astrous as was this proceeding, that which followed it was even still more so. As a natural consequence of the late events, Israel, Judah, and Edom united in an attack on Moab. For reasons which are not stated, but one of which we may reasonably conjecture was to avoid tlie passage of the savage Edomites through Judah, the three confederate armies approached, not, as usual, by the north, but round the southern end of the Dead Sea, through the parched valleys of Upper Edom. As the' host came near, the king of Moab, doubtless the same Mesha who threw off the yoke of Ahab, assembled the whole of his people, from the youngest who were of age to bear the sword-girdle (2 Kings iii, 21), on the boun- dary of his territory, probably on the outer slopes of the line of hills which encircles "the lower portion of Moab, overlooking the waste which extended below them to- wards the east (comp. Nimib. xxi, 11 — "towards the sun-rising"). Here they remained all night on the watch. With the approach of morning the sun rose suddenly above the horizon of the rolling plain, and as his level beams burst through the night-mists they re- vealed no masses of the .enemy, but shone with a blood- red glare on a multitude of pools in the bed of the wad}"- at their feet. They did not know that these pools had been sunk during the night bj' the order of a mighty prophet who was with the host of Israel, and that they had been filled by the sudden flow of water rushing from the distant highlands of Edom. To them the conclusion was inevitable : the army had, like their own on the late occasion, fallen out in the night; these red pools were the blood of the slain; those who were not killed had fled, and nothing stood between them and the pillage of the camp. The cry of " Jloab to the spoil !" was raised. Down the slopes they rushed in headlong disorder. But not, as they expected, to empt}' tents; they found an enemy ready prepared to reap the result of his ingenious stratagem. Then oc- curred one of those scenes of carnage which can happen but once or twice in the existence of a nation. The Moabites fled back in confusion, followed and cut down at every step by their enemies. Far inwards did the pursuit reach, among the cities and farms and orchards of that rich district; nor when the slaughter was over was the horrid work of destruction done. The towns, both fortified and unfortified, were demolished, and the stones strewed over the carefully -tilled fields. The fountains of water, the life of an Eastern land, were choked, and all timber of any size or goodness felled. Nowhere else do we hear of such sweeping desolation ; the verj' besom of destruclitm passed over the land. At last the struggle collected iisiir at Kir-haraseth, appar- ently a newly-constructed fortress, which, if the modem Kerak — and there is every probability that they are identical — may well have resisted all the eflbrts of the allied kings in its native impregnability. Here Mesha took refuge with his family and with the remnants of his army. The heights around, by which the town is entirely commanded, were covered Avith slingers, who — armed partly with the ancient weapon of David and of the Benjamites, partly perhaps with the newly-invented machines shortly to be famous in Jerusalem (2 Chron. xxvi, 15) — discharged their volleys of stones on the town. At length the annoyance could be borne no longer. Then Mesha, collecting round him a forlorn hope of 700 of his best warriors, made a desperate sally, with the intention of cutting his way through to his special foe, the king of Edom. But the enemy were too strong for him, and he was driven back. And then came a fitting crown to a tragedy alreadj' so terrible. An awful spectacle amazed and horrified the besiegers. The king and his eldest son, the heir to the tin-one, mounted the wall, and, in the sight of the thousands who covered the sides of that vast amphitheatre, the father killed and burned his child as a propitiatory sac- rifice to the cruel gods of his country. It was the same, dreadful act to which, as we have seen, Balak had been so nearly tempted in his extremity. But the danger,
MOABITE
394
MOABITE
though perhaps not really greater than his, was more imminent; and Mesha had no one like Balaam at hand to counsel patience and submission to a mightier Power than ('licmosh or Haal-Peor. See JIesha.
Hitherto, though aljle and ready to fight when neces^ san,', the ^Moabites do not appear to have been a fighting people; perhaps, as suggested elsewhere, the Ammon- ites were the warriors of the nation of Lot, But this disaster seems to have altered their disposition, at any rate for a time. Shortly after these events we hear of '• bands"— that is, pillaging, marauding parties— of the Moabites making their incursions into Israel in the spring, as if to spoil the early corn before it was fit to cut (2 Kings xiii, 20). With JCdom there must have been many a contest. One of these marked by savage vengeance — recalling in some degree the tragedy of Kir-haraseth — is alluded to by Amos (ii, 1), where a king of Ktlom seems to have been killed and burned by Moab. This may have been one of the incidents of the battle of Kir-haraseth itself, occurring perhaps after the Edomites had parted from Israel, and were overtaken on their road home by the furious king of Moaib (Gese- nius, ./f.s-ata, i, 504); or, according to the Jewish tradi- tion (Jerome, on Amos ii, 1), it was a vengeance still more savage because more protracted, and lasting even beyond the death of the king, whose remains were torn from his tomb, and thus consumed.