KING OF SYRIA (ARAM) AT DAMASCUS · TWO KINGDOMS

Hazael. Elisha wept over the evil he would do to Israel.

REIGNEDi

Not given c. 841–798 BC

CAPITAL

Damascus

HOUSE

House of Hazael 3rd of 5 in Aram

SCRIPTURE SAYS

“At Horeb the LORD told Elijah: “anoint Hazael to be king over Syria”.”

PROPHETS

Elijah · Elisha · Amos

ARAM (SYRIA): 5 RULERS BEN-HADAD → REZIN

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

ISRAEL

Joram · Jehu · Jehoahaz

JUDAH

Ahaziah · Jehoash (Joash)

ASSYRIA

Shalmaneser III

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · 841 BC (SHALMANESER'S 18TH YEAR) AND 838 BC (21ST YEAR)

Shalmaneser III's annals (Black Obelisk and Calah annals)

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · SHALMANESER'S REIGN (858–824 BC)

Shalmaneser III's statue inscription, from Assur

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · FRAGMENTS FOUND IN 1993 AND 1994

The Tel Dan stele

SUCCESSION

Before and after

THE REALM

Damascus and the places of the account

Aram (Syria). Only places Scripture names are shown, each where the Atlas puts it.

WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS

What Scripture says of him

  • At Horeb the LORD told Elijah: “anoint Hazael to be king over Syria”. 1 Kings 19:15
  • “Him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay.” 1 Kings 19:17
  • Elisha wept and told him: “I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.” 2 Kings 8:11–12
  • Hazael answered: “is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha: “The LORD hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria.” 2 Kings 8:13
  • “In those days the LORD began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel.” 2 Kings 10:32
  • The LORD “delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, all their days”. 2 Kings 13:3
  • “So Hazael king of Syria died; and Ben-hadad his son reigned in his stead.” 2 Kings 13:24

DEALINGS

Dealings with God's people

  • To buy him off, Jehoash of Judah gave up the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah had dedicated, his own hallowed things, and the gold of the house of the LORD. 2 Kings 12:18
  • Tribute from Judah: Jehoash sent it all “to Hazael king of Syria: and he went away from Jerusalem”. 2 Kings 12:18
  • He took from Israel the land east of the Jordan: Gilead, Gad, Reuben and Manasseh, as far as the Arnon, Gilead and Bashan. 2 Kings 10:32–33
  • “Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.” 2 Kings 13:22
  • Jehoahaz “besought the LORD”, and “the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians”. 2 Kings 13:4–5
  • Amos: “they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron”. Amos 1:3

EVENTS

Wars, works and turning points

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

PROPHETS

The prophets who spoke about him

  • El Elijah “anoint Hazael to be king over Syria”
  • El Elisha “The LORD hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria”
  • Am Amos “I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad”

TWO ACCOUNTS

Where the accounts differ

Hazael and Joash of Judah

2 KINGS

2 CHRONICLES

Who killed Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah

2 KINGS

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

FROM SHALMANESER III'S RECORDS AND SCRIPTURE, ON THE MAIN SYSTEM'S DATES

c. 841–798 BC[2][4][1]

Already king of Damascus in Shalmaneser III's eighteenth year (841 BC); in his fourteenth year (845 BC) the king of Damascus was still Hadad-ezer. His death is not dated by any record used here: Scripture puts it after he had oppressed Israel “all the days of Jehoahaz”, who died in 798 BC on Thiele, McFall and Young's dates.

Not literally: he was told he would be king

C. F. Keil (tr. 1872), pp. 259–260

Keil holds that only Jehu was really anointed; “Hazael was merely told by Elisha that he would be king” (2 Kings 8:13), so the word is used figuratively here. 2 Kings 8:13 [22]

Anointed in secret by Elijah, then again by Elisha

Earlier interpreters, as reported (and rejected) by Keil (tr. 1872), p. 260

Keil reports the opinion that Elijah anointed Hazael and Jehu at once but kept it secret, and that Elisha repeated it when their time came; he finds it ruled out by the account of Jehu's anointing in 2 Kings 9.[22]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 9

1 Kings 19 2 Kings 8 2 Kings 9 2 Kings 10 2 Kings 12 2 Kings 13 2 Chronicles 22 2 Chronicles 24 Amos 1

PASSAGES · 11

1 Kings 19:15–17 2 Kings 8:7–15 2 Kings 8:28–29 2 Kings 9:14–15 2 Kings 10:32–33 2 Kings 12:17–18 2 Kings 13:3–7 2 Kings 13:22–25 2 Chronicles 22:5–6 2 Chronicles 24:23–24 Amos 1:3–5

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture records the command to anoint Hazael (1 Kings 19:15) but no anointing.
  • Scripture does not name Hazael's father; Shalmaneser's inscription calls him “the son of a nobody”.
  • Scripture gives him no length of reign and no burial.
  • Scripture says nothing of his wars with Assyria.
  • Chronicles tells of a Syrian army in Joash's day without naming Hazael (2 Chronicles 24:23–24).

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • From the textThe Hazael of 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 8–13. Amos's “house of Hazael” names his line. 1 Kings 19:15 Amos 1:4
  • Scholars' viewPublished summaries of the editors' reports say that A. Biran and J. Naveh (1995) credit the Aramaic stele from Tel Dan to Hazael, and that the king's name does not survive on the fragments found; the editors' articles themselves were not read for this page.[11]

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • Rodger C. Young, Chronological tables: Table 1, Chronology of the Kings of Israel; Table 2, Chronology of the Kings of Judah (Thiele's system as revised by McFall and Young; dates cited as facts only) (undated web tables, read 2026-10-07), Tables 1 and 2.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §553 (Shalmaneser III, 858–824 BC), §§568, 571, 575, 578 (Black Obelisk, years 11, 14, 18 and 21), pp. 199–206.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §611, p. 223 (Monolith Inscription from Kurkh, the battle of Karkar).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§658–659 and 663, pp. 240–241 (annals from Calah, years 14 and 18).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§679–681, pp. 245–246 (the statue inscription from Assur).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §735, p. 261 (the Saba’a stele) and §740, pp. 262–263 (the Nimrud slab) of Adad-nirari III.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §761, p. 269 (on the order of the annal fragments); §769, p. 273; §772, p. 276 (Tiglath-pileser III's tribute lists).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§776–779, pp. 278–280 (Tiglath-pileser III's annals: the war on Aram; Samsi, queen of Arabia).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon to the end) (1927), §1198, p. 436 (the eponym list with notes, 733 and 732 BC).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 296, note 1 (the reading “Bir-idri”); p. 299 with note 1 (the statue inscription); pp. 305–306 (Adad-nirari III and Mari’).
  • A. Biran and J. Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan” (1993) and “The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment” (1995), Israel Exploration Journal 43 and 45 (facts only; copyrighted) (1993, 1995), IEJ 43 (1993) 81–98; IEJ 45 (1995) 1–18 (the articles were not read; facts taken from published summaries).
  • S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel (Appendix: the Inscription of Mesha) (1890), pp. lxxxv–lxxxvi (introduction), lxxxvii–lxxxviii (translation), lxxxviii–xcii and xciv (Driver's notes).
  • A. H. Sayce, “Moabite Stone”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 3 (1915), pp. 2071–2072 (discovery of the stone; “forty” and the date of the revolt on p. 2072).
  • W. Ewing, “Mesha”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 3 (1915), pp. 2037–2038, section (3).
  • T. Nicol, “Benhadad”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1 (1915), pp. 435–437.
  • T. Nicol, “Hazael”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 2 (1915), pp. 1345–1346.
  • T. Nicol, “Rezin”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 4 (1915), p. 2588.
  • David Francis Roberts, “Queen of Sheba”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 4 (1915), s.v. (sections 1 and 4).
  • Thomas Hunter Weir, “Sheba” (1), International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 4 (1915), p. 2752, sections 1 and 3.
  • (unsigned article), “Candace”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1 (1915), p. 552.
  • Edward Mack, “Chronology of the Old Testament”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1 (1915), pp. 639–640 (Menahem's tribute in 738 BC).
  • C. F. Keil, tr. J. Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Kings (Keil and Delitzsch) (1872), pp. 221 (1 Kgs 15:18), 259–260 (1 Kgs 19:15), 261 and 266–267 (1 Kgs 20), 307 (2 Kgs 3:27), 334–336 (2 Kgs 8:10–15), 402–403 (2 Kgs 16:6); read in the archive.org scan text.
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (Clark's Foreign Theological Library; translation first published 1866, this printing 1876) (1866), pp. 318–321 (Hiram).
  • John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament (1748–1763), note on 2 Kgs 3:27 (read on Bible Hub).
  • H. D. M. Spence and J. S. Exell (eds.), The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1897), note on 2 Kgs 3:27 (read on Bible Hub).
  • J. R. Lumby, The Second Book of the Kings (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges) (1887), note on 2 Kgs 3:27 (read on Bible Hub).
  • C. J. Ellicott (ed.), A Bible Commentary for English Readers (c. 1878–1884), note on 2 Kgs 3:27 (read on Bible Hub).
  • H. D. M. Spence and J. S. Exell (eds.), The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1897), note on 2 Kgs 8:15 (read on Bible Hub).
  • C. J. Ellicott (ed.), A Bible Commentary for English Readers (c. 1878–1884), note on 2 Kgs 8:15 (read on Bible Hub).
  • C. J. Ellicott (ed.), A Bible Commentary for English Readers (c. 1878–1884), note on 2 Kgs 16:6 (read on Bible Hub).
  • John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament (1748–1763), note on 2 Kgs 16:6 (read on Bible Hub).
  • E. A. Wallis Budge (tr.), The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (the Kebra Nagast) (1922), Introduction, pp. xxx (the colophons date the Arabic version AD 1314–1344) and xxxiv (the names Makeda and Balkis; Saba “far more probable”).
  • Pliny the Elder, tr. John Bostock and H. T. Riley, The Natural History (1855), book 6, chapter 35 (Bostock and Riley's numbering; 6.29 in older editions).
  • Strabo, tr. H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer, The Geography of Strabo (1854–1857), book 17, chapter 1, section 54.
  • Eusebius, tr. A. C. McGiffert, Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1) (1890), book 2, chapter 1, section 13.
  • Irenaeus, tr. A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, Against Heresies (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1) (1885), book 3, chapter 12, section 8.
  • Geneva Bible translators, Geneva Bible marginal notes (1599), note on 2 Chr 8:2 (read on Bible Hub).
  • H. D. M. Spence and J. S. Exell (eds.), The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1897), note on 2 Chr 8:2 (read on Bible Hub).
  • W. E. Barnes, The Books of Chronicles (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges) (1899), note on 2 Chr 8:2 (read on Bible Hub).
  • C. J. Ellicott (ed.), A Bible Commentary for English Readers (c. 1878–1884), note on 2 Chr 8:2 (read on Bible Hub).

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