Ben-Hadad II (Aram-Damascus)

Ben-Hadad, king of Aram-Damascus, is Ahab's great enemy in the Book of Kings. 1 Kings 20 tells that with 32 allied kings he besieged Samaria and demanded Ahab's silver, gold, wives and children. Ahab answered, "Let not him who puts on his armour boast like him who takes it off," and routed the Arameans while Ben-Hadad lay drinking in his booths. The next spring the Arameans, saying Israel's God was a god of the hills, fought in the plain at Aphek and were beaten again; Ahab spared Ben-Hadad for a treaty and trading quarters in Damascus. Three years later the war over Ramoth-Gilead cost Ahab his life (1 Kings 22). 2 Kings 6–7 tells of a later siege of Samaria so severe that a donkey's head sold for 80 pieces of silver, and 2 Kings 8 of Ben-Hadad's illness and his murder by Hazael.

Assyrian records name the king of Damascus in these years Adad-idri (Hadadezer), who led the coalition against Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in −853 with Ahab at his side, so many historians identify him with the biblical Ben-Hadad.