Did Chemosh defeat Jehovah in battle?

You read that right, did the Moabite god Chemosh defeat Jehovah in a brutal battle? Is this in the Bible?

There is an account in 2 Kings 3 that moves very quickly at a dizzying pace, and thus requires some very careful reading to understand it.

First, a coalition of Judah, Israel, and Edom was formed to subdue Moab. The background of this coalition was that Mesha king of Moab revolted against the control of Israel. However, it must be noted that the king of Israel, Jehoram, did not enjoy a good standing before Jehovah, as verse 2 says: “He kept doing what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes.” But King Jehoshaphat of Judah agreed to help King Jehoram and got the king of Edom to join them. Then, these three visited Jehovah’s prophet Elisha for a blessing. At this point it is extremely significant that Jehovah’s prophet Elisha told Jehoram to leave him as they had nothing in common, and to go consult the prophets of his apostate parents Ahab and Jezebel—prophets outside of Jehovah’s oversight. However, he only acquiesced to talk to him on account of Jehoshaphat. (2 Kings 3:13-14) After starting to prophecy, Elisha said that Jehovah “will also give Moab into your hand.” (2 Kings 3:18) Verse 19 specifies the condition for victory: “You must strike down every fortified city and every choice city, you should cut down every good tree, you should stop up all the springs of water, and you should ruin every good plot of land with stones.” Verse 25 describes that they did just that, until one city remained standing: “Finally only the stone walls of Kir-hareseth remained standing, and the slingers surrounded it and struck it down [or “attacked it” (ESV)].”

The last two verses of this account are where things get tricky. King Mesha of Moab “saw that the battle was lost,” so he had 700 swordmen attack the coalition “to break through to the king of Edom.” This effort failed. In an act of desperation, he made a sacrifice to their god Chemosh to rouse his support to smite the coalition. But it was not just any sacrifice. Verse 27 says King Mesha “took his firstborn son who was going to reign in his place and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall.” This is understood to be his own son and not the king of Edom’s, even though he is the antecedent as the target of the 700 swordmen. (Compare with Amos 2:1, which mentions an unrelated account of Moab burning the bones of the king of Edom.)

The result of this sacrifice to Chemosh is no less tricky to read. “And there came to be great indignation against Israel, so they withdrew from against him and returned to their land.” This is the final verse, and the next chapter starts a new narrative, notably one that supports Elisha’s credentials as a prophet.

So what was this “great indignation” and who was it from? Was this Chemosh defeating Jehovah in battle with a human sacrifice? Did Jehovah fail to fulfil his word through his prophet Elisha?

This passage has received much due attention from scholars. For instance, Robert Alter stated in his translation, starting with the sacrifice: “A king’s sacrifice of his own child, in an effort to placate the gods at a moment of military emergency, was a familiar practice in the ancient Near East.” This establishes that it was Mesha’s own son that he brutally murdered on an altar on the city wall and burned before the eyes of the coalition. Alter continues regarding the nature of the “great indignation”:

“Fury” (qetsef) is usually the term for God’s devastating rage against Israel when the people has transgressed. Here, however, Israel has done no wrong. And the descent of the fury explicitly reverses Elisha’s favorable prophecy. This turn of events might reflect an early tradition that accords Chemosh, the Moabite god, power that must be propitiated by human sacrifice, so that he will then blight the enemies of Moab. In any case, the story means to explain why Israel and its allies, after an initial victory, were obliged to retreat.

He then notes that this victory is apparently the subject of the famous Moabite Stone, “A Moabite inscription on a stele, discovered in 1868, in which Mesha speaks in the first person, triumphantly proclaims a sweeping victory over Israel.”

So as Israel was leading this attack, Israel retreating pulled the other two, Judah and Edom, into retreat as well. But what exactly made Israel retreat? The power of Chemosh over Jehovah? The Oxford Annotated Study Bible seems to agree, and offers this explanation: “[this sacrifice] saves this city from the fate of all the others, as wrath comes upon Israel and they withdraw from Moab. The nature of the wrath is left unspecified, although in this context it most likely refers to a superhuman fury [of Chemosh] that impels Mesha’s troops to victory.”^[1] The NAB Catholic Study Bible likewise says: “The wrath against Israel: probably the wrath of Chemosh, the Moabite god to whom the child was offered. He was feared by the Israelites who lost heart on foreign soil.”

However, the ESV Study Bible offers a different and more down-to-earth explanation:

Facing defeat by Israel, Mesha offered his son as burnt offering on the wall. As a consequence, there came great wrath (Hb. qetsep) against Israel. This is not to be understood as divine anger, because on the one hand the biblical authors did not regard the Moabite god Chemosh as a real god (1 Kings 11:7), and on the other hand Israel’s God would surely not have acted on Moab’s behalf as a result of a ritual practice that was abhorrent to him (cf. 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6). It seems, instead, that this “great wrath” is human wrath (as on both other occasions in Kings when qetsep appears, 5:11; 13:19): Mesha’s troops respond to his desperate act with an anger that carries them to victory against the odds.

The HCSB Study Bible similarly explains:

Finally the devastation came to the point at which the king of Moab offered his own crown prince and heir as a human sacrifice. The lesson of these two chapters is clear: God’s miraculous power could bring unfaithful Israel to the verge of victory, but God could also take that victory away. Whether from battle fatigue in foreign lands, shock at the desperate step the king of Moab took in sacrificing his son, superstitious fear of the magic power that such a sacrifice aimed to produce, or from seeing the wrath (whether of the Moabites or of God Almighty; the text is unclear), the coalition withdrew and Moab remained independent though thoroughly devastated.

Lastly, the Faithlife Study Bible coherently notes:

The Hebrew term used here describes anger toward wrongdoers (Nu 18:5; Dt 29:27; Jos 9:20; 22:20), but it is uncertain whose wrath the text refers to here. It may be the perceived anger of Chemosh, Moab’s patron god, leading to the Israelites’ defeat. However, this account does not portray a defeat of Yahweh by Chemosh; instead it depicts a defeat of God’s people after they lost faith in Yahweh’s ability. The OT portrays the Israelites as believing that the gods of other nations were real. Those gods were originally assigned to the nations by Yahweh (Dt 32:8-9). Given this worldview, which presumes the superiority of Yahweh, it seems that the Israelites were frightened by the human sacrifice, believed that the Moabites god was angry, and retreated.

Remember that the Israelites at this time were not on good terms with Jehovah, especially its King Jehoram whom Elisha initially dismissed. So if the Israelites lost heart on the battlefield with regrouped Moabite aggression energized by the sacrifice, it was not due to Jehovah but to their own weakness. King Jehoram could possibly have won the day if he had relied on Jehovah to not be bullied with the fearsome sight of child sacrifice on the wall. Elisha’s prophecy would have been completely fulfilled. Also, it is significant that he is still a trusted prophet in the next chapter.

To recap:

• The Israelites were not fighting with Jehovah.
• They failed to appeal to Jehovah in response to the child sacrifice propaganda.
• If they shook off the shock and pressed their attack they could have won.
• Elisha’s prophecy did not “fail.”
• Elisha remained a trusted prophet.

So, this is obviously not about Jehovah losing to Chemosh. It is sensational to say otherwise, due to failing to take the preceding and highly relevant context into account. Instead, it is about unfaithful Israel not relying on Jehovah on the battlefield.

Did Chemosh defeat Jehovah in battle?
Short answer: Nope.

Footnotes:
^[1] The reknown work Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible states this event much more forcefully:

Of particular interest is the remark in 2 Kgs 3:27 that Mesha, in a critical situation of battle, offered his son on the wall of his city. The consequence of which was that the wrath of Chemosh began to destroy Israel instantly; nowhere else is the mighty activity of a foreign god conceded in such an unrestrained manner.

However, the text does not say that Chemosh did that, that he destroyed Israel instantly in his infernal wrath. Perhaps this wild misreading of the text is responsible for their concuding misgiving: “Unfortunately, we cannot reconcile this particular record with the largely ideological statements of the first Mesha inscription [Moabite Stone].” Yes, the reason being that it is based on a glaring sensationalized misreading of 2 Kings 3:27.

Additional learning:
By Inspiring Philosophy:

• Was Yahweh Defeated By Another god?
  youtu.be/2rq8F_9Yg-Y
• Did God really lose in battle?
  tiktok.com/t/ZT8V45Ct5

These videos address this question differently and arrive at the same conclusion, that 2 Kings 3 is not portraying Chemosh defeating Yahweh. They are highly recommended.

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