perpetrating cruelties upon Gilead (Am. i. 13 sqq.). But under Jeroboam II. (q.v.) Israelite territory was extended to the Wadi of the ʽArabah or wilderness (probably south end of the Dead Sea), and again Moab suffered. If Isa. xv. seq. is to be referred to this age, its people fled southwards and appealed for protection to the overlord of Edom (see Uzziah). During the Assyrian supremacy, its king Salamannu (probably not the Shalman of Hos. x. 14) paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser IV., but joined the short-lived revolt with Judah and Philistia in 711. When Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem in 701, Kamus(Chemosh)-nadab also submitted, and subsequently both Esarhaddon and Assurbani-pal mention the Moabite king Musuri (“the Egyptian,” but cf. Mizraim) among their tributaries. In fact, during the reign of Assur-bani-pal Moab played the vassal’s part in helping to repulse the invasion of the Nabayati and nomads of Kedar, a movement which made itself felt from Edom nearly as far as Damascus. It had its root in the revolt of Samas-sumyukin (Shamash-shun-ukin) of Babylonia, and coming at a time immediately preceding the disintegration of the Assyrian Empire, may have had most important consequences for Judah and the east of the Jordan.[1] (See Palestine: History.)
Moab shares with Ammon and Edom in the general obscurity which overhangs later events. If it made inroads upon Judah (2 Kings xxiv. 2), it joined the coalition against Babylonia (Jer. xxvii. 3); if it is condemned for its untimely joy at the fall of Jerusalem (Isa. xxv. 9 seq.; Jer. xlviii.; Ezek. xxv. 8–11; Zeph. ii. 8-10), it had offered a harbour to fugitive Jews (Jer. xl. 11). The dates of the most significant passages are unfortunately uncertain. If Sanballat the Horonite was really a native of the Moabite Horonaim, he finds an appropriate place by the side of Tobiah the Ammonite and Gashmu the Arabian among the strenuous opponents of Nehemiah. Still later we find Moab part of the province of Arabia in the hands of fresh tribes from the Arabian desert (Jos. Ant. xiii. 13, 5); and, with the loss of its former independent power, the name survives merely as a type (Dan. xi. 41). (See Jews; Nabataeans.)
A populous land commanding the trade routes from Arabia to Damascus, rich in agricultural and pastoral wealth, Moab, as Mesha’s inscription proves, had already reached a high state of civilization by the 9th century B.C. Its language differed only dialectically from Hebrew; its ideas and religion were very closely akin to the Israelite, and it may be assumed that they shared in common many features of culture.[2] The relation of Chemosh, the national god, to his “children” (Num. xxi. 29) was that of Yahweh to Israel (see especially Judges xi. 24). He had his priests (Jer. xlviii. 7), and Mesha, perhaps himself a priest-king, receives the oracles direct or through the medium of his prophets. The practice of devoting, banning or annihilating city or community was both Moabite and Israelite (cf. above, also Deut. ii. 34, iii. 6, xx. 10–20; 2 Chron. xxv. 12, &c.), and human sacrifice, offered as an exceptional gift to Chemosh in 2 Kings iii. 27, in Israel to Molech (q.v.), was a rite once less rare. Apart from the religious cult suggested in the name Mount Nebo, there were local cults of the Baal of Peor and the Baal of Meon, and Mesha’s allusion to ʽAshtar-Chemosh, a compound deity, has been taken to point to a corresponding consort whose existence might naturally be expected upon other grounds (see Astarte). The fertility of Moab, the wealth of wine and corn, the temperate climate and the enervating heat supply conditions which directed the form of cult. Nature-worship, as in Israel, lay at the foundation, and the impure rites of Shittim and Baal-Peor (Num. xxxi. 16; Ps. cvi. 28) would not materially differ from practices which Israelite prophets were called upon to condemn. Much valuable evidence is to be obtained also from the survival of ancient forms of cult in Moab and east of the Jordan (e.g. sacrifices on the house roofs) and from a survey of epigraphical and other data from the Greek, Roman, and later periods, allowance being made for contamination. The whole question deserves careful investigation in the light of comparative religion.[3]
The relationship felt between Israel and the external states (Moab, Edom, and Ammon) is entirely justified. It extends intermittently throughout the history, and certain complicated features in the traditions of the southern tribes point to affinities with Moab which find a parallel in the traditions of David (see Ruth) and in the allusions to intercourse between Moab and Benjamin (1 Chron. viii. 8) or Judah (ibid. iv. 21 seq.). But the obscure historical background of the references makes it uncertain whether the exclusiveness of orthodox Judaism (Neh. xiii. 1-3; cf. Deut. xxiii. 3–6; Ezra ix. 1, 12) was imposed upon an earlier catholicity, or represented only one aspect of religious spirit, or was succeeded by a more tolerant attitude. Evidence for the last-mentioned has been found in the difficult narrative in Josh. xxii. But Israel remained a great power in religious history while Moab disappeared. It is true that Moab was continuously hard pressed by desert hordes; the exposed condition of the land is emphasized by the chains of ruined forts and castles which even the Romans were compelled to construct. The explanation of the comparative insignificance of Moab, however, is not to be found in purely topographical considerations. Nor can it be sought in political history, since Israel and Judah suffered as much from external movements as Moab itself. The explanation is to be found within Israel itself, in factors which succeeded in re-shaping existing material and in imprinting upon it a durable stamp, and these factors, as biblical tradition recognizes, are to be found in the work of the prophets.
See the articles on Moab in Hastings’s Dict. Bible (W. H. Bennett), Ency. Bib. (G. A. Smith and Wellhausen), and Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (F. Buhl) with their references; also the popular description by W. Libbey and F. E. Hoskins, Jordan Valley and Petra (1905), and the very elaborate and scientific works by R. E. Brünnow and A. von Domaszewski, Die Provincia Arabia (1904–1905), and A. Musil, Arabia Petraea (1907–1908). Mention should be made of the mosaic map of Palestine found at Medaba, dating perhaps from the 5th century A.D.; for this, see A. Jacoby, Das geograph. Mosaik von M. (1905), and P. Palmer and Guthe (1906). For language and epigraphy see Nabataeans, Semitic Languages; for topography, &c., Palestine; and for the later history, Jews. (S. A. C.)
MO‛ALLAKĀT (Mo‛allaqāt or Mu‛allaqāt). Al-Mo‛allaqāt
is the title of a group of seven longish Arabic poems, which
have come down to us from the time before Islam. The name
signifies “the suspended” (pl.), the traditional explanation
being that these poems were hung up by the Arabs on or in
the Ka‛ba at Mecca. The oldest passage known to the present
writer where this is stated occurs in the ‛Iqd of the Spanish
Arab, Ibn ‛Abd-Rabbihi (A.D. 860–940), Būlāq ed. of 1293 A.H.
vol. iii. p. 116 seq. We read there: “The Arabs had such
an interest in poetry, and valued it so highly, that they took
seven long pieces selected from the ancient poetry, wrote them
in gold on pieces of Coptic linen folded up, and hung them
up (‛allaqat) on the curtains which covered the Ka‛ba. Hence
we speak of ‘the golden poem of Amra’al Qais,’ ‘the golden
poem of Zuhair.’ The number of the golden poems is seven;
they are also called ‘the suspended’ (al-Mo‛allaqāt).” Similar
statements are found in later Arabic works. But against
this we have the testimony of a contemporary of Ibn ʽAbd-Rabbihi,
the grammarian Nāḥḥās (d. A.D. 949), who says in
his commentary on the Mo‛allaqāt: “As for the assertion that
they were hung up in [sic] the Ka‛ba, it is not known to any of
those who have handed down ancient poems.”[4] This cautious
scholar is unquestionably right in rejecting a story so utterly
unauthenticated. The customs of the Arabs before Mahomet
- ↑ See G. Smith, Ashurbanipal (p. 288, cyl. A. viii. 51, B. viii. 37); L. B. Paton, Syria and Palestine, p. 269 seq.; R. F. Harper, Ass. and Bab. Lit., pp. 118 sqq.; H. Winckler, Keilinschr. u. das alte Test., 3rd ed., p. 151.
- ↑ Excavation alone can supplement the scanty information which the present evidence furnishes. For a representation of a Moabite warrior (-god ?), see G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, Art in Phoenicia, ii. 45 seq.
- ↑ See W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites (2nd ed.), which may be supplemented by the scattered gleanings in Clermont-Ganneau’s Recueil d’archéologie orientale; and more especially by P. Antonin Jaussin’s valuable monograph, Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab (Paris, 1908). (See also Hebrew Religion.)
- ↑ Ernst Frenkel, An-Naḥḥās’ Commentar zur Mu ‛allaqa des Imruul-Qais (Halle, 1876), p. viii.
