2 Kings 1:18 - Exposition

Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah which he did. These may have included some months of warfare against Mesha, King of Moab, who seems to have rebelled at the very beginning of Ahaziah's reign ( 2 Kings 1:1 and 2 Kings 3:5 ). Mesha's war of independence consisted of a succession of sieges, whereby he recovered one by one the various strongholds in his territory, which were occupied by the Israelites—Medeba, Ataroth, Nebo, Jahaz, Horonaim, and others—expelling the foreign garrisons, rebuilding or strengthening the fortifications, and occupying the cities by garrisons of his own. On one occasion, at the siege of Nebo, he declares that he killed seven thousand men. He found in the town a place of worship containing vessels, which he regarded as "vessels of Jehovah" (Moabite Stone, line 18); these he took? and dedicated them to Chemosh, the special god of Moab. How much of the war fell into the reign of Ahaziah, and how much into that of Jehoram his brother, is uncertain. Are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the tines of Israel? Mesha's stone is a striking testimony to the contemporary record of historical events by the Palestinian monarchs of the time, which has sometimes been doubted.