Moab

MOAB. - Son of Lot through incest with his firstborn (Heb. Mō'ābh; in the stele of Mesha m'b; Assyrian Ma'aba, Ma'b, Mu'aba; Egyptian Muaba; interpreted by the Septuagint as ἐν τοῦ πατρός μου, mē'ābhē, in relation to 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 an ethnographic designation (mō'ābhē) and a geographical one ('eres M. or tēdhē M. "the fields of M.": Ruth 1:1, etc.).

The country of M., between Ammon to the north and Edom to the south, originally inhabited by the Emim, bordered to the east on the great Syro-Arabian desert by means of a large strip called "the desert of M." (Deut. 2:8, 13; Judg. 11:17), along which Israel went up, so as not to touch the country of M. The brook Zered (Wādi el-Hesā) clearly marked its southern boundary (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 Heshbon, and the Wādi Nimrin. The Amorite kingdom of Sihon and the settlement of the Israelite tribes of Gad and Reuben reduced M. to the south of the Arnon, which is therefore often considered its northern boundary. The stele of Mesha (v.), the claims of Jephthah, the allusions of Isaiah and Jeremiah nevertheless show that M. had in time recovered its settlements north of the Arnon (Num. 21:25-32; Deut. 2:24, 36; Josh. 13:25; Judg. 18:18, 22; Is. 15:4; Jer. 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 the Baal of Pō'ōr (v. REELPHEGOR), which is none other than Chemosh, the national god of the Moabites (cf. the steles of Mesha, of el-Balū'ah [ca. 1300 B.C.]; Num. 22:26; Deut. 3:29; Josh. 13:20).

M. already then appears hostile to the Israelites, with its king Balak, son of Zippor, famous for the episode of Balaam the soothsayer (Num. 22-24). Because of this hostility no Moabite, to the tenth generation, may 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 in all the surrounding region; they were freed by Ehud (Judg. 3:11-30). Saul fought against M. (I Sam. 14:47). David finally defeated and subdued M., severely punishing its soldiers with a kind of decimation (II Sam. 8:2). While he was being persecuted, he had led his parents to Mizpah of M., as guests of the King, to remove them from Saul's vengeance (I Sam. 23:1-4), and that Ruth his ancestress was a Moabitess (Ruth 4:13-22). After the death of Solomon, M. was again independent until Omri (v.), who made it tributary to the Kingdom of Israel, to which it owed every year 100,000 lambs and as many rams with wool (stele of Mesha; II Kings 1:1). King Mesha (9th cent.) in his stele enumerates the successes won against Jehoram (853-842), king of Israel, from whom he remained independent (II Kings 3). Jehu afterward recovered some of the lost cities; but all of M. was conquered by Hazael of Damascus (II Kings 10:33 ff.). Under Jeroboam II (783-743) it again became tributary to Israel (II Kings 14:25).

In the 8th-7th centuries M. was under Assyrian dominion. "Its kings figured in the cuneiform lists of tributaries: Salamanu under Tiglath-Pileser III (731), Kamusunadbi (Chemosh-nadab) under Sennacherib (701), Musuri ('the Egyptian') under Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal (673-668)" (F.-M. Abel [op. cit. in bibl.], p. 280). After the rebellion of Jehoiakim (ca. 601 B.C.), bands of Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites joined the Chaldean forces and attacked Judah (II Kings 24:2; cf. Jer. 12:7-17). In 594 M., with Ammon, Edom, Tyre and Sidon, urged Judah to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 27:1-11). In 588 it rebelled against the Chaldeans together with Judah. Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Jud., X, 9, 7) relates that 5 years after the destruction of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar made war on Ammon and M. (cf. Ezek. 21:28-32). From the Persian period onward, M. was gradually absorbed by the Arabs (cf. Ezek. 25:10) and then by the Kingdom of the Nabataeans (cf. Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Jud., XIV, 1, 4; 5, 2). "The Ammonites disputed with the Nabataeans the possession of M., on the ancient rights of Gad and Reuben. Herod annexed to Gilead the territory north of the Arnon, forming Perea. M. fell for some time under the dominion of Aretas, before entering the Roman province of Arabia" (F.-M. Abel [op. cit. in bibl.], p. 280). Thus were fulfilled the prophecies against M. (Is. 15-16; Jer. 48; Ezek. 25:8-11; Zeph. 2:8-11), often cruel and inhuman (Am. 2:1).

Francesco Spadafora