The account of the whole of these transactions in the book of Numbers, familiar as we arc with its phrases, perhaps hardly conveys an adecpiate idea of the ex- tremity in which Balak found himself in his ui>expected encounter with the new nation and their mighty Divin- ity. We may realize it better (and certainly with grat- itude for the opportunity) if we consider what that last dreadfid agony was in which a successor of Balak was placed, when, all hope of escape for himself and his peo- I)le being cut off, the unhappy Jlesha immolated his own son on the wall of Kir-harasetii ; and then remem- ber that Balak in his distress actually proposed the same awfid sacrifice — " his first-born for his transgres- sion, the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul" (Mic. vi,7) — a sacrifice from which he was restrained only by the wise, the almost Cliristian (Matt, ix, 13; xii, 7) counsels of Balaam. This catastrophe will be noticed in its proper place.
Tiie connection of Moab with ^lidian, and the com- paratively inoffensive character of the former, are shown in the narrative of the events which followed the de- l)arture of Balaam. The women of Jloab are indeed said (Numb, xxv, 1 ) to have commenced the idolatrous fornication which proved so destructive to Israel, but it is plain that their sliarc in it was insignificant com- pared witli that of Midian. It was a Jlidiauitish woman whose shameless act brought down the jilague on the camji, the ^lidianitish women were especially devoted to destruction by Moses (xxv, lG-18; xxxi, l(i), and it was upon Midian that the vengeance was taken. V.k- cept in the passage already meutioued, Moab is not once
named in the whole transaction. The latest date at which the two names appear in conjunction is found in the notice of the defeat of Midian '■ in the field of Moab" by the Edomitich king Iladad bcn-Bedad, which oc- curred live generations before the establishment of the monarchy of Israel (Gen, xxxvi, 35 ; 1 Cliron. i, 4G). By the Jewish interjsreters — e. g. Solomon Jarchi in his commentary on tiie passage — this is treated as implying, not alliance, but war between Moab and Midian (comp. 1 Chron. iv, 22).
It is remarkable that Moses should have taken his j view of the Promised Land from a Jloabitish sanctuary, ! and been buried in the land of i.Ioab. It is singular, j too, that his resting-i)lace is marked in the Hebrew rec- ; ords only by its proximity. to the sanctuary of that deity { to whom in his lifetime he had been such an enemy. He lies in a ravine in the land of Moab, facing Betb- Peor, i. e. the abode of Baal-Pcor (Dent, xxxiv, G).
2. After the conquest of Canaan the relations of iloab with Israel were of a mixed character. With the tribe of Benjamin, whose possessions at their eastern end were separated from those of jMoab only by the Jordan, they • had at least one severe struggle, in union with their kindred the Ammonites, and also, for this time only, the wild Amalekites from the south (Judg. iii, 12-30). The i\Ioabitish king, Eglon, actually ruled and received tribute in Jericho for eighteen years, but at the end of that time he was killed by the Benjamitish hero Ehud, and the return of the Jloabites l)eing intercepted at the fords, a large number were slaughtered, and a stop put to such incursions on their part for tlie future. A trace of this invasion is visible in the name of Chephar-ha- Ammonai, the " hamlet of the Ammonites," one of the Benjamitish towns; and another is possibly preserved even to the present day in the name of Mukhmas, the modern representative of Michmash, which is by some scliolars believed to have received its name from Che- mosh, the Moabitish deity. The feud continued with true Oriental pertinacity to the time of Saul. Of his slaughter of the Ammonites we have full details, in 1 Sam. xi, and among liis other conquests Moab is espe- cially mentioned (1 Sam. xiv, 47). There is not, how- ever, as we should expect, any record of it during Ish- bosheth's residence at Mahanaim, on the east of Jordan. But while such were their relations to the tribe of Benjamin, the story of Hutli, on the other hand, testifies to the existence of a friendly intercourse between Moab and Bethlehem, one of the towns of Judah. Jewish tradition (7\irf/iim JoiiatJ/dii on Itulh i, 4) ascribes the death of iNIahlon and Cliilion to ]iunishment for having broken tlie commandment of Dent, xxiii, 3, but no trace of any feeling of the kind is visilde in the book of Kiitli itself— which not only seems to imply a considcra1>lc in- tercourse between the two nations, but also a complete ignorance or disregard of the precept in question, wliich was broken in the most flagrant manner when Ituth became the wife of Boaz. By his descent from Buth, David may be said to have had ^Moabitish IjIoocI in iiis veins. The relationship was suflicieiit, especially when combined with the blood-fetul between IMoal) and Ben- jamin, already alluded to, to warrant his visiting the \ land of his ancestress, and committing his parents to the protection of tlie king of I^Ioab, when hard pressed by Saul (1 Sam. xxiii, 3, 4). But here all friendly relation stops forever. The next time the name is mentioned is in the account of David's war. at least twenty years after the last-mentioned event (2 Sam. viii, 2; 1 Chron. xviii, 2). The abrupt manner in which this war is in- troduced into the history is no less remarkable than the I brief and passing terms in which its horrors are record- j ed. The account occupies but a few words in either ! Samuel or Chronicles, and yet it nnist have been for the I time little short of a virtual extirpation of the nation. Two thirds of the people were ]iut to death, while the re- mainder became bondmen, and were subjected to a reg^ 1 ular trii)ute. An incident of tliis war is probably re- I corded in 2 Sam. xxiii, 20, and 1 Chron. xi, 22, The