Moab [61592]

  General Notes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Bible#cite_note-7



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab


Biblical narrative (through the conquest by Israel)
The conflict between the Israelites and the Moabites is expressed in the biblical narrative describing the Moabites' incestuous origins. According to the story, Moab was the son of Lot , through his eldest daughter, with whom he had a child after the destruction of Sodom .

According to Genesis 19:30-38, Moab was the son of Abraham 's nephew Lot by his elder daughter, while Ammon was Moab's half-brother by a similar union of Lot with his younger child. The close ethnological affinity of Moab and Ammon which is thus attested is confirmed by their subsequent history, while their kinship with the Israelites is equally certain, and is borne out by the linguistic evidence of the Moabite Stone . They are also mentioned in close connection with the Amalekites , the inhabitants of Mount Seir, the Edomites , the Canaanites [, the Sethites [and the Philistines . The story of Moab's incestuous conception may be intended to relegate the Moabites to a lesser status than that of the Israelites.

The Moabites first inhabited the rich highlands at the eastern side of the chasm of the Dead Sea, extending as far north as the mountain of Gilead , from which country they expelled the Emim , the original inhabitants, but they themselves were afterward driven southward by warlike tribes of Amorites , who had crossed the river Jordan . 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.

The Israelites, in entering the "promised land", did not pass through the Moabites, (Judges 11:18) but conquered Sihon's kingdom and his capital at Heshbon. After the conquest of Canaan the relations of Moab with Israel were of a mixed character, sometimes warlike and sometimes peaceable. With the tribe of Benjamin they had at least one severe struggle, in union with their kindred the Ammonites and the Amalekites. The Benjaminite shofet Ehud ben Gera assassinated the Moabite king Eglon and led an Israelite army against the Moabites at a ford of the Jordan river, killing many of them.

The story of Ruth, on the other hand, testifies to the existence of a friendly intercourse between Moab and Bethlehem , one of the towns of the tribe of Judah . By his descent from Ruth, David may be said to have had Moabite blood in his veins. He committed his parents to the protection of the king of Moab (who may have been his kinsman), when hard pressed by King Saul . (1 Samuel 22:3,4) But here all friendly relations stop forever. The next time the name is mentioned is in the account of David's war, who made the Moabites tributary. Moab may have been under the rule of an Israelite governor during this period; among the exiles who returned to Judea from Babylonia were a clan descended from Pahath-Moab , whose name means "ruler of Moab".

Reassertion of independence

At the disruption of the kingdom under the reign of Rehoboam , Moab seems to have absorbed into the northern realm. It continued in vassaldom to the Kingdom of Israel until the death of Ahab , when the Moabites refused to pay tribute and asserted their independence, making war upon the kingdom of Judah.

After the death of Ahab the Moabites under Mesha rebelled against Jehoram , who allied himself with Jehoshaphat , King of Kingdom of Judah , and with the King of Edom. According to the Bible, the prophet Elisha directed the Israelites dug a series of ditches between themselves and the enemy, and during the night these channels were miraculously filled with water which was as red as blood . Deceived by the crimson color into the belief that their opponents had attacked one another, the Moabites became overconfident and were entrapped and utterly defeated at Ziz, near En Gedi , which states that the Moabites and their allies, the Ammonites and the inhabitants of Mount Seir, mistook one another for the enemy, and so destroyed one another). According to Mesha's inscription on the Mesha Stele , however, he was completely victorious and regained all the territory of which Israel had deprived him. The battle of Ziz is the last important date in the history of the Moabites as recorded in the Bible. In the year of Elisha's death they invaded Israel. and later aided Nebuchadnezzar in his expedition against Jehoiakim .

Although allusions to Moab are frequent in the prophetical books and although two chapters of Isaiah (xv.-xvi.) and one of Jeremiah (xlviii.) are devoted to the "burden of Moab," they give little information about the land. Its prosperity and pride, which the Israelites believed incurred the wrath of God , are frequently mentioned; and their contempt for Israel is once expressly noted.

In the Nimrud clay inscription of Tiglath-pileser III the Moabite king Salmanu (perhaps the Shalman who sacked Beth-arbel in Hosea x. 14) is mentioned as tributary to Assyria . 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. Another Moabite king, Mutzuri ("the Egyptian" ?), is mentioned as one of the subject princes at the courts of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal , possibly his successor, is named on cylinder B of Assurbanipal.

Decline and fall

Sometime during the Persian period Moab disappears from the extant historical record. Its territory was subsequently overrun by waves of tribes from northern Arabia , including the Kedarites and (later) the Nabataeans . In Nehemiah iv. 7 the Arabs instead of the Moabites are the allies of the Ammonites. Their country, however, continued to be known by its biblical name for some time; when the Crusaders occupied the area, the castle they built to defend the eastern part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was called Krak des Moabites .