Moab

“ It was the glory of Moab that their country was very populous and their forces were courageous; but where is her glory when all that great multitude is in a manner swept away, some by one judgment and some by another, and the little remnant that is left shall be very small and feeble, not able to bear up under their own griefs, much less to make head against their enemies' insults? Let not therefore the strong glory in their strength nor the many in their numbers. ”

“ How is the strong staff broken, the beautiful rod?
18 Come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst, O dwelling of the daughter of Dibon: because the spoiler of Moab is come up to thee, he hath destroyed thy bulwarks.
19 Stand in the way, and look out, O habitation of Aroer: inquire of him that fleeth: and say to him that hath escaped: What Is done?
20 Moab is confounded, because he is overthrown: howl ye, and cry, tell ye it in Amen, that Moab is wasted. ”

“ Chapter 48 1 Against Moab thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Woe to Nabo, for it is laid waste, and confounded: Cariathaim is taken: the strong city is confounded and hath trembled.
2 There is no more rejoicing in Moab over Hesebon: they have devised evil. Come, and let us cut it off from being a nation. Therefore shalt thou in silence hold thy peace, and the sword shall follow thee. ”

“ The high mountains of the country of Moab which lie beyond the Dead Sea, and which we have seen ever since we reached Hebron like a diaphanous wall in the east seem to be as distant as ever, although for three hours we have been advancing towards them,—apparently fleeing before us like the visions of a mirage. But they have grown misty and gloomy; all that was trailing in the sky like light veils in the morning has gathered and condensed upon their peaks, while a purer and more magnificent blue now extends above our heads. ”

“ I have made the shouting stop. 11 Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres. 12 It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail. 13 This is the word that Yahweh spoke concerning Moab in time past. 14 But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, "Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble." ”

“ Moab was more exposed to the inroads of its nomadic neighbours from the wilderness than its sister-kingdom of Ammon. It lay along the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, and was a land of lofty mountains and fertile river-plains. Its wadis were coveted by the tribes of the desert; the well-watered valley of the Arnon attracted more powerful foes. When the Israelites encamped in "the plain of Moab," Balak, the Moabite [pg 110] king, sent in terror to Balaam, the seer of Pethor. He had indeed cause for alarm. The Amorites had already robbed him of the fairest portion of his dominions ”

“ Therefore the abundance that he hath gotten is perished. 37For every head is bald, And every beard clipped; Upon all the hands are cuttings, And upon the loins sackcloth. 38On all the housetops of Moab and in the broad places thereof There is lamentation every where; For I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no pleasure, Saith the Lord. ”

“ The wonderful thing about Moab is that everything happens in a story-book setting, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish and Wyeth and Joe Coll, and all the rest of them, whichever way you look.
Imagine a blue sky—so clear-blue and pure that you can see against it the very feathers in the tails of wheeling kites, and know that they are brown, not black. Imagine all the houses, and the shacks between them, and the poles on which the burlap awnings hang, painted on flat canvas and stood up against that infinite blue. ”

“ Chapter 22
1 And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.
2 And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.
3 And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.
4 And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time. ”

“ Moab has his walls, and his high forts, with which he hopes to secure himself, and from which he designs to annoy the people of God; but God shall bring them all down, lay them low, bring them to the ground, to the dust; and so those who trusted to them will be left exposed. ”

“ Not far from us must be the site of Zoar; and on some of these mountains Lot dwelt with his two daughters. This country is called Moab, after the son of the eldest daughter. Moab means one begotten by a father. ”

“ And they smote the land, even Moab, mightily. 25And they beat down the cities; and on every good piece of land they cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the fountains of water, and felled all the good trees; until there was left only Kir-hareseth with the stones of the wall thereof; so the slingers encompassed it, and smote it. 26And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew sword, to break through unto the king of Edom ”

“ The “field of Moab” was a portion of the table-land which stretches from Rabbath Ammân to the Arnon, which “is perfectly treeless for an immense distance in one part (viz., the neighbourhood of Eleale) , but covered over with the ruins of towns that have been destroyed,” and which “extends to the desert of Arabia towards the east, and slopes off to the Jordan and the Dead Sea towards the west” (v. Raumer, Pal. p. 71) . ”

“ But Moab's population is vanished, and the country a mere wilderness, whose solitude is only disturbed by the howl of beasts, or the occasional tramp of the Bedoums. For Moab, therefore, to respond to the prophetic exhortation, a power must take possession of the country capable of outstretching its wings for the defence of a people, "whose land the rivers have spoiled," and that power, I believe, is Britain's, the Moab of the latter days. ”

“ Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence;
23:015:002 He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to
weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their
heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.
23:015:003 In their streets they shall gird themselves with sackcloth: on
the tops of their houses, and in their streets, every one
shall howl, weeping abundantly.
23:015:004 And Heshbon shall cry, and Elealeh: their voice shall be heard
even unto Jahaz: therefore the armed soldiers of Moab shall
cry out; his life shall be grievous unto him. ”

“ But Israel remained a great power in religious history while Moab disappeared. It is true that Moab was continuously hard pressed by desert hordes; the exposed condition of the land is emphasized by the chains of ruined forts and castles which even the Romans were compelled to construct. The explanation of the comparative insignificance of Moab, however, is not to be found in purely topographical considerations. Nor can it be sought in political history, since Israel and Judah suffered as much from external movements as Moab itself. ”

“ II. God provides a refuge for His people when and where it might be least expected. “With thee, Moab.” Moab was not a neutral, but a hostile state, one of Israel’s most inveterate foes, always on the outlook for opportunities [p. 240] to display its hostility. Strange, therefore, that Moab should be selected as a protector for Jehovah’s outcasts; strange, but not unexampled. God often raises up friends for His people in unexpected quarters, supplies their needs by unexpected means, or turns their foes into friends (Prov. xvi. 7) . ”

“ A populous land commanding the trade routes from Arabia to Damascus, rich in agricultural and pastoral wealth, Moab, as Mesha’s inscription proves, had already reached a high state of civilization by the 9th century B.C. Its language differed only dialectically from Hebrew; its ideas and religion were very closely akin to the Israelite, and it may be assumed that they shared in common many features of culture. [3] The relation of Chemosh, the national god, to his “children” (Num. xxi. 29) was that of Yahweh to Israel (see especially Judges xi. 24) . ”

“ The national traditions of Israel recognize a close relationship between Moab and Ammon, “sons” of Lot, and the “brothers” Esau (Edom) and Jacob (Israel) , and Moab is represented as already a powerful people when Israel fled from Egypt (Exod. xv. 15) . The detailed narratives, however, give conflicting views of the exodus and the conquest of Palestine. It was supposed that Moab, having expelled the aboriginal giants, was in turn displaced by the Amorite king Sihon, who forced Moab south of the Arnon (Wadi Mōjib, a natural boundary) and drove Ammon beyond the Jabbok. ”

“ III. The removal of this family from Bethlehem into the country of Moab on the other side Jordan, for subsistence, because of the famine, v. 1, 2. It seems there was plenty in the country of Moab when there was scarcity of bread in the land of Israel. Common gifts of providence are often bestowed in greater plenty upon those that are strangers to God than upon those that know and worship him. Moab is at ease from his youth, while Israel is emptied from vessel to vessel (Jer. xlviii. 11) , not because God loves Moabites better, but because they have their portion in this life. ”

“ Much valuable evidence is to be obtained also from the survival of ancient forms of cult in Moab and east of the Jordan (e.g. sacrifices on the house roofs) and from a survey of epigraphical and other data from the Greek, Roman, and later periods, allowance being made for contamination. The whole question deserves careful investigation in the light of comparative religion. [4]
The relationship felt between Israel and the external states (Moab, Edom, and Ammon) is entirely justified. ”

“ Apart from the religious cult suggested in the name Mount Nebo, there were local cults of the Baal of Peor and the Baal of Meon, and Mesha’s allusion to ʽAshtar-Chemosh, a compound deity, has been taken to point to a corresponding consort whose existence might naturally be expected upon other grounds (see Astarte) . The fertility of Moab, the wealth of wine and corn, the temperate climate and the enervating heat supply conditions which directed the form of cult. ”

“ Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master; and he rendered unto the king of Israel the wool of a hundred thousand lambs, and of a hundred thousand rams. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. And King Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time, and mustered all Israel. And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, "The king of Moab hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle?"
And he said, "I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses." ”

“ None of the ancient cities of Moab now remain as tenanted by men. Kerek, which neither bears any resemblance in name to any of the cities of Moab which are mentioned as existing in the time of the Israelites, nor possesses any monuments which denote a very remote antiquity, is the only nominal town in the whole country, and, in the words of Seetzen, who visited it, in its present ruined state it can only be called a hamlet; and the houses have only one floor. ”

“ Moab alone offered any serious resistance. It had preserved its independence ever since the reign of Mesha, having escaped from being drawn into the wars which had laid waste the rest of Syria. It was now suddenly forced to pay the penalty of its long prosperity. Jeroboam made a furious onslaught upon its cities—Ar of Moab, Kir of Moab, Dibon, Medeba, Heshbon, Elealeh—and destroyed them all in succession. The Moabite forces carried a part of the population with them in their flight, and all escaped together across the deserts which enclose the southern basin of the Dead Sea. ”