27:39]>> goes before locked up like a bird in a cage, you go before the God, and God says, "I'm going to be on your behalf." And what ends up happening for Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 and 19? Well, they get demolished.

[00:27:54]Well, the Assyrians do.

[00:27:55]>> Yeah. Yeah, Hezekiah comes out fine.

[00:27:56]>> Yeah. And the result is that the angel goes out and >> the angel, but it's also Hezekiah There's a bit of a payoff that takes place in 2 Kings 19:35, that very night the angel of the Lord set out and struck down 185,000 of the camp.

[00:28:12]>> is it angel when we get angel as an interjection because we're too scared >> This is a whole other question.

[00:28:17]>> point?

[00:28:18]>> Is this is this angel for or is this Lord for? But in this instance, we have a story Mhm. where people who might protest against the Moabites being able to summon their deity to fight on their behalf effectively >> Mhm.

[00:28:31]might not put the same protest forward if you're saying can Hezekiah summon their deity to fight on their behalf effectively.

[00:28:37]>> Mhm.

[00:28:38]Is Hezekiah engaging in battle? In a way, yes.

[00:28:41]>> Yeah. But at the end of the day, whenever you as the king are in battle, it is your deity who is fighting. And so, Hezekiah gets the angel of the Lord or the Lord to go out and there's a divine slaughter that happens and now we are spared. It is the same model of story but applied to a king here that the text likes instead of there that a text doesn't like. We don't get a child sacrifice in this instance, right? You don't have that.

[00:29:03]>> it's you know, it's the us versus them.

[00:29:06]It's the oldest It's us for but you you can't say >> categorization in the book.

[00:29:11]>> You can't say in one instance fine, Hezekiah can summon the Lord, the Lord can fight for us, and then also say in this case you can't. Those don't work together.

[00:29:18]>> Yeah, they If you're trying to read >> In the text, they work in both aspects of the text. People just aren't comfortable with that. Yeah, you can't you can't bring those ones. It's the same and it's in the same book.

[00:29:29]>> It's like the same thing is in Exodus.

[00:29:32]Our deities are fighting.

[00:29:33]>> The deities are fighting. You get this all throughout the Hebrew Bible.

[00:29:36]>> [laughter] >> You get this all throughout broader ancient literature. The idea is when we go into battle, it is our god against your god. Do you ever like picture it like a skyline like this and they're up here and you're down there and there's like a line here and they're like No. No, no, but I guess you you can. I don't know.

[00:29:53]>> I think of it in like the the Very spatially. Yeah, spatially, but like Baal on the cloud and like That's how I think. But I also always I'm illustrating it in my head, so.

[00:30:02]You have you can. It's It's not a bad thing to do in order to say how are they thinking about the engagement in battle.

[00:30:09]You get this >> about like, you know, God on the pillar and stuff and the cloud god and like Baal. It's the same reason that the ark of the covenant is supposed to go before you in battle. You You are entering into a battle that is in actuality behind the physical stuff that you're seeing. The idea in the text that it there is a divine fight that takes place behind those things.

[00:30:28]>> Yeah. And if we are comfortable applying that in some instances to Hezekiah, to the ark of the covenant, that is the world that this text lives in. They are applying that to King Mesha and to Moab. That they engaged in the same thing and it was successful. It worked. We got driven back. Moab was not brought back into submission under and this is something that we do see that the northern kingdom does lose control over Moab. Moab ends up underneath the Assyrians and then there's changes that take place out of that.

[00:30:59]>> Mhm. But these texts do reflect some of the broader political realities and changes of how does power move, how do kingdoms wax and wane. You can come in, but you're not always going to be as big as you were and some of those kings that are heavily demonized in the text, especially northern kings like Ahab, that does not necessarily reflect the political reality, the geographic reality, the military reality of what other things are telling us that they do. Like Ahab participating in the rebellion at the Battle of Qarqar. You You don't get all of this because those things are going to paint you in a light that doesn't maybe align with what we want to say about you.

[00:31:38]While simultaneously it's going to preserve some things that might surprise you. Yeah. Like 2 Kings 3. That ends in a way that isn't fully on the side that you think it might want to be in, but does end up needing to stay. Yeah, and giving you that historical context of how these political entities move throughout [snorts] the land and how they interact with each other and how they're viewing the battle. Yeah. And it Well, it's a different concept than how we view a battle. It's a different concept of how we view a political system. Maybe not entirely, but it's different than obviously than what we think about it. So Well, it is, but in some ways it's not.

[00:32:15]>> Well, in some ways I That's why I said kind of.

[00:32:17]>> [laughter] >> Yeah. There are still We still have dominant powers. There's still that type of imperial power structure and you still have ideas of religious connections into battle, being on the right side, being on the wrong side, who are you praying?

[00:32:35]That system also has another way. No.

[00:32:39]And so it has long been >> It's changed. It's adapted. You get stories like this that tell you some of those same concern are addressing some of those, which I do think is a part of why this, in addition to artifact plus text plus early date plus names, that's one layer of fascination that this brings forward.

[00:32:58]>> Yeah.

[00:32:59]I think that other one is a different that without it always being so directly tied into how were we actually trying to talk about ideas of warfare today or who's on the right side or who's going to win or how, this can speak to some of those things addressing concerns, what do we not need to do, what should we do, much like how Kings is trying to put it forward in its own day. Because of this, we are now in this situation. Look, this was good. Look, this was bad. The king should have done this. The king shouldn't have done this. And we're telling that story to loop it in. That same process is still taking place. We are better served in trying to understand it though if we say, let's look at what they are saying to themselves >> Yeah.

[00:33:42]about themselves, in their structures. How is this a criticism of northern power? Yeah.

[00:33:50]How is this a criticism of the engagements of kings from the southern kingdom of Judah into that system?

[00:33:55]Should you have participated, Jehoshaphat? Mhm. Should you have stayed out of it? The prophet, what is the role of the prophet? How do you need to listen? All of these are layers and ripples that go through this that if all you care about is stone plus text proof, I'm done, you're wildly missing the point of what's happening in these things. Yeah, I'd wholeheartedly agree.

[00:34:15]I mean, the stone people like people like big artifacts.

[00:34:19]People like big tall things that say names. Big tall things that say names are always popular.

[00:34:25]>> They're always popular. I told Jordan before we started filming that if I was a king and I won a battle, I would totally put up a big stone, too.

[00:34:31]>> [gasps] >> Put up a big stone, you slap your name on it, you don't tell the whole truth.

[00:34:35]None of these things are telling the truth of what happens here. No, they're both politicized agendas. One is just a book, and the other one's a stone. You can't point at the Moabite Stone and have the criticism that it is propaganda, which it is, Well, all of it's all propaganda. and not simultaneously apply it to 2 Kings 3.

[00:34:55]It's all propaganda.

[00:34:55]>> They are both varying forms of propaganda. So, does it confirm the account? It's impossible for one to confirm the other's account.

[00:35:05]>> it contextualizes, but con- confirmation is a very sticky very sticky word in this. Confirmation is the wrong thing to try to be looking with it.

[00:35:12]>> Yeah, certainly.

[00:35:13]>> It can It can contextualize.

[00:35:15]>> Well, proof con- Proof and confirmation are things you cannot get from these artifacts. And that's what people want so badly. And I think that's why I got was getting so like on the internet last night, cuz I was like, you people just want proof so badly. Isn't context enough?

[00:35:30]No.

[00:35:31]I For that for certain communities, no.

[00:35:33]Yeah. That the context of the thing is not interesting. It's not desired. Which leads to and can make one susceptible to, maybe we should say, the misapplication of or the intentional misreading of or the unintentional misreading.

[00:35:49]>> Unintentional, the willful ignorance in choosing not to go towards what are other steps out of this, and can put you in the position where you aren't applying the same methodology or criticism >> sides. to both sides as you're doing the reading. How am I asking questions of this? When you look at this and you say, "I am Mesha. Right, okay, my father was king. After these things, Chemosh said to me, 'Go take Nebo from Israel.'" If that's the account that we get in the Moabite Stone, do you take that at face value and say that must be exactly what happened, or do you ask questions? If that's true, if that's real, who are these people? What led to this? Like, this didn't just pop up out of nowhere. This is sits in the context of dynasties and kings and imperial forces and >> it to both.

[00:36:33]>> Suzerain vassal relationships.

[00:36:35]>> Yeah. Yeah. You need to do it to both.

[00:36:37]And it gives a fun way back into the stories of the kings that are maybe the lesser talked about kings. It's not just a David and a Solomon that are stories of kings. You have kings that are floating around that are tied into odd and overlapping and complicated stories that can get missed because if you are used to just taking the they don't really like these individuals. You can miss out a lot, which is a fun way to bring in bring in a book like Josephus Yeah.

[00:37:06]to say what else is happening around this. And that itself is a reinterpretation.

[00:37:10]>> viewing it a thousand years later? How are we I mean, we're doing the same thing.

[00:37:14]>> It's a retelling you need to ask questions of.

[00:37:16]So, you can't say I'm going to fix it by going to Josephus. No.

[00:37:20]But there is a fun storyline that runs through these kings that tell you about the political connections and how someone like Omri is able to expand territorial power and make alliances and become someone that you want on your side in a battle that is capable of bringing the southern kingdom of Judah onside either in this battle or previous to say you're you are subordinate to me. Yeah. The text may not always say that, but you do have things like this that for whatever reason be it the communities that they come from, the memory of it, wherever you want to go can't throw that off and say no, we were always the text does not say that they were more powerful here. Yeah.

[00:38:01]There's a reason why the northern kingdom gets the attention first. Yeah.

[00:38:05]They were a bigger deal. They were causing more problems.

[00:38:08]>> Yeah.

[00:38:08]And the southern kingdom is where we get the little put together so >> stuff coming in.

[00:38:14]So, we're going to make ourselves look a little better than we should. You have the ability to help >> It's all propaganda. Everything is propaganda.

[00:38:21]>> You have the ability to help massage things slightly, but not everything can come out in the wash. Yeah. And a story like this is one of those that it can be surprising that it stays. Mhm. There's elements of this that people will then talk about what levels of criticism is this making against >> Mhm. the northern king because look, they're not able to bring Moab back in.

[00:38:38]Is that why this stays? Why does this story remain?

[00:38:41]Those are additional questions that grow out once you put it into that relationship of how is it talking about power and kingship and ideas of divine intervention and all of those things you need to have on hand in order to start to ask those questions of how does this thing plug in? And then your ability to turn to well, why should we maybe loop this story back into the way Jehoshaphat is acting in 1 Kings 22 Mhm. and what Hezekiah is doing when Sennacherib's at the gate. And other little details like you have the mention here that they take from Nebo the vessels of Adonai.

[00:39:19]What do we have there? Well, how do we now plug that back into ideas of territory? Where does Moses go when Moses dies? Mount Nebo, what is happening here? These broader ideas of cultic power or cultic sites that are little drips and hints that come through these types of things that the text may not always be preserving for you. But again, if you're just looking for this proves that, you're going to miss out on. Yeah.

[00:39:40]So, you need the context.

[00:39:42]Context is >> need the confirmation. No. Or the proof cuz you can't get those. You can't have those.

[00:39:48]>> You can't have them. You in this context We always have to do the caveat. In this context Let me hear it.

[00:39:54]This is not giving you those types of things. It doesn't mean you need to not care about them. Care about them. Look at them. Enjoy them. Put them next to each other. Ask questions. Do that.

[00:40:04]Engage with them.

[00:40:05]Engage with them.

[00:40:06]>> Engage with materials.

[00:40:07]>> And ask questions about that.

[00:40:08]>> Don't ask for definite answers from them. And you're in a better place.

[00:40:10]Yeah. Is there anything we didn't touch with this one that you think >> think so. I think we went We went through everything I wanted. Okay, I think that's all. If you have a question about 2 Kings 3, we have talked about this in the past as [music] well, but it's one that is always coming back up.

[00:40:23]Yeah.

[00:40:24]Because it's a story where they lose.

[00:40:26]Yeah.

[00:40:26]It's a story where God fights against a foreign god and the god of the text loses. Mhm. That's a surprising one to have in the Hebrew Bible. If you have a question, send us a comment. Yes. Send us an email. We're happy to hear from you. And be sure to like and subscribe wherever you find us. It helps us. Hopefully it helps you stay in touch with us. But for this week, Prophets and Priests and Archaeology. Until next time.