Ancient Canaan Dwellers – 2 / The Moabites

The Moabites were likely pastoral nomads settling in the Trans-Jordanian highlands. They may have been among the raiders referred to as Habiru in the Amarna letters. Whether they were among the nations referred to in the Ancient Egyptian language as Shutu or Shasu is a matter of some debate among scholars. The existence of Moab prior to the rise of the Israelite polity can be seen from the colossal statues erected at Luxor by Pharaoh Rameses II. On the base of the second statue in front of the northern pylon of Rameses’ temple, Mu’ab is listed among a series of nations conquered by the pharaoh. The capital of Moab was Kir-Hareshet (modern day Kerak).

The Moabites had kinship ties to Jacob’s first-born son, Reuben. The clan of Reuben settled in the Transjordan region of Moab. Unfortunately, this also meant that Reuben’s descendents were killed when David waged war on the Moabites. Therefore it was said of Reuben’s descendents: “May Reuben survive and not die out, survive though his men be few!” (Deuteronomy. 33:6)

The Moabites were friendly with the Egyptians, having kinship ties with them through Joseph. The principal shrine in Moab was Beth-baal-me’on, which means “house/shrine of the god of On.” The principal shrine of On was in the sacred city of Heliopolis in Egypt and Joseph married one of the daughters of the high priest of On. Mesha, the King of Moab, built a reservoir at Beth-baal-me’On (II Kings 3). On the Moabite or Mesha Stone (discovered in 1868 at Dibon) it is recorded that King Mesha “reigned in peace over the hundred towns which he had added to the land. And he built Medeba and Beth-diblathen and Beth-baal-me On, and he set there the … of the land.” The stone is defaced at this point so we do not know what the King set up, but it was likely an image of his god, Ashtar-Chemosh.

Biblical accounts. The Moabites welcomed Egyptian protection provided by a chain of border fortresses that enables Egypt to control the Sinai. One of these forts was at Ir-Moab, on the Arnon River. During Joseph’s era Egypt traded with Damascus, moving goods through Moab.

According to one theory, disputes arose between the descendents of Jacob who had been in Egypt and their cousins who had remained in Canaan. One of these disputes focused on the shrine at Beth-baal-me’On. The priest Phineas received assurances that the Moabites were faithful to Yahweh and that the shrine was “not for burnt offerings or other sacrifices but as a witness between us and you and between our descendents after us, attesting that we too have the right to worship Yahweh, in his presence, with our burnt offerings.” (Joshua 22:26,27) This dispute apparently led to the expunging of the place name “Beth-baal-me’On” from the text in Joshua 22. The place name was also altered in Numbers 32:38, which deletes the word “beth.” (It should be noted, however, that it is difficult to argue from something which, apparently, has been expunged from the text which is supposed to prove its existence! The passage in Joshua attributes the building of the disputed altar to the two and a half tribes who remained on the East Bank, and it was these Israelites, not the Moabites who had been severely depleted in a war of extermination, who gave assurances of orthodoxy. The location is given as the – unidentified – place “Geliloth“, not Beth-baal-me’On”).

The Moabites were to be excluded from the assembly of worshippers, because: “They did not come to meet you with food and drink when you were on your way out of Egypt, and even hired Balaam, son of Beor, to oppose you by cursing you.” (Deuteronomy 23:5) This also reflects the dispute between those who were in Egypt and those who remained in the land. Those who remained in the land had contacted the Aramean diviner, Balaam (a descendent of Abraham’s brother, Nahor) to discern for them the Israelites intentions in coming to Moab. The Israelites made the Moabites nervous because of what they had “done to the Amorites” and “because there were so many of them” (Num. 22:1). Balaam refused to curse the Israelites, telling the King of Moab that he would do only as Yahweh directed.

The claim that the Moabites refused hospitality to the Israelite clans is doubtful, according to Scriptural evidence. The clans that left Egypt journeyed by stages, making contact with kinsmen at each stage. The first people to help them were their cousins the Midianites (descendents of Abraham by Keturah) in the region of the Midianite sacred mountain of Horeb (Deut. 29:1). The second people were the Edomites (descendents of Abraham by Sarah) in the region of the Edomite sacred mountain, Paran (Deuteronomy 33:2). Crossing through Edomite territory, the Israelites moved northeast into Moab. They visited the Town of Moab, where Lot’s descendents lived, and Beth-baal-me’On, where they had kin also. Finally, they worshipped on Mount Nebo (Deuteronomy 32:49), where Moses died. At each of these sacred sites, the reunion of the clans was celebrated by a covenant that included a night-long feast. These covenants likely resembled the covenant made between Jacob and Laban at Mizpah (Genesis. 31:44-54).
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.

Archeological Findings. In the Nimrud clay inscription of Tiglath-pileser III the Moabite king Salmanu (perhaps the Shalman who sacked Beth-arbel in Hosea 10:14) 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, while Kaasalta, possibly his successor, is named on cylinder B of Assurbanipal.

The Most important archeological discovery related to the Moabites was The Mesha Stele (popularized in the 19th century as the “Moabite Stone“) is a black basalt stone, bearing an inscription by the 9th. century BCE Moabite King Mesha, discovered in 1868 at Dhiban (biblical “Dibon,” capital of Moab). The inscription of 34 lines is written in the Moabite language. It is the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to ancient Israel. It was set up by Mesha, about 850 BCE, as a record and memorial of his victories in his revolt against the Kingdom of Israel, undertaken after the death of his overlord, Ahab.

The stone is 124 cm high and 71 cm wide and deep, and rounded at the top. It was discovered at the ancient Dibon now Dhiban, Jordan, in August 1868, by Rev. F. A. Klein, a German missionary in Jerusalem. “The Arabs of the neighborhood, dreading the loss of such a talisman, broke the stone into pieces; but a squeeze had already been obtained by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, and most of the fragments were recovered and pieced together by him”. A squeeze is a papier-mâché impression. The squeeze (which has never been published) and the reassembled stele (which has been published in many books and encyclopedias) are now in the Louvre Museum.

The Mesha Stone. Even today, the Mesha stela remains the longest monumental inscription discovered anywhere in Palestine—east or west of the Jordan. The Mesha stela contain specific references to the “King of Israel” (melech yisrael). And, as I shall show, both also contain a specific reference to the “House of David.”

The reason this reference to the “House of David” has never been noted before may well be due to the fact that the Mesha stela has never had a proper editio princeps. That is what I am preparing, 125 years after the discovery of the Mesha stela. The reason it has never had this kind of publication is due to a series of misfortunes that have befallen it since its discovery.

The first westerner to see the Mesha stela was a medical missionary named F. A. Klein, who lived in Jerusalem but who traveled widely on both sides of the Jordan, relieving pain and winning converts. In 1868, on one of Klein’s trips east of the Jordan, in ancient Moab, his Bedouin hosts showed him an inscribed stone among the ruins of Dhiban, Biblical Dibon. Lying face up, the monumental tablet, rounded at the top and with a flat base and a raised frame on the top and sides, contained 34 lines of script. Klein agreed to buy the stone for a hundred napoleons (about $400 at that time). However, the deal soon became enmeshed in the rivalries among Prussia (North Germany), France and England in the territories of the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century [1] .

Although Klein was a French citizen—he was born in Strasbourg (Alsace)—he worked with German colleagues in the Anglican Christian Missionary Society. When he returned to Jerusalem, he reported the find to the North German consul Heinrich Petermann, who then sought money from Berlin to acquire the stela for the Germans. Although the Germans tried to keep secret the discovery of the stone and their negotiations to acquire it, news inevitably leaked out. Both the British Captain Charles Warren, working for the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), and the Frenchman Charles Clermont-Ganneau, a young translator (dragoman) for the French consul of Jerusalem and amateur archaeologist, soon learned of the sensational discovery. Warren decided to do nothing, so as not to interfere with the German negotiations. Not so Clermont-Ganneau. He first sent an Arab to look at the inscription, who came back with a crude drawing of some of the letters, enough to assure Clermont-Ganneau of the inscription’s importance. Clermont-Ganneau next dispatched a man named Ya‘qub Karavaca to Dhiban to take a paper squeeze of the inscription.

Despite what might be considered Clermont-Ganneau’s indiscretion, in the end he provided a unique and invaluable aid to uncovering the stela’s contents. The Bedouin allowed Karavaca to take a squeeze of the stone.

A squeeze is made by placing a sheet of soft, wet paper on the inscription and pressing the paper into the incisions. After the paper dries, it is peeled off and contains a reverse replica of the inscription with the letters in a raised form.

While Karavaca was waiting for his squeeze of the inscription to dry, a fight erupted among the Bedouin, and Karavaca with his two horsemen were forced to flee for their lives. One horseman was wounded in the leg by a spear. The second horseman, Sheikh Jamil, succeeded in snatching the still-wet paper from the stone, stuffing the seven ripped pieces into his robe pocket. In this condition, the seven pieces of the squeeze were presented to Clermont-Ganneau, who put them in front of a candle and sometimes the sun in an effort to decipher the letters. This squeeze remains the only evidence of the inscription in its original condition.

The German consul Petermann meanwhile continued negotiations in an effort to purchase the stone. Unable to conclude a bargain, he turned for help to the Ottoman authorities, the nominal rulers of what was essentially a no-man’s land. In late 1869, Frederick III, Crown Prince of Prussia, paid an official visit to Jerusalem and in the political context of this visit, the Turks were pleased to lend their assistance to the Germans trying to buy the stone. This proved more of a hindrance than a help. The Bedouin hated the Ottoman pasha of Nablus and preferred to destroy the stone rather than comply with his wishes. This they did forthwith by heating the stone and then pouring cold water on it. They then distributed the pieces among various Bedouin families. (The story that the Bedouin broke the stone because they thought it might contain treasure inside is apocryphal. Likewise the story that they broke it because they thought the individual pieces could be sold for more than the intact stone).

At this point, Clermont-Ganneau published the first announcement of the existence of the stela, in the February 17, 1870, edition of the Revue de l’Instruction Publique. Petermann had left Jerusalem by then and the Prussian consulate gave up the matter. Clermont-Ganneau vigorously attempted to recover pieces of the stone and was soon helped by Warren. In the end, Clermont-Ganneau managed to acquire three large fragments and numerous smaller ones containing 613 letters out of a total of about a thousand. Warren and the PEF acquired 18 fragments with a total of 56 characters. In 1873, Clermont-Ganneau gave his fragments to the Louvre, and, the following year, the PEF also gave the Louvre Warren’s 18 fragments.

Using all these fragments as well as the squeeze, Clermont-Ganneau was able to restore the Mesha stela to the condition in which it is now on exhibit. About two-thirds consists of original fragments. The other third is plaster and has been restored based primarily on the squeeze. The publication of the stela was not as successful as its restoration, however. True, in 1870 Clermont-Ganneau published a facsimile with a translation and commentary [2]  and then, in 1875, some revised readings and improvements. [3] But neither publication contained a photograph of the stela itself or of the squeeze, so there was no way to check Clermont-Ganneau’s readings.

Ten years later, two other scholars (R. Smend and A. Socin) published a detailed study of the inscription, based on their examination of the stone and the squeeze in the Louvre. [4]  (For years, the squeeze hung in a glass case beside the reconstructed stela.) Because Clermont-Ganneau had not yet published his editio princeps, the study by Smend and Socin was considered a “pirate edition.” It was not very good anyway. In response to this “pirate edition,” Clermont-Ganneau announced that his own “definitive edition … so long deferred … with reproductions meeting the legitimate scientific requirements”  [5] would soon be forthcoming. But he never produced it, although he spent years thereafter as a professor at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France.

The reason for Clermont-Ganneau’s failure to publish this edition remains obscure. Probably he hoped to return to Dhiban and collect other fragments of the stela. In any event, this famous stela has never received a proper editio princeps. And the squeeze has never been published, although a number of studies based on an examination of the stone and squeeze have appeared. [6]  That the squeeze has never been published probably accounts for the fact that it is still possible to obtain, here and there, a better reading (as well as an improved historical interpretation of the text).

That is what I propose for one of the most difficult lines in the text, line 31. This line is badly broken; part of it is still on the stone and part has been reconstructed from the squeeze. After a careful study of the squeeze, Clermont-Ganneau proposed the following uncertain reading at the end of the line: b[--]wd (dw–b). [7]  This tentative reading was confirmed by a German scholar, Mark Lidzbarski, who tentatively identified traces after b as part of a t (t). [8]  After checking the original and the squeeze in the Louvre, still another scholar, R. Dussaud,[9]  proposed to read bt[-]wd.

The result: bt[d]wd (dw[d]tb), the “House of [D]avid!”

The attentive reader will immediately notice that “House” is spelled bt, rather than byt, as in the Tel Dan inscription. But this is in fact no problem. In Moabite (the language of this inscription) it was apparently spelled both ways at this time. Indeed, in this very inscription it is spelled bt five times (in lines 7, 23, 27 and 30 [twice]) and only once (in line 25) byt. The y may have been an archaic spelling or an optional consonant-used-as-a-vowel in an essentially consonantal script; this is what scholars call plene orthography (spelling) as opposed to defective orthography. Rudimentary vowels like these (w and h are other examples) are referred to as matres lectionis, the mothers of reading.

The term bt[d]wd is the subject of the sentence that begins earlier in line 31. Unlike English, the subject is not necessarily at the beginning. The sentence begins, “And as for Horonen [a place], dwelt there … ” Then comes the subject. That what follows identifies who lives in Horonen is clear from parallel passages elsewhere in the inscription involving Israel, the northern kingdom, rather than

Judah, the southern kingdom that was ruled by the House of David. For example, in lines 7–8, we read, “Omri [previously identified in lines 4–5 as the king of Israel] had taken possession of the land of Medeba, and he dwelt there … ” It is clear that bt[-]wd is probably a designation for a king. It appears that the only possible restoration is bt[d]wd, the “House of David,” just as the “king of Israel” (mlk ysr’l) is mentioned three times earlier. Moreover, referring to the king of Judah by reference to the “House” of David has several parallels in the Bible (2 Samuel 7:26; 1 Kings 2:24, etc.). This new reading not only establishes another appearance of the House of David in an ancient Semitic inscription, it also helps us to understand better the historical context of the Mesha stela.

The text of the stela is written in the first person by the king of Moab, Mesha, son of the Moabite god Kemosh. After the introduction (lines 1–4), Mesha describes how Moab had been oppressed first by “Omri, king of Israel” and then by Omri’s son (which could mean his grandson or any descendant). But, in a series of military confrontations, Mesha is successful in throwing off Israelite domination, even conquering parts of Israelite territory in Transjordan: “Israel has perished forever,” he claims.

In the principal part of the inscription (lines 5–31a), Mesha recounts the battles he has won—led by the Moabite god Kemosh, Mesha is always victorious—and the cities he has built. All of the identifiable sites are north of the Arnon River, the area east of the Jordan that was apparently controlled by the northern kingdom of Israel. In Biblical terms, this was the territory of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. The Mesha stela confirms (line 10) that “the men of Gad had dwelt [there] from of old.” According to the Mesha stela, Mesha was even successful in capturing the vessels of the Israelite God Yahweh (spelled just as it is in the Hebrew Bible)—this is the earliest mention of Yahweh in any known text or inscription.

A quite different account of the “Moabite rebellion” is given in the Bible (2 Kings 3:4–27). There Mesha’s rebellion is successfully repressed, although in a heart-rending episode Mesha sacrifices his own son on the wall of his capital to implore Kemosh for aid; following this, the Israelites withdraw (2 Kings 3:26–27). Mesha, although badly beaten, is thus able to maintain his independence. The relation between the Biblical account mentioning Mesha (2 Kings 3) and the conquests of Mesha in his stela (lines 7–21) is not evident. Most commentators think they are two different ways of describing the same military campaign soon after the death of Ahab, king of Israel (c. 853 BCE). It is more likely, however, that Mesha’s conquests over Israel date later, during the reign of King Jehoahaz (c. 819–803 BCE).

Beginning in line 31b of the stela, a new subject is introduced, as Clermont-Ganneau already guessed long ago. [10]  The language follows the same pattern as was used in the description of Moab’s military confrontations with Israel: “And as for Horonen, dwelt there [xxxxxx] … ” This is followed, as above, by Kemosh’s instruction to Mesha to go and fight against Horonen. Horonen, however, is the first site south of the Arnon; it is located southeast of the Dead Sea. Again Mesha takes up arms and is again victorious. Then the inscription breaks off; the rest is missing. As much as half of the inscription may have been destroyed.

Enough has been preserved at the end of line 31, however, to identify the new enemy of Moab against whom Mesha fought in the last half of the inscription: bt[d]wd, the House of David. Having described how he was victorious against Israel in the area controlled by it north of the Arnon, Mesha now turns to part of the area south of the Arnon which had been occupied by Judah, the House of David. [11]  In the tenth and first half of the ninth centuries BCE, the kingdom of Edom did not yet exist. The area southeast of the Dead Sea was apparently controlled by Judah. Thus, during Mesha’s rebellion against the king of Israel (2 Kings 3:5), the king of Israel asks for assistance from the king of Judah, who agrees to provide the aid. The king of Israel instructs the king of Judah to attack the king of Moab by going through the “wilderness of Edom” (2 Kings 3:8) because apparently it was an area controlled by the kingdom of Judah. No doubt the missing part of the inscription described how Mesha also threw off the yoke of Judah and conquered the territory southeast of the Dead Sea controlled by the House of David

NOTES:

[1]   See M. Patrick Graham, “The Discovery and Reconstruction of the Mesha Inscription,” in Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab, ed. J.A. Dearman, Archaeology and Biblical Studies 02 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 41–92; compare also Siegfried Horn, “The Discovery of the Moabite Stone,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth, Essays in Honor of D. N. Freedman, eds. Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), pp. 497–505.
[2]  Charles Clermont-Ganneau, La stèle de Dhiban ou stèle de Mesa roi de Moab 896 av. J.-C., Lettres a M. le Cte de Vogue (Paris, 1870), also in Revue Archéologique (1870), pp. 184–207, 357–386.
[3]  Clermont-Ganneau, “La Stèle de Mésa,” Revue critique (Sept. 11, 1875), pp. 166–174.
[4]  Die Inschrift des Königs Mesa von Moab für akademische Vorlesungen Herausgegeben (Freiburg im Brisgau, 1886).
[5]  Clermont-Ganneau, “La Stèle de Mésa, examen critique du texte,” Journal Asiatique 9 (8th series, 1887), p. 72.
[6]  See, for instance, K. G. A. Nordlander, Die Inschrift des Königs Mesa von Moab (Leipzig, 1896); R. Dussaud, Les monuments palestiniens et judaiques (Musee du Louvre) (Paris, 1912), pp. 4–20; D. Sidersky, La stèle de Mésha, index bibliographique (Paris, 1920); H. Michaud, “Sur la pierre et l’argile,” Cahiers d’archéologie biblique 10 (1958), pp. 29–45.
[7]  Clermont-Ganneau, “La Stèle de Mésa,” p. 173; and “La Stèle de Mésa, examen critique du texte,” p. 107.
[8]  Mark Lidzbarski, “Eine Nachprüfung der Mesainschrift,” in Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik I (Giessen, 1900), 1–10.
[9]  Dussaud, Les monuments palestiniens et judaiques p. 5; compare also D. Sidersky, La stèle de Mésha, p. 11; A.H. Van Zyl, The Moabites (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), Addendum I.
[10]  Clermont-Ganneau, “La Stèle de Mésa, examen critique du texte,” p. 112.
[11]  Incidentally, this supports a conclusion I reached several years ago that the territory of Edom was organized as a kingdom only in about 846 BCE, as indicated by 1 Kings 22:48 (“There was no king in Edom”) and 2 Kings 8:20 (“Edom revolted against Judah and set up its own king”) (“Hadad l’Edomite ou Hadad l’Araméen?” Biblische Notizen 43 (1988), pp. 14–18; “Les territoires d’Ammon, Moab et Edom dans la deuxieme moitié du IXe s. av. n. è.,” in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan IV, ed. S. Tell (Amman, Jordan, 1992), pp. 209–214).