King of Aram-Damascus in the later ninth century BC, and the most destructive enemy Israel faced before Assyria. He came to the throne by murder — 2 Kings 8:15 has him smother his sick master Ben-hadad with a wet cloth, the day after Elisha wept in front of him — and he then took all of Gilead from Israel (2 Kings 10:32-33), captured Gath (2 Kings 12:17), and had to be bought off from Jerusalem with the temple treasury. ⚠ He is unusually well attested outside the Bible: Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser III call him 'son of a nobody', their standard phrase for a usurper, and the Aramaic victory stele found at TEL DAN in 1993 — which contains the earliest extra-biblical mention of the 'House of David' — is generally attributed to him. Amos names his dynasty, not his country: the fire falls on 'the house of Hazael' and 'the citadels of Ben-hadad'.