Since Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, took part in the campaign against Moab, the rebellion and its subsequent punishment must have taken place between 853 B.C., when Ahaziah of Israel began his reign, and 848 B.C., when Jehoshaphat of Judah died. When translated, it turned out to be a victory monument erected in the ninth century B.C. Probably because they came from a town where Yahweh worship had been prominent; in order to humiliate the Israelite God and honor his own deity, Mesha meted out harsher treatment to the Yahweh worshippers than to the Israelites of other captured cities. The forefather of the Moabites was Moab, a product of an incestuous union between Abraham’s nephew Lot and his eldest daughter. instead of 853 B.C. It must have been a formidable army that set out on this campaign. The Moabite Stone was discovered in 1868 in Dibon (Dhiban in modern-day Jordan). After Mesha’s revolt, King Jehoram of Israel enlisted the aid of King Jehoshaphat of Judah in an expedition against Moab. (Right) The Tetragrammaton as it appears on the artifact, The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1960, The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1996, The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1990. On the map in the sidebar, some cities mentioned by name in the Moabite Stone are shown as far as they can reasonably be identified. Klein asked to be taken to the stone, and his Bedouin friends gladly obliged. The Moabite Stone was discovered in 1868 in Dibon (Dhiban in modern-day Jordan). The allied forces may have considered the crossing of this gorge in the face of brave, determined defenders too difficult, and thus decided to invade Moab from the south, although this meant having to pass through an arid, forbidding wilderness. Mesha crossed the canyon and captured the Israelite city of Dibon. 72–83. Some commentators, however, consider Jehoshaphat’s name a later addition and believe that the king of Judah who participated in the Moabite campaign was Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram, a namesake, and also brother-in-law, of the king of Israel. It is isolated from the surrounding hills, which overlook the city, by valleys more than 300 feet deep. Although in the end the siege of their capital was lifted and the enemy armies forced to leave, the mention of the war would bring up so many unpleasant memories that it doubtless seemed wiser to ignore it altogether in a historical summary of Mesha’s political achievements and accomplishments. Somehow the king of Edom was also persuaded to join the coalition against Moab (2 Kings 3-9). Yet they never took possession of it. The Moabite language was spoken in Moab. A basalt stone, bearing an inscription by King Mesha, was discovered at Dibon by Klein, a German missionary at Jerusalem, in 1868, consisting of thirty-four lines written in Hebrew-Phoenician characters. Ninth-century B.C. Qa‘waµr resumed with a written agreement. true. This is why the women were excepted for they did not possess that determinative Moabite quality. So they stopped all the springs of water and felled all the good trees, until in Kir-hareseth only they left its stones; however, the slingers went about it and struck it. F. A. Klein was the first and last European to see the stone in its unbroken state. Rains often fall during the winter months in the distant, barren mountains. Montgomery and Gehman, Commentary on Books of Kings, pp. Mesha Stela The Mesha stela is a Moabite royal inscription that is related to the Bible and to the history of Transjordan. Although the Germans tried to keep secret the discovery of the stone and their negotiations to acquire it, news inevitably leaked out. It records Mesha’s wars with Omri, his public buildings, and his wars against Horonaim. Outstanding, however, is Mesha’s use of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the name of Israel’s God, in the 18th line of the record. So they lit a fire around the precious relic and repeatedly doused it with water. The Moabite Stone. What does it mean, “There was bitter indignation against the Israelites”? Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. 389–393. It is a black and blue basalt stone standing 4 feet high, 2 feet wide and 14 inches thick. THE Moabite, or Mesha, Stone was deliberately broken up within a year of its discovery in 1868. Several weeks later the sheikh replied that he could do nothing in the matter. In this, he gives all credit to his god Chemosh. Most likely, they wanted to forget their having attacked the Hebrew-Edomite invaders at the red-colored floodwaters under the illusion that they were confronting a half-beaten army bloodied by internecine rivalries; they did not want to be reminded of their ensuing defeat, of the ravaging of their country and cities by the Hebrews, of the long siege of their capital and the unsuccessful attempt of their army to break through the enemy line, and finally of the desperate royal sacrifice. Well-preserved ruins of one such Hebrew Yahweh temple have recently been excavated at Arad in southern Judea,7 and an ancient pilgrim’s shrine dedicated to Yahweh was discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the southern Negev.8. the Mari Letters were written by Hoshiah. The Bible also says the water in this flash flood flowed red (verse 22). The monument itself was erected at the dedication of the temple of the Moabite god, Kemosh, in the town of Qericho. 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Chronicles 19 are the two major passages of scripture that that give an account of these battles. Therefore it is not surprising that King Jehoshaphat joined his northern relative in a military campaign against rebellious Moab, as he had done in an earlier war against the Syrians (1 Kings 22-1–38). Moab emerged ravaged and bleeding, but with its independence preserved. inscription adds new dimension to Biblical account of Mesha’s rebellion. Mesha’s account of events confirms the fact that the area north of the Arnon River was occupied by Israelites before Mesha’s rebellion; Mesha also confirms that these Israelites belonged to the tribe of Gad (Deuteronomy 3-12), for he says in lines 10–12 of the Moabite Stone, “Now the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of Ataroth from of old, … but I fought against the city, took it, and smote all the people of the city as an intoxication for Kemosh and for Moab.”. However, it is clear that Mesha nearly doubled the size of his country by his conquest. Although he lived in Jerusalem, he traveled widely on both sides of the Jordan, seeking to relieve pain and win converts. While Karavaca was waiting for his squeeze of the inscription to dry, a quarrel broke out among the local people that became so violent that Karavaca, who by this time had already received a spear-wound in the fracas, feared for his life. As described in Bible History Daily: [The] black basalt Moabite Stone was first brought to the attention of scholars in 1868 by Bedouin living east of the Jordan Dahood, Mitchell J. The vassalage began, according to the Moabite Stone, in the reign of Omri and ended under his son. Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Avengers: Endgame.. Thanos certainly believed he had destroyed the Infinity Stones in Avengers: Endgame - but did he really? ... city destroyed by an earthquake in 1858. But when Ahab died and hi… Also called the Mesha Stele, it was set in place as a monument by King Mesha of Moab around 830 BC. On the monument, Mesha boasts of being very religious, of building cities and a highway, and of winning a victory over Israel. With that sacrifice apparently the tide of victory turned. This red water led the Moabites to conclude that the allied armies had quarreled among themselves and gotten into a bloody, fratricidal battle (verses 22–23). MOABITE STONE, THE. 1. In what way did his wrath manifest itself? It consisted of thirty-four lines, written in Hebrew-Phoenician characters. missionary, F. A. Klein, was shown an inscribed basalt slab (3’ 10\" high x 2’ wide and 2 1/2\" thick) with rounded top and thirty-nine lines of … Abraham's name. The stone shares similar properties portrayed in the Harry Potter series. The Moabite Stone is a black basalt stele; that is, an upright monument with a flat base and a rounded top. These he “devoted” to the god Ashtar-Kemosh. The Mesha Stele (popularized in the 19th century as the "Moabite Stone") is a black basalt stone, bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC Moabite King Mesha, discovered in 1868. Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel, but then Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha… It was 3 1/2 feet high and 2 in breadth and in thickness, rounded at the top. The stone is not only a reminder that archaeology is riddled with speculation, it also has interesting implications for biblical apologetics. When the full text was revealed, scholars were astounded. From the Biblical record we learn that in the early tenth century B.C. The 57 pieces thus salvaged comprise approximately two-thirds of the original inscription. It is not clear what Mesha means when he says that he “devoted” these people to his god Kemosh. The most famous Moabite king—from the archaeological record at least—is Mesha. Press, 1986. Albert T. Olmstead, for example, believes that the circuitous route taken by the allies in their invasion tactics proves that the events described on the Moabite Stone precede the allies’ invasion, for by attacking Moab from the south they avoided the time-consuming task of first having to conquer the newly fortified cities of Mesha’s recently acquired Israelite territory.10, On the other hand, those, among them this writer, who believe that the allied invasion of Moab precedes the events described by Mesha on his victory monument, point out that it must have taken Mesha years to carry out the fortification works he describes, while the Biblical record gives the impression that the allied military campaign quickly followed Mesha’s rebellion and cessation of the annual payment of tribute. It was almost 3,000 years old. John Gray, “The Desert God ‘At\tr in the Literature and Religion of Canaan,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 8 (1949), pp. This is certainly a reasonable possibility. "The Moabite Stone and Northwest Semitic Philology." In the summer of 1868, Klein traveled on horseback to treat the sick in the area of ancient Moab, east of the Dead Sea. The Sorcerer's Stone was eradicated but there was no indication how Dumbledore and Flamel destroyed the object. 9. He then negotiated with the Bedouin for the purchase of the stone and obtained their oral agreement to sell it for 100 napoleons, worth about $400 at the time. The allied Hebrew-Edomite armies hoped to take Kir-hareseth by siege, apparently assuming that outright capture through a frontal assault was too costly, or perhaps impossible. He obtained several of the large pieces and many small ones, in all 38 fragments containing a total of 613 letters out of a total of about 1,000. For many years, this poor paper squeeze hung behind glass, side-by-side with the original stone in the Louvre and gave scholars an opportunity to check Clermont-Ganneau’s reconstruction.1. Moabite alphabet. Even now, 118 years after its discovery, the Moabite Stone with its text of 34 lines is still the longest monumental inscription that has been discovered anywhere in Palestine, east or west of the Jordan River.” (Why the Moabite Stone Was Blown to Pieces, Siegfried H. Horn, BAR 12:03, 1986 AD) II. There are two Biblical references to King David's wars with the Moabites and the Ammonites. Not retained by any vegetation or soil, the water rushes into the dry valleys, causing flash floods, which in minutes can trap any animal or person who has strayed from high ground. But, in order not to interfere with the German negotiations for its acquisition, Warren decided to do nothing. Clermont-Ganneau, who was later to distinguish himself as a scholar in Oriental studies, had arrived in Jerusalem at the age of 21, just a year before Klein’s discovery of the stone. Nebo have yet been found. The combined reigns of Omri and of the three kings who followed him—his son Ahab and his two grandsons, Ahaziah and Jehoram—amounted to no more than 44 years—from 885 B.C., when Omri came to the throne, to 841 B.C., when Jehoram, the last king of the descendants of Omri, was killed by Jehu in a military coup that initiated Jehu’s own dynasty.2 So it is possible the vassalage lasted for 40 years. The Text of the Moabite Stone. Sorry, there was an error loading the video. A French archaeologist managed to get a paper squeeze of the writing, but because the squeeze had to be snatched away before it was dry, the impression was barely legible. Ginsburg may have been biased against Clermont-Ganneau, however, and in any case he still makes clear that it was the governor of Nablus’s demands that ultimately led to the destruction. For unknown reasons, his second intermediary aroused … At this critical time Jehoshaphat called for Elisha the prophet. The Moabites were defeated. Many locations listed by Mesha as places he captured are mentioned in the Bible, among them Medeba, Ataroth, Nebo, and Jahaz. Among those who heard about it was Captain Charles Warren, who did survey work for the London-based Palestine Exploration Fund from 1867 to 1870. This mighty gorge, a Near Eastern “Grand Canyon,” formed an extremely effective natural barrier between Moab and Israel. Indeed, it must have soon recovered for it quickly went from the defensive to the offensive—invading Israelite lands north of the Arnon. When he heard about the find, about October of 1869, he dispatched a trusted Arab friend, Saliµm el-Qaµriµ, to Dhiban to make inquiries about the stone. Paragraph divisions are not in the original inscription, but are added in the translation for convenience. The Moabite Stone, or Mesha Stele, contains an inscription of 34 lines in Hebrew commemorating military and building activities of Mesha, king of Moab in the 9th cent BC. The stone bears a 34-line inscription of Meshaʿ, king of Moab, dating from the middle of the 9th century bc. After the stone was destroyed, the Germans seemed to lose interest in the monument. Or fear among the soldiers? In Moabite alphabet. Fulfillment of Genesis 49 Prophecy is Accidently Corroborated by King Mesha's Bragging on the Moabite Stone Dr. James J. S. Johnson And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster [ נֹקֵ֑ד i.e., sheep-breeder, sheep rancher], and he rendered unto the king of Israel 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, with the wool. Israelite Nebo must have been a town of considerable size, because Mesha claims that in its conquest he captured “7,000 men, [boys], women, [girl]s and maidservants” (lines 16–17). (2nd Kings 3:4) Recently a… 11. The Sorcerer's Stone, or Philosopher's Stone, is a legendary substance historically referred to by alchemists. Last year the French scholar Andre Lemaire reported a related "House of David" discovery in Biblical Archaeology Review. Recently, this town has been excavated under the direction of Sylvester J. Saller and Bellarmino Bagatti.6 But no remains of an Israelite town on Mt. Mesha’s defeat and the sacrifice of his own son​—reported in the Bible—​are, as one would expect, omitted in this self-glorifying inscription. The fragments were then distributed among the local Bedouin, who put them into their granaries to serve as talismans to guarantee the fertility of the soil. In later times, a town was built on this mountain. According to Bible commentaries like the NIV Zondervan Study Bible , Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt as she looked back, “for disobeying the instruction not to look back. It is at this point that we get additional information from the Moabite Stone. Fulfillment of Genesis 49 Prophecy is Accidently Corroborated by King Mesha's Bragging on the Moabite Stone Dr. James J. S. Johnson And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster [ נֹקֵ֑ד i.e., sheep-breeder, sheep rancher], and he rendered unto the king of Israel 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, with the wool. Pictorial Archive (Near Eastern History) Est. Monumental inscriptions on freestanding stones or temple walls were produced for propaganda purposes and for the glorification of the national god and the country’s ruler. The inscription of 34 lines was incised on its front with a raised frame surrounding it on both sides and on its rounded top. For example, in common with them it mentions only matters of which the nation, its god and its king could be proud, and ignores unfavorable events, such as defeats, catastrophes, and military and political mistakes. the Moabite Stone was discovered in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. This is clear from the inscription on the Moabite Stone, a monument of Mesha, king of Moab, erected about 850 B.C., and discovered among the ruins of Dibon in 1868. Mesha, with a force of 700 men, decided to make an attempt to break through the line of the besiegers, choosing the Edomite sector as the probable weakest spot. This stone is made out of black basalt stone and is just under four feet tall. The city lies 3,110 feet above the Mediterranean Sea and 4,400 feet above the Dead Sea. 497–505. Petermann then sought to acquire the piece through other avenues. war between Moab and an alliance of Israel, Judah and Edom. This canyon and the river running through it probably led the alliance of Israel, Judah and Edom to attack Moab from the south, even though Israelite territory lay just north of the Arnon. We know from the Biblical records as well as from archaeological evidence that Yahweh shrines existed in various parts of the country during the period of the Hebrew kings until the pious kings Hezekiah and Josiah destroyed them. 16–22), in his A History of Israel, 2nd ed. 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