Moab

Moab

The etymology of the word Moab is uncertain. 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"). 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)".^[1]

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". 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. Fritz Hommel regards Moab as an abbreviation of Immo-ab = "his mother is his father".^[2]

History

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An 8th-century BCE inscription seems to indicate that the Kingdom of Moab expanded into the eastern part of the Jordan Valley after a successful campaing against the Ammonites.^[6]

In the

After the Roman conquest of the Levant by Pompey in 63 BCE,^[8] Moab lost its distinct identity through assimilation.^[9]

19th-century travellers

Early 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).^[10]

Biblical narratives

According to the biblical account, Moab and

God renewed his covenant with the Israelites at Moab before the Israelites entered the Promised Land(Deuteronomy 29:1). Moses died there (Deut 34:5), prevented by God from entering the Promised Land. 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).

According 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

The

After the death of Ahab in about 853 BCE, the Moabites under Mesha rebelled against Jehoram, who allied himself with Jehoshaphat, King of the Kingdom of Judah, and with the King of Edom. According to the Bible, the prophet Elisha directed the Israelites to dig a series of ditches between themselves and the enemy, and during the night these channels were miraculously filled with water which appeared red as blood in the morning light.

According to the biblical account, the crimson color deceived the Moabites into thinking that the Israelites, and their allies, had attacked one another. Eager to acquire plunder, they were ambushed and defeated by the Israelites (2 Kings 3). 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. This battle 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 (2 Kings 13:20) and later aided Nebuchadnezzar in his expedition against Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24:2).

Allusions to Moab are frequent in the prophetical books (Isa 25:10; Ezek 25:8–11; Amos 2:1–3; Zephaniah 2:8–11). Two chapters of Isaiah (15 and 16) and one of Jeremiah (48) are devoted to the "burden of Moab". Its prosperity and pride, which the Israelites believed incurred the wrath of God, are frequently mentioned (Isa 16:6; Jer 48:11–29; Zephaniah 2:10), and their contempt for Israel is once expressly noted (Jer. 48:27). Moab would be dealt with during the time of the Messiah's rulership according to the prophets.^[14] The book of Zephaniah states that Moab would become "a permanent desolation".^[15]

Moab is also made reference to in the 2 Meqabyan, a book considered canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.^[16] In that text, a Moabite king named Maccabeus joins forces with Edom and Amalek to attack Israel, later repenting of his sins and adopting the Israelite religion.

In Jewish tradition

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Moabites opposed the Israelite invasion of Canaan, as did the Ammonites. As a consequence, they were excluded from the congregation for ten generations.^[17] The term "tenth generation" is considered an idiom, used for an unlimited time, as opposed to the third generation, which allows an Egyptian convert to marry into the community. The Talmud expresses the view that the prohibition applied only to male Moabites, who were not allowed to marry born Jews or legitimate converts. Female Moabites, when converted to Judaism, were permitted to marry with only the normal prohibition of a convert marrying a kohen (priest) applying. However, the prohibition was not followed during the Babylonian captivity, and Ezra and Nehemiah sought to compel a return to the law because men had been marrying women who had not been converted at all (Ezra 9:1–2, 12; Nehemiah 13:23–25). The heir of King Solomon was Rehoboam, the son of an Ammonite woman, Naamah (1 Kings 14:21).

On the other hand, the marriages of the Bethlehem Ephrathites (of the tribe of Judah) Mahlon and Chilion to the Moabite women Orpah and Ruth (Ruth 1:2–4), and the marriage of the latter, after her husband's death, to Boaz (Ruth 4:10–13) who by her was the great-grandfather of David, are mentioned with no shade of reproach. The Talmudic explanation, however, is that the language of the law applies only to Moabite and Ammonite men (Hebrew, like all Semitic languages, has grammatical gender). The Talmud also states that the prophet Samuel wrote the Book of Ruth to settle the dispute as the rule had been forgotten since the time of Boaz. Another interpretation is that the Book of Ruth is simply reporting the events in an impartial fashion, leaving any praise or condemnation to be done by the reader.

The Babylonian Talmud in Yevamot 76B explains that one of the reasons was the Ammonites did not greet the Children of Israel with friendship and the Moabites hired Balaam to curse them. The difference in the responses of the two people led to God allowing the Jewish people to harass the Moabites (but not go to war) but forbade them to even harass the Ammonites (Deuteronomy 23:3–4).

Jehoshaphet subsequently joined Jehoram of Israel in a war against the Moabites, who were under tribute to Israel. The Moabites were subdued, but seeing Mesha's act of offering his own son (and singular heir) as a propitiatory human sacrifice on the walls of Kir of Moab filled Israel with horror, and they withdrew and returned to their own land.^[19]

According to the Book of Jeremiah, Moab was exiled to Babylon for his arrogance and idolatry. According to Rashi, it was also due to their gross ingratitude even though Abraham, Israel's ancestor, had saved Lot, Moab's ancestor from Sodom. Jeremiah prophesies that Moab's captivity will be returned in the end of days.^[20]

The book of Zephaniah states that "Moab will assuredly be like Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrah—Ground overgrown with weeds and full of salt mines, and a permanent desolation." (2:9). The prophecy regarding their defeat by the Israelites is linked to the conquests by the Jewish Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus. During that period, the Moabites were called the "Arabian Moabites".^[21]

Boundaries in the Hebrew Bible

In Ezekiel 25:9 the boundaries are given as being marked by

References to the religion of Moab are scant. Most of the Moabites followed the ancient Semitic religion like other ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, and the Book of Numbers says that they induced the Israelites to join in their sacrifices (Num 25:2; Judges 10:6). Their chief god seems to have been Chemosh,^[22] and the Bible refers to them as the "people of Chemosh" (Num 21:29; Jer 48:46). During the Iron Age, several Moabite cultic sites have been found in places such as Deir Alla, Damiyah, Ataruz or Khirbet al-Mudayna.^[23]

According to

.

Language

The

El-Kerak Inscription

and a few seals.

List of rulers

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Moab" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The following is a list of rulers of the ancient kingdom of Moab.

Iron Age

• Kamōš-ayat,^[citation needed] c. 900-870 BCE^{[citation needed]}
• Mesha, c. 870-840 BCE^{[citation needed]}
• Salmanu, c. 744-727 BCE^{[citation needed]}
• Kamōš-nadab, c. 704 BCE^[26]

Assyrian period

• Muṣuri, fl. c. 670-668 BCE^{[citation needed]}
• Kamōš-ʿaśa, c. 668-633 BCE^{[citation needed]}

Explanatory notes

See also

• Plains of Moab, region along the Jordan across from Jericho

References

1. ISBN 9781555403577
   .
2. ^ Leyden (1904). Verhandlungen des Zwölften Internationalen Orientalisten-Congresses. p. 261.
3. JSTOR 3855742
   .
4. ^ Na'aman, Nadav (2006). "Did Ramesses II Wage Campaign against the Land of Moab?". Göttinger Miszellen. 209: 63–69.
5. ISSN 0022-2968
   .
6. ISSN 0259-0131
   .
7. ^ James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 1969
8. ISBN 9780884022985. Archived
   from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
9. ^ LaBianca, Oystein S.; Younker, Randall W. (1995). "The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom: The Archaeology of Society in Late Bronze/Iron Age Transjordan (ca. 1400–500 BCE)". In Thomas Levy (ed.). The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. Leicester University Press. p. 114. Archived from the original on 9 August 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
10. S2CID 163824020. Archived
    from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2018-03-19. Among the travellers who traversed the whole Moabite plateau including Moab proper prior to 1870 and whose published observations deserve special mention are Ulrich Seetzen (1805), Ludwig Burckhardt (1812), Charles Irby and James Mangles (1818), and Louis de Saulcy (1851). Both Seetzen and Burckhardt died during the course of their travels, and their travel journals were edited and published posthumously by editors who did not always understand the details. Burckhardt's journal was published first, in 1822, and served as the basis for the Moab segment of Edward Robinson's map of Palestine published in 1841. Robinson's map depicts several strange features for the Moab segment, most of which can be traced to editorial mistakes in Burckhardt's journal and/or to entirely understandable misinterpretations of the journal on Robinson's part. Unfortunately, these strange features would linger on in maps of Palestine throughout the nineteenth century.
11. ^ وزارة التربية والتعليم. التاريخ الجزء الأول الصف 8 (2021 ed.). المملكة الاردنية الهاشمية: إدارة المناهج والكتب. p. 8.
12. S2CID 245688505
    .
13. ISBN 0-8254-3825-X
    , 9780825438257.
14. ^ "Bible Gateway passage: Numbers 24:14, Numbers 24:17, Isaiah 11:14 - New American Standard Bible". Bible Gateway. Archived from the original on 2021-11-08. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
15. ^ Zephaniah 2:9
16. ^ "Torah of Yeshuah: Book of Meqabyan I - III". Archived from the original on 2019-09-23. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
17. ^ Deuteronomy 23:4
18. ^ The other three were Pharaoh; Hiram and Nebuchadnezzar (Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews From Moses to Esther; Notes for Volumes Three and Four(p.423)
19. ^ Bible 2 Kings 3:4–27
20. ^ Jeremiah 48, Tanach. Brooklyn, New York: ArtScroll. p. 1187.
21. ^ "Zephaniah 2 Commentary: Gill's Exposition". Biblehub. 2023.
22. ^ Holm, Tawny L. (2005). «Moabite Religion». Encyclopedia of Religion. 30 Jul. 2022 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
23. ISSN 2077-1444
    .
24. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forke, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2020). "Moabite". Glottolog 4.3. Archived from the original on 2018-12-11. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
25. ^
    ISBN 9780802837851. Archived
    from the original on 2014-06-28. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
26. ^ "Virtual Karak Resources Project: Historical Study". Archived from the original on 2012-09-17. Retrieved 2011-05-16.

Further reading

• Bienkowski, Piotr (1992). Early Edom and Moab: The Beginning of the Iron Age in Southern Jordan. J. R. Collis.
  ISBN 9780906090459
  .
• Dearman, John Andrew (1989). Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab. Scholars Press.
  ISBN 9781555403577
  .
• Many comparisons of Biblical Hebrew with the language of the Mêša˓ inscription appear in Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebrew grammar, e.g. §2d , §5d , §7b , §7f , §49a , §54l , §87e , §88c , §117b , etc.
• Jacobs, Joseph and Louis H. Gray. "Moab". The Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906, which cites to the following bibliography:
  • Tristram, H. B. (1874). The Land of Moab: Travels and Discoveries on the East Side of the Dead Sea and the Jordan (Second ed.). London: John Murray.
• MacDonald, Burton (2020). A History of Ancient Moab from the Ninth to First Centuries BCE. SBL Press.
  ISBN 978-1-62837-268-7
  .
• Routledge, Bruce (2004). Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  ISBN 9780812238013
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Moab.

• Gutenberg E-text of Patriarchal Palestine by Archibald Henry Sayce (1895)
• Moab entry in Smith's Bible Dictionary

31°30′06″N 35°46′36″E / 31.50167°N 35.77667°E / 31.50167; 35.77667