Moabite

The Moabites were the people of Moab, a land east of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. Genesis traces them to Moab, the son of Lot by his elder daughter, "the father of the Moabites of today" (Genesis 19:30-38). Lot was the son of Haran, the brother of Abraham (Genesis 11:27), and the Moabites were a Semitic people closely akin to the Israelites. The Hebrew text gives no etymology of the name Moab, though the Septuagint adds the gloss "saying, from my father" at Genesis 19:37.

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In Numbers and Deuteronomy

With Israel camped on the plains of Moab, Balak king of Moab, dreading so numerous a people, sent for Balaam to curse them (Numbers 22:1-6). At Shittim the men of Israel took up with the daughters of Moab, who invited them to the sacrifices for their gods, and Israel joined in worshiping Baal of Peor (Numbers 25:1-3). Deuteronomy bars Moabites from the assembly of the LORD "even to the tenth generation," because they did not meet Israel with food and water and hired Balaam to curse them (Deuteronomy 23:3-4).

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From the Judges to David

The LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel for eighteen years, until Ehud killed him (Judges 3:12-30). In the days of the judges the sons of Elimelech of Bethlehem married Moabite women in Moab, and Ruth the Moabitess came to Bethlehem with Naomi and became the great-grandmother of David (Ruth 1:1-4; 1:22; 4:13-17). David left his father and mother in the care of the king of Moab (1 Samuel 22:3-4), but later defeated the Moabites, who became subject to him and brought him tribute (2 Samuel 8:2).

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Chemosh and the Revolt of Mesha

The god of the Moabites was Chemosh (1 Kings 11:33), and Scripture calls Moab the "people of Chemosh" (Numbers 21:29; Jeremiah 48:46). Solomon, who loved foreign women, among them Moabites, built a high place on a hill east of Jerusalem "for Chemosh the abomination of Moab" (1 Kings 11:1, 7). Moab's economy was mainly pastoral, and the King's Highway, the international route linking Arabia and Egypt with Syria and Mesopotamia, crossed its plateau. Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder who paid the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams, and after the death of Ahab he rebelled (2 Kings 1:1; 3:4-5). When Israel, Judah and Edom marched against him, the king of Moab offered his firstborn son "as a burnt offering on the city wall" at Kir-Hareseth, and "there was great fury against the Israelites," who withdrew (2 Kings 3:6-27).

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The Prophets on Moab

Isaiah's "burden against Moab" speaks of Moab's "exceeding pride" (Isaiah 15:1; 16:6), and Jeremiah's judgment on Moab ends, "Yet in the latter days I will restore Moab from captivity" (Jeremiah 48:47). Amos condemns Moab because "he burned to lime the bones of Edom's king" (Amos 2:1).

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The Mesha Stele and Assyria

The Mesha Stele, a black basalt stone, was found in 1868 at Dhiban, ancient Dibon, east of the Dead Sea, and is now in the Louvre in Paris. The Louvre dates its engraving to shortly after 842 BC, when a sanctuary to Chemosh was built. Its text is in the Moabite language, very close to biblical Hebrew. In it Mesha says that Omri king of Israel oppressed Moab for many days because Chemosh was angry with his country, and that Omri's son said he too would oppress Moab. At Chemosh's word Mesha seized Nebo from Israel and "took from there the vessels of YHWH, hauling them before Chemosh." Some scholars have suggested that the stele is the earliest inscription to name Yahweh, though others place a reference to Yahweh at Soleb 500 years earlier. Bustanay Oded, in the Encyclopaedia Judaica's article on Moab, judges it probable that the Moabites threw off Israel's rule long before Ahab's death. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (1975) sees no reason to read the stone as implying that Mesha broke from Israel before Ahab's death.

Assyrian inscriptions also name Moabite kings, among them Salaman, who brought tribute to Tiglath-pileser III, and Chemosh-nadab, who met Sennacherib with many gifts.