The wealth of extra-biblical tokens of Hazael's grandeur is not matched in the biblical books discussing Israel's past. At the same time, modern studies of the history of the Aramaeans do not deal with Hazael's impact on the Bible. The rare historical studies that bring together Hazael and the Bible do not always know how to deal with the biblical materail and tend to grant too much credence to the biblical references to Hazael when it comes to reconstructing Hazael's empire. This study is adopting a different method in dealing with the relationship of Hazael and the Bible, and seeks, in this chapter, to provide guidelines for reading and dealing with the biblical material relative to Hazael in a historically responsible way.

Hazael is mentioned twenty-one times in the Bible, all in three Old Testament books: Kings, Chronicles and Amos (1 Kgs 19:15–18; 2 Kgs 8:7–15; 8:28–10:31; 10:32–33; 12:18–19[17–18]; 13; 2 Chron. 22:5–9; Amos 1:3–5). Besides these explicit mentions, Hazael is indirectly present in other parts of the books of Kings and he has a great influence on the book of Jonah as well. Although Hazael's empire is never mentioned as such in the Bible, it has impacted biblical literature to such a way that, as is argued below, goes way beyond the mere appearances of or references to his name or kingdom. Hazael's empire is turned by the biblical writers into a crucial theological paradigm that dominates the books of Kings, Amos and Jonah.