ut as Mesha’s father reigned in Dibon on the Arnon, probably Mesha’s conquests did not include Heshbon.
According to 2 Ch 24%, one of the assassins of Joash of Judah had a Moabite mother. The story of Elisha (2 K 13%) mentions Moabite raids in Israel.
2K 1455 states that Jeroboam um. recovered the border of Israel from the entering in of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, i.e. the Dead Sea. Prob- ably he recovered the suzerainty over Moab (so Cornill, p. 122, ‘succeeded ... in subduing all Moab’). 1Ch 5!” seems to imply a tradition of an effective Israelite occupation of territory between Jabbok and Arnon in the time of Jeroboam II. Am 2! may refer to Israelite conquests in Moab at this time, though it only refers expressly to the feud between Edom Saul Moab. Possibly the Israelite victories over Moab in Nu 24” (Balaam’s oracles) belong to this period, though they might refer to the wars of Omri or even David.
Another trace of the hostility of Moab to both Israel and Judah, in the period of the two king- doms, is the unsympathetic attitude of both J and E to Moab; the most striking example being the account of the birth of Ammon and Moab.
In the period from Jeroboam u. to the Fall of Samaria, the catastrophes of Israel, deter the aonoreenes of the eastern tribes by Tiglath-pileser, and, in a less degree, that of the inhabitants of the rest of the Northern Kingdom, left Moab free to aggrandize itself. All the evidence seems to show that, in the century and a half after the fall of Samaria, the prosperity of Moab reached its climax. a rpareadly its rulers were wise enough to observe the essential condition of continuous prosperity, and submitted to the suzerainty of Assyria; cf. COT ii. 49. Salmanu the Moabite occurs in the Nimrud Clay Inscription of Tiglath- pileser as one of the tributaries of Assyria; and it is perhaps this Salmanu, and not the Assyrian Shalmaneser, who is to be identified with the Shalman who sacked Beth-arbel in Hos 10" (so Sayce, HCM p. 482).
n a fragment, indeed, of Sargon Π. (Kellner, Isaiah, p. 34), Moab is mentioned as allied with Philistia, Judah, and Edom in a conspiracy against Assyria; but on the great Taylor Prien, which gives Sennacherib’s account of his campaign against
* The translation of these lines is doubtful, of. above.
MOAB, MOABITES
Hezekiah and his allies, Kammusu-nadab (Chem- osh-nadab) of Moab brings tribute to the Assyrian king, and does homage to him. Mautsuri (probably ‘the Egyptian’) king of Moab is mentioned as attending the court of two successive kings of Assyria, Esar-haddon and Assurbanipal, in com- pany with twenty-one other apy kings, including
Tanasseh of Judah (Sayce, HCM p. 45018). In the last days of Jerusalem, Moab had transferred its allegiance to Babylon; Moabites fought for Nebuchadnezzar against Jehoiakim, 2 K 94, At the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, according to the original text of Jer 275, Moabite envoys came to Jerusalem to arrange a revolt against a Chaldzans; and later on Jewish refugees found an asylum in Moab, Jer 40"; and Ezk 25°" also im- plies that the prosperity of Moab continued after the fall of Jerusalem.
Much light is thrown on the condition of Moab in this period by the references to Moab in Am, Is, Mic, Zeph, Jer, and Ezk; although there is much difference of opinion as to the dates of the passages in question. For Am and Ezk, see above; it may be noted also that in Am the ruler of Moab is called naw ‘judge.’ Mic 6° merely refers to the story of Balaam and Balak, probably in a different form from that in which we now have it. Zeph 2°, which threatens Moab and Ammon because they have despised and harassed the Jews, is commonly regarded as exilic (cf. ZEPHANIAH).
he Is-Jer oracles on Moab present a very com- licated question. Is 15f. and Jer 48 are two independent editions of an older lament over some ruinous catastrophe which befell Moab. Cheyne (‘Isaiah ’ in PB p. 168) thinks the enemy of Moab may have been either Nebuchadnezzar, Assur- banipal, or Jeroboam u. Cheyne, Duhm, Giese- brecht, ete., hold that the later editions of the lament were compiled and inserted in Is and Jer by late post-exilic writers; Duhm refers Jer 48 to the time of Alexander Janneus and John Hyrcanus. But many critics (e.g. Cornill and Driver) regard Is 15f. as the work of Isaiah, and Jer 48 as that of Jeremiah—substantially. In the lament the territory of Moab has pomaied its maximum, and extends from Jazer, Sibmah, and Heshbon to the southern end of the Dead Sea. Thus the poem is probably later than Mesha, and does not refer to the conquest of Moab by Omri, or the campaign of Jehoram; the Stone does not mention Heshbon. Hence the disaster to Moab was probenly an invasion by Jeroboam 11., a view possibly confirmed by Is 16°, which is often interpreted as meaning that the king of Judah was ruling over Edom; while 2 Καὶ 147-10 suggest that, some time before, Amaziah of Judah had recovered the suzerainty of Edom. The lament shows that, since Mesha, Moab had made steady progress, and advanced its border beyond Heshbon ; that it possessed numerous ‘cities,’ ¢.e. walled towns, and doubtless many villages ; that it was fertile, well-cultivated, and, probably, densely populated ; and that it had reached a compara- tively high level of civilization, not very different from that of Judah. Jeroboam ravaged the country in the same fashion as Jehoram; and pou some districts and cities were occupied by sraelites, but Moab as a whole probably remained autonomous under a native ruler appointed by Jeroboam. If Nu 21” refers to this invasion (see above), the king of Moab at this time may have been named Sihon. The author of the lament shows marked sympathy for Moab; Israel was generally hostile to the Southern Kingdom after the extinction of the house of Omri, and Moab and Judah were drawn together by a common enmity to Samaria. A token of their mutual good feeling was Solomon’s temple to Chemosh,