MOAB

MOAB. – Son of Lot by incest with the firstborn daughter (Hebr. Mō'ābh; on the Mesha stele m'b; Assyrian Ma'aba, Ma'b, Mu'aba; Egyptian Muaba; interpreted by the Septuagint as ἐν τοῦ πατρός μου, mē'ābhē, in connection with the episode of Lot’s daughters, Gen. 19:34-37). From him originated the people of the Moabites, who gave the name of M. to the territory they occupied; hence M. is both an ethnographic designation (mō'ābhē) and a geographical one ('eres M. or tēdhē M., “the fields of M.”: Ruth 1:1, etc.).

The land of M., between Ammon to the north and Edom to the south, originally inhabited by the Emim, bordered on the east upon the great Syro-Arabian desert by means of a broad strip called “the desert of M.” (Deut. 2:8, 13; Iudc. 11:17), along which Israel ascended in order not to touch the land of M. The torrent Zared (Wādi el-Hesā) clearly delimited it to the south (Num. 21:11 ff.; 33:43 ff.); to the west, the Dead Sea and the lower course of the Jordan. To the north, the frontier was unstable; moreover, there were many Ammonite infiltrations. In ancient times it reached the Wādi Na'ūr, beyond Hesebon, and the Wādi Nimrin. The Amorite kingdom of Sehon and the settlement of the Israelite tribes of Gad and Ruben reduced M. to the south of the Arnon, which was therefore often regarded as its northern boundary. EMESA (v.), the claims of Iephe, and the allusions of Isaiah and Jeremiah nevertheless demonstrate that, in time, M. had recovered its settlements north of the Arnon (Num. 21:25-32; Deut. 2:24, 36; Ios. 13:25; Iudc. 18:18, 22; Is. 15:4; Ier. 48:21; F.-M. Abel [op. cit. in bibl.], I, p. 279); as far as the “steppes of M.” ('arbèth M.), the fertile plain between the Jordan and the 'Arābhim mountains, between the Dead Sea and the Wādi Nimrin, where the Israelites camped before crossing the Jordan and where they practiced the licentious worship of Baal of Pō'ōr (v. REELPREGOR), who is none other than Chamos, the national god of the Moabites (cf. the stelae of Mesa and of el-Balū'ah [ca. 1300 B.C.]; Num. 22, 26; Deut. 3:29; Ios. 13:20).

M. already then appears hostile to the Israelites, with its king Balac, son of Sephor, famous for the episode

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of Balaam the diviner (Num. 22–24). Because of this hostility, no Moabite, up to the tenth generation, could be admitted into the people of Israel (Deut. 23, 3–6). In the time of the Judges, Eglon, king of M., oppressed the Hebrews in the plain of Jericho and throughout the surrounding region; they were liberated by Aod or Ehud (Iud. 3, 11–30). Saul fought against M. (I Sam. 14, 47). David finally defeated and subjugated M., severely punishing its soldiers with a kind of decimation (II Sam. 8, 2). While he was being persecuted, he had brought his parents to Masphe of M., as guests of the King, in order to save them from Saul’s vengeance (I Sam. 23, 1–4), since Ruth, his ancestress, was a Moabite (Ruth. 4, 13–22). After the death of Solomon, M. AMORI (v.), who made it tributary to the Kingdom of Israel; to it, M. owed an annual payment of 100,000 lambs and the same number of wool-bearing rams (the stele of Mesa; II Reg. 1, 1). King Mesa (9th century), in his stele, enumerates the successes achieved against Ioram (853–842), king of Israel, from whom he remained independent (II Reg. 3). Iehu subsequently recovered some of the lost cities; but all M. was conquered by Hazael of Damascus (II Reg. 10, 33 ff.). Under Ieroboam II (783–743), it again became tributary to Israel (II Reg. 14, 25).

In the 8th–7th centuries, M. was under Assyrian rule. “Its kings appeared in the cuneiform lists of tributaries: Salamanu under Teglathphalasar III (731), Kamusunadbi (Chamosnadab) under Sennacherib (701), Musuri (‘the Egyptian’) under Asarhaddon and Assurbanipal (673–668)” (F.-M. Abel [op. cit. in bibl.], p. 280). After the rebellion of Ioakim (ca. 601 B.C.), bands of Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites joined the Chaldean forces and attacked Judah (II Reg. 24, 2; cf. Ier. 12, 7–17). In 594, M., together with Ammon, Edom, Tyre, and Sidon, urged Judah to rebel against Nabuchodonosor (Ier. 27, 1–11). In 588 it rebelled against the Chaldeans together with Judah. Flavius Josephus (Antiq.

Iud., X, 9, 7) relates that five years after the destruction of Jerusalem Nabuchodonosor waged war against Ammon and M. (cf. Ez. 21, 28–32). Beginning in the Persian period, M. was gradually absorbed by the Arabs (cf. Ez. 25, 10) and then by the Kingdom of the Nabataeans (cf. Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Iud., XIV, 1, 4; 5, 2). “The Ammonites disputed possession of M. with the Nabataeans, on the basis of the ancient rights of Gad and Ruben. Herod annexed to Galaad the territory north of the Arnon, forming Perea. M. fell for some time under the rule of Areta, before entering the Roman province of Arabia” (F.-M. Abel [op. cit. in bibl.], p. 280). Thus the prophecies against M. were fulfilled (Is. 15–16; Ier. 48; Ez. 25, 8–11; Soph. 2, 8–11), which was often cruel and inhuman (Am. 2, 1).