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Bible Dictionaries
Moab
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or was the son of Lot, and of his eldest daughter, Genesis 19:31 , &c. He was born about the same time as Isaac, A.M. 2108, and was father of the Moabites, whose habitation lay beyond Jordan and the Dead Sea, on both sides of the river Arnon. Their capital city was situated on that river, and was called Ar or Areopolis, or Ariol of Moab, or Rabbah Moab, that is, the capital of Moab, or Kirharesh, that is, a city with brick walls. This country was originally possessed by a race of giants called Emim, Deuteronomy 2:11-12 . The Moabites conquered them, and afterward the Amorites took a part from the Moabites, Judges 11:13 . Moses conquered that part which belonged to the Amorites, and gave it to the tribe of Reuben. The Moabites were spared by Moses, for God had restricted him, Deuteronomy 2:9 . But there always was a great antipathy between the Moabites and the Israelites, which occasioned many wars between them. Balaam seduced the Hebrews to idolatry and uncleanness, by means of the daughters of Moab, Numbers 25:1-2; and Balak, king of this people, endeavoured to prevail on Balaam to curse Israel. God ordained that the Moabites should not enter into the congregation of his people, because they had the inhumanity to refuse the Israelites a passage through their country, nor would they supply them with bread and water in their necessity. Eglon, king of the Moabites, was one of the first that oppressed Israel after the death of Joshua. Ehud killed Eglon, and Israel expelled the Moabites, Judges 3:12 , &c. Hanun king of the Ammonites having insulted David's ambassadors, David made war against him, and subdued Moab and Ammon; under which subjection they continued till the separation of the ten tribes. The Ammonites and the Moabites continued in subjection to the kings of Israel to the death of Ahab. Presently after the death of Ahab the Moabites began to revolt, 2 Kings 3:4-5 . Mesha, king of Moab, refused the tribute of a hundred thousand lambs, and as many rams, which till then had been customarily paid, either yearly, or at the beginning of every reign; which of these two is not clearly expressed in Scripture. The reign of Ahaziah was too short to make war with them; but Jehoram, son of Ahab, and brother to Ahaziah, having ascended the throne, thought of reducing them to obedience. He invited Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who with the king of Edom, then his vassal, entered Moab, where they were near perishing with thirst, but were miraculously relieved, 2 Kings 3:16 , &c.
It is not easy to ascertain what were the circumstances of the Moabites from this time; but Isaiah, at the beginning of the reign of King Hezekiah, threatens them with a calamity, which was to happen three years after his prediction, and which probably referred to the war that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, made with the ten tribes and the other people beyond Jordan. Amos 1:13 , &c, also foretold great miseries to them, which, probably, they suffered under Uzziah and Jothan, kings of Judah, or under Shalmaneser, 2 Chronicles 26:7-8; 2 Chronicles 27:5; or, lastly, in the war of Nebuchadnezzar, five years after the destruction of Jerusalem. This prince carried them captive beyond the Euphrates, as the prophets had threatened, Jeremiah 9:26; Jeremiah 12:14-15; Jeremiah 25:11-12; Jeremiah 48:47 , &c; Jeremiah 49:3; Jeremiah 49:6; Jeremiah 49:39; Jeremiah 50:16; and Cyrus sent them home again, as he did the rest of the captives. After their return from captivity they multiplied, and fortified themselves, as the Jews did, and other neighbouring people, still in subjection to the kings of Persia. They were afterward conquered by Alexander the Great, and were in obedience to the kings of Syria and Egypt successively, and finally to the Romans. There is a probability, also that in the later times of the Jewish republic they obeyed the Asmonean kings, and afterward Herod the Great. The principal deities of the Moabites were Chemosh and Baal-peor.
The prophecies concerning Moab are numerous and remarkable. There are, says Keith, abundant predictions which refer so clearly to its modern state, that there is scarcely a single feature peculiar to the land of Moab, as it now exists, which was not marked by the prophets in their delineation of the low condition to which, from the height of its wickedness and haughtiness, it was finally to be brought down.
The land of Moab lay to the east and south-east of Judea, and bordered on the east, north-east, and partly on the south of the Dead Sea. Its early history is nearly analogous to that of Ammon; and the soil, though perhaps more diversified, is, in many places where the desert and plains of salt have not encroached on its borders, of equal fertility. There are manifest and abundant vestiges of its ancient greatness: the whole of the plains are covered with the sites of towns, on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one; and as the land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be no doubt that the country now so deserted once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility. The form of fields is still visible; and there are the remains of Roman highways, which in some places are completely paved, and on which there are mile stones of the times of Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus, with the number of the miles legible upon them. Wherever any spot is cultivated the corn is luxuriant; and the riches of the soil cannot perhaps be more clearly illustrated than by the fact, that one grain of Heshbon wheat exceeds in dimensions two of the ordinary sort, and more than double the number of grains grow on the stalk. The frequency, and almost, in many instances, the close vicinity of the sites of the ancient towns, prove that the population of the country was formerly proportioned to its natural fertility. Such evidence may surely suffice to prove that the country was well cultivated and peopled at a period so long posterior to the date of the predictions, that no cause less than supernatural could have existed at the time when they were delivered, which could have authorized the assertion with the least probability or apparent possibility of its truth, that Moab would ever have been reduced to that state of great and permanent desolation in which it has continued for so many ages, and which vindicates and ratifies to this hour the truth of the Scriptural prophecies. The cities of Moab were to be "desolate without any to dwell therein;" no city was to escape: Moab was to "flee away." And the cities of Moab have all disappeared. Their place, together with the adjoining part of Idumea, is characterized, in the map of Volney's Travels, by the ruins of towns. His information respecting these ruins was derived from some of the wandering Arabs; and its accuracy has been fully corroborated by the testimony of different European travellers of high respectability and undoubted veracity, who have since visited this devastated region. The whole country abounds with ruins; and Burckhardt, who encountered many difficulties in so desolate and dangerous a land, thus records the brief history of a few of them: "The ruins of Eleale, Heshbon, Meon, Medaba, Dibon, Aroer, still subsist to illustrate the history of the Beni Israel." And it might with equal truth have been added, that they still subsist to confirm the inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures, or to prove that the seers of Israel were the prophets of God; for the desolation of each of these very cities was a theme of a prediction. Every thing worthy of observation respecting them has been detailed, not only in Burckhardt's "Travels in Syria," but also by Seetzen, and, more recently, by Captains Irby and Mangles, who, along with Mr. Bankes and Mr. Leigh, visited this deserted district. The predicted judgment has fallen with such truth upon these cities, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab far and near, and they are so utterly "broken down," that even the prying curiosity of such indefatigable travellers could discover among a multiplicity of ruins only a few remains so entire as to be worthy of particular notice. The subjoined description is drawn from their united testimony: Among the ruins of El Aal (Eleale) are a number of large cisterns, fragments of buildings, and foundations of houses. At Heshban, (Heshbon,) are the ruins of a large ancient town, together with the remains of a temple, and some edifices. A few broken shafts of columns are still standing; and there are a number of deep wells cut in the rock. The ruins of Medeba are about two miles in circumference. There are many remains of the walls of private houses constructed with blocks of silex, but not a single edifice is standing. The chief object of interest is an immense tank or cistern of hewn stones, "which, as there is no stream at Medeba," Burckhardt remarks, "might still be of use to the Bedouins, were the surrounding ground cleared of the rubbish to allow the water to flow into it; but such an undertaking is far beyond the views of the wandering Arabs." There is also the foundation of a temple built with large stones, and apparently of great antiquity, with two columns near it. The ruins of Diban, (Dibon,) situated in the midst of a fine plain, are of considerable extent, but present nothing of interest. The neighbouring hot wells, and the similarity of the name, identify the ruins of Myoun with Meon, or Beth Meon of Scripture. Of this ancient city, as well as of Araayr, (Areor,) nothing is now remarkable but what is common to them with all the cities of Moab, their entire desolation. The extent of the ruins of Rabba, (Rabbath Moab,) formerly the residence of the kings of Moab, sufficiently proves its ancient importance; though no other object can be particularized among the ruins, than the remains of a palace or temple, some of the walls of which are still standing, a gate belonging to another building, and an insulated altar. There are many remains of private buildings, but none of them is entire. There being no springs on the spot, the town had two birkets, the largest of which is cut entirely out of the rocky ground, together with many cisterns. Mount Nebo was completely barren when Burckhardt passed over it, and the site of the ancient city had not been ascertained. "Nebo is spoiled."
While the ruins of all these cities still retain their ancient names, and are the most conspicuous amidst the wide scene of general desolation, and while each of them was in like manner particularized in the visions of the prophet, they yet formed but a small number of the cities of Moab; and the rest are also, in similar verification of the prophecies, "desolate, without any to dwell therein." 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." But the most populous and fertile province in Europe, especially any situated in the interior of a country like Moab, is not covered so thickly with towns as Moab is plentiful in ruins, deserted and desolate though now it be. Burckhardt enumerates about fifty ruined sites within its boundaries, many of them extensive. In general they are a broken down and undistinguishable mass of ruins; and many of them have not been closely inspected. But, in some instances, there are the remains of temples, sepulchral monuments; the ruins of edifices constructed of very large stones, in one of which buildings some of the stones are twenty feet in length, and so broad that one constitutes the thickness of the wall; traces of hanging gardens; entire columns lying on the ground, three feet in diameter, and fragments of smaller columns; and many cisterns out of the rock. When the towns of Moab existed in their prime, and were at ease; when arrogance, and haughtiness, and pride prevailed among them; the desolation, and total desertion and abandonment of them all, must have utterly surpassed all human conception. And that such numerous cities which subsisted for many ages, some of them being built on eminences, and naturally strong; others on plains, and surrounded by the richest soil; some situated in valleys by the side of a plentiful stream; and others where art supplied the deficiencies of nature, and where immense cisterns were excavated out of the rock, and which exhibit in their ruins many monuments of ancient prosperity, and many remains easily convertible into present utility; should have all fled away, all met the same indiscriminate fate, and be all "desolate, without any to dwell therein," notwithstanding all these ancient indications of permanent durability, and their existing facilities and inducements for becoming the habitations of men, is a matter of just wonder in the present day. "They shall cry of Moab, How is it broken down!"
The strong contrast between the ancient and the actual state of Moab is exemplified in the condition of the inhabitants as well as of the land; and the coincidence between the prediction and the fact is as striking in the one case as in the other. "The days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto him (Moab) wanderers that shall cause him to wander, and shall empty his vessels." The Bedouin (wandering) Arabs are now the chief and almost the only inhabitants of a country once studded with cities. Traversing the country, and fixing their tents for a short time in one place, and then decamping to another, depasturing every part successively, and despoiling the whole land of its natural produce, they are wanderers who have come up against it, and who keep it in a state of perpetual desolation. They lead a wandering life; and the only regularity they know or practice, is to act upon a systematic scheme of spoliation. They prevent any from forming a fixed settlement who are inclined to attempt it; for although the fruitfulness of the soil would abundantly repay the labour of settlers, and render migration wholly unnecessary, even if the population were increased more than tenfold; yet the Bedouins forcibly deprive them of the means of subsistence, compel them to search for it elsewhere, and, in the words of the prediction, literally "cause them to wander." "It may be remarked generally of the Bedouins," says Burckhardt, in describing their extortions in this very country, "that wherever they are the masters of the cultivators, the latter are soon reduced to beggary by their unceasing demands." "O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth." In a general description of the condition of the inhabitants of that extensive desert which now occupies the place of these ancient flourishing states, Volney in plain but unmeant illustration of this prediction, remarks, that the "wretched peasants live in perpetual dread of losing the fruit of their labours; and no sooner have they gathered in their harvest, than they hasten to secrete it in private places, and retire among the rocks which border on the Dead Sea." Toward the opposite extremity of the land of Moab, and at a little distance from its borders, Seetzen relates, that "there are many families living in caverns;" and he actually designates them "the inhabitants of the rocks." And at the distance of a few miles from the ruined site of Heshbon, according to Captains Irby and Mangles, "there are many artificial caves in a large range of perpendicular cliffs, in some of which are chambers and small sleeping apartments." While the cities are desolate, without any to dwell therein, the rocks are tenanted. But whether flocks lie down in the city without any to make them afraid, or whether men are to be found dwelling in the rocks, and are "like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth," the wonderful transition, in either case, and the close accordance, in both, of the fact to the prediction, assuredly mark it in characters that may be visible to the purblind mind, as the word of that God before whom the darkness of futurity is as light, and without whom a sparrow cannot fall unto the ground.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Moab'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/m/moab.html. 1831-2.
