DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
A king of Aram, Israel's enemy to the north. The stone is written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. On it the king thanks his god, the storm god Hadad, for his throne and for his victory over Israel and Judah. His name is broken off; he may be Hazael, who takes the throne of Aram in 2 Kings 8:15. The words house of David sit in the lower right of the surviving pieces.
Why it’s interesting
Aram-Damascus was the northern kingdom's main rival. The books of Kings count at least ten clashes between them, from Ahab's reign to Jehoash's, and Aram won most of them. The fight the stone describes matches no event the Bible records, and a second broken name on it may be King Ahaziah of Judah.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.