MOABITE STONE. A votive inscr. of Mesha’, king of Moab referring to his victory over Israel and building activities.
1. Discovery. In 1868 a Ger. 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 writing in an early cursive Heb. type script. When both the German and French consuls aided by local Turkish officials evinced a competitive interest in the object the Arabs broke the monument into several pieces to disperse it. Fortunately Clermont-Ganneau had obtained a squeeze of the major part of the unique text and thus was able to recover some 669 of an estimated 1100 letters, or less than two-thirds, when the larger pieces were bought and rejoined in the Louvre Museum in 1873.
2. The text
a. The historical prelude. This recounts how Mesha, king of Moab, the Dibonite son of Chemosh—...who had ruled for thirty years dedicated a high place to the god Chemosh in Qrhh (Qarhoh?) in gratitude for having delivered him “from all the kings and letting me see my desire over all my enemies.” It was presumably at this sanctuary that the stele originally had been sited. The text then goes on to outline the occasion for its dedication. “Omri, king of Israel, had oppressed Moab for many days for Chemosh was angry with his land. His son succeeded him and he too said, ‘I will oppress Moab.’ In my time he said [this] but I triumphed over him and over his house, while Israel has perished for ever! Omri had taken possession of the land of Medeba and [Israelites] had settled there in his time and half the time of his son, that is forty years; but Chemosh dwelt in it again in my time.” The text would seem to supplement 1 Kings 16 in regarding Omri as the conquerer of northern Moab. The forty-year domination by Israel, if not intended as a generalization to cover a full generation, must comprise the reign of Omri (885-874), his son Ahab (874-853), Ahaziah (853-852) and half of the rule of Jehoram (852-841). If this is so, the son here referred to must be Omri’s “grandson” Jehoram in whose reign there was an attempt to crush the Moabite rebels (2 Kings 3:4-27). There is no reason to interpret the stone as implying that Mesha’ broke from Israel before the death of Ahab. This would be contrary to 2 Kings 1:1. The overthrow of the Omrids by Jehu was doubtless interpreted by the Moabites as vengeance upon them wrought by the national god Chemosh. The text continues: “I built Baal-Meon and made a pit (cf. Jer. 18:20) in it and I built Qaryaten (=Kiriathaim, (48:1). Now the men of Gad had built Ataroth for themselves, but I fought against the town and took it, slaying all the people of the town as a satiation for Chemosh and Moab. I brought back from there Oriel its chief (or read ‘the altar-hearth of David’) and dragged him before Chemosh in Qerioth (=Kerioth of Amos 2:2). There I settled men of Sharon and Maharith. Chemosh said to me, ‘Go, seize Nebo from Israel!’ So I went up by night, fought against it from daybreak to noon and took it, slaying everyone; seven thousand men, boys, women, girls and maidservants, for I had consecrated it to Ashtar-Chemosh. And I took from there the vessels of YHWH, hauling them before Chemosh. The king of Israel had built Jahaz and stayed there while he was fighting against me, but Chemosh drove him out before me. So I took two hundred Moabites, all experienced fighting men, and sent them against Jahaz which, after capture, I annexed to Dibon” (Jer 48:21; 48:18, 22).
The text shows clearly that the Moabites, like Israel, practiced the total destruction of towns and the annihilation of the inhabitants as an offering to their national deity to whom they ascribed victory. At the same time it describes Israelite penetration and building in Moab not expressed in the OT. The citing of the name of the God of Israel is of special interest.
b. Building inscription. Mesha’ continues with a claim to have built Qarhoh, both the wall around the park and citadel, its gates, towers and royal residence and reservoirs within the town. “Since there was no cistern within the town at Qarhoh I said to all the people, ‘Let each of you make a cistern in your own house.’ With Israelite captives I had irrigation ditches dug for Qarhoh.” Mesha’ also had built Aroer (cf. Jer 48:19, modern ’Ara’ir S of Dibon) and a highway in the Arnon valley. He rebuilt ruined Beth-bamoth (cf. Num 21:19) and Bezer using men from Dibon. Other reconstruction work was carried out at Medeba, Beth-diblathaim (Jer 48:22) and Beth-baal-meon as centers for sheepbreeders. Altogether he added more than a hundred towns and villages to his territory. The broken inscr. ends with the call of the god Chemosh to Mesha’ to go and fight the Hauranites.
This major inscr. in Moabite, a Sem. dialect akin to Biblical Heb., is in a 9th-cent. hand and is prob. to be dated soon after 841 b.c. The style is free narrative reminiscent of the OT. It is of much importance for the historical, linguistic, religious and economic insights it affords.
Bibliography G. A. Cook, A Text-Book of North Semitic Inscriptions (1903), 1-14; S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel (1913), lxxivff.; W. F. Albright, “The Moabite Stone,” ANET (1955), 320, 321; E. Ullendorf, “The Moabite Stone,” Documents from Old Testament Times (Ed. D. Winton Thomas) (1958), 195-198.