Ben-Hadad I

Ben-Hadad I
King of Aram Damascus
Reign885–865 BCE
PredecessorHezion (or Tabrimmon)
SuccessorBen-Hadad II
FatherTabrimmon

Ben-Hadad I (Hebrew: בֶּן־הֲדַד, romanized: Ben-Hăḏaḏ),[1] son of Tabrimmon and grandson of Hezion, was king of Aram-Damascus between 885 BCE and 865 BCE. Ben-Hadad I was reportedly a contemporary of kings Baasha of the Kingdom of Israel and Asa of the Kingdom of Judah.

According to the biblical book of Kings, Asa called on Ben-Hadad I to aid him in attacking northern Israel while Baasha restricted access to Jerusalem through border fortifications. Ben-Hadad took the towns of "Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maachah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali" (1 Kings 15:20). This acquisition gave Aram-Damascus control of the trade route to southern Phoenicia. By the time of the reign of Ahab, the area was back in Israelite hands.[2]

According to the archaeologist William Foxwell Albright, the Melqart stele should be attributed to Ben-Hadad I.[3] However, Kenneth Kitchen disagrees and states that there is no actual evidence that connects that stele to this particular king.[4]

  1. ^ "BDB, בֶּן־הֲדַד 1". www.sefaria.org.
  2. ^ Freedman, David Noel (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4.
  3. ^ Albright, W. F. (1942-10-01). "A Votive Stele Erected by Ben-Hadad I of Damascus to the God Melcarth". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 87 (87): 23–29. doi:10.2307/1355460. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1355460. S2CID 163203878.
  4. ^ Kitchen, K. A. (2006-06-09). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-8028-0396-2.