After the conquest of Canaan the relations of Moab with Israel were of a mixed character, sometimes warlike and sometimes peaceable. He was buried in an unknown location in Moab and the Israelites spent a period of thirty days there in mourning ( Deuteronomy 34:6–8).Īccording to the Book of Judges, the Israelites did not pass through the land of the Moabites ( Judges 11:18), but conquered Sihon's kingdom and his capital at Heshbon. Moses died there ( Deut 34:5), prevented by God from entering the Promised Land. God renewed his covenant with the Israelites at Moab before the Israelites entered the Promised Land( Deuteronomy 29:1). These Amorites, described in the Bible as being ruled by King Sihon, confined the Moabites to the country south of the river Arnon, which formed their northern boundary ( Numbers 21:13 Judges 11:18). The Moabites first inhabited the rich highlands at the eastern side of the chasm of the Dead Sea, extending as far as Wadi Mujib to Wadi Hasa, from which country they expelled the Emim, the original inhabitants ( Deuteronomy 2:11), but they themselves were afterward driven southward by warlike tribes of Amorites, who had crossed the river Jordan. The Bible refers to both the Moabites and Ammonites as Lot's sons, born of incest with his daughters ( Genesis 19:37–38). Biblical narratives Īccording to the biblical account, Moab and Ammon were born to Lot and Lot's elder and younger daughters, respectively, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 19th-century travellers Įarly modern travellers in the region included Ulrich Jasper Seetzen (1805), Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1812), Charles Leonard Irby and James Mangles (1818), and Louis Félicien de Saulcy (1851). Decline Īfter the Roman conquest of the Levant by Pompey in 63 BCE, Moab lost its distinct identity through assimilation. In Nehemiah 4:1 the Arabs are mentioned instead of the Moabites as the allies of the Ammonites. Sargon II mentions on a clay prism a revolt against him by Moab together with Philistia, Judah, and Edom but on the Taylor prism, which recounts the expedition against Hezekiah, Kammusu-Nadbi ( Chemosh-nadab), King of Moab, brings tribute to Sargon as his suzerain. 745–727 BCE), the Moabite king Salmanu (perhaps the Shalman who sacked Beth-arbel in Hosea 10:14) is mentioned as tributary to Assyria. In the Nimrud clay inscription of Tiglath-pileser III (r. The early inhabitants likely came from the Arabian peninsula, immigrating due to water scarcity during a drought. The statue lists Mu'ab among a series of nations conquered during a campaign. Bronze Age ĭespite a scarcity of archaeological evidence, the existence of the Kingdom of Moab prior to the rise of the Israelite state has been deduced from a colossal statue erected at Luxor by pharaoh Ramesses II, in the 13th century BCE. See also: Shutu and Shasu Moabite sarcophagus in Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman The Mesha stele describes King Mesha's wars against the Israelites Al-Balu' Stele on display at the Jordan Museum. Fritz Hommel regards Moab as an abbreviation of Immo-ab = "his mother is his father". He writes that as a result of the immodesty of Moab's name, God did not command the Israelites to refrain from inflicting pain upon the Moabites in the manner in which he did with regard to the Ammonites. Rashi explains the word Mo'ab to mean "from the father", since ab in Hebrew and Arabic and the rest of the Semitic languages means "father". Other etymologies which have been proposed regard it as a corruption of "seed of a father", or as a participial form from "to desire", thus connoting "the desirable (land)". The earliest gloss is found in the Koine Greek Septuagint ( Genesis 19:37) which explains the name, in obvious allusion to the account of Moab's parentage, as ἐκ τοῦ πατρός μου ("from my father"). The etymology of the word Moab is uncertain. According to the Hebrew Bible, Moab was often in conflict with its Israelite neighbours to the west. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archaeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over an unnamed son of King Omri of Israel, an episode also noted in 2 Kings 3. The land is mountainous and lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. Moab ( / ˈ m oʊ æ b/) is the name of an ancient Levantine kingdom whose territory is today located in southern Jordan.
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