Bible Synapse
Stele of Zakkur
Inscription · c. 800 BC · Israel and Judah · also called Zakkur inscription, Zakir stele
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 800 BC (the stele’s carving)
- Found
- Tell Afis, near Aleppo, Syria, 1903. Found in 1903 by the French consul Henri Pognon on the acropolis of Tell Afis; he published the inscription in 1907.
- Now
- Louvre, Paris (AO 8185)
- Passages
- 2 Kings 13:3, 2 Kings 13:24–25, Zechariah 9:1
What it is
The lower part of a basalt stele; of the figure carved on its top, little more than the feet survives. In Old Aramaic, Zakkur, king of Hamath and Lu’ash, tells how Bar-Hadad son of Hazael, king of Aram, led a coalition of some seventeen kings that besieged him at Hazrach. Zakkur prayed to his god Baalshamayn, who answered him through seers and diviners with a promise of rescue, and the stele goes on to list his building works.
How it connects to the Bible
Bar-Hadad son of Hazael matches “Benhadad the son of Hazael”, the Aramaean king from whom Jehoash of Israel won back the cities his father had lost (2 Kings 13:3, 24–25). Hazrach is the Hadrach of Zechariah 9:1. Zakkur’s seers, who answer the king with a promise of victory, are often compared with prophets consulted by kings in the Bible.
What scholars debate
The stele’s date is debated, with proposals from about 805 to 775 BC, and so is whether Assyria helped to lift the siege.