Hazael of Aram (Damascus)

Hazael was a court official of Ben-hadad, king of Aram-Damascus, who seized the throne around −841. The Bible tells that the ailing Ben-hadad sent him to Elisha with forty camel-loads of gifts; Elisha wept, foreseeing Hazael burning Israel's fortresses and killing its people, and told him he would be king. The next day Hazael smothered his master with a wet cloth (2 Kings 8:7–15), and an inscription of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III independently calls him "son of a nobody" who seized the throne. He held Damascus against Assyrian attacks, then turned on Israel: he took Gilead and Bashan from Jehu, crushed Jehoahaz's army, captured the Philistine city of Gath, and was bought off from Jerusalem by Joash of Judah with Temple treasures (2 Kings 10, 12, 13).

The Tel Dan stele, found in 1993, is most likely his victory monument, boasting of killing the kings of Israel and of the "House of David." An ivory inscribed "our lord Hazael" was found at Arslan Tash in Syria, bronze horse trappings bearing his name reached Samos and Eretria in Greece, and excavations at Tell es-Safi (Gath) revealed a siege trench and destruction layer attributed to his campaign.