Did We Find Mention of the Dynasty of the “House of David”?

Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master; and he rendered unto the king of Israel the wool of a hundred thousand lambs, and of a hundred thousand rams. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. And king Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time, and mustered all Israel .

2 Kings 3:4–7

Omri was king of Israel… His son (Ahab) succeeded him and he also said: I will oppress Moab… and Israel said, I shall destroy it forever…and I fought against it…and I captured from there Ariel Davido and I carted it before Chemosh in Kerioth (from the Mesha Stele).

In the mid-ninth century King Jehoram of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah fought against King Mesha of Moab, who had rebelled against Israel, its overlord at the time. In the nineteenth century, a stone-carved inscription was found in Dibbon in Transjordan, which mentions the ensuing war. A mysterious term is mentioned in the inscription – Ariel Davido – which might be derived from the name “David.”

Prof. Andre Lemaire believes that the term “house of David” appears at the end of this inscription, in a part that was broken and whose letters were damaged. If that is correct, then what we have here is one of the earliest extra-biblical mentions of the name of David and of his dynasty.