MOABITES

A Semitic people who, during OT times, inhabited the territory east of the Jordan River and north of the Wadi Zered and the territory of the edomites. Their northern boundary was the Wadi Arnon during much of their history, though at times they were able to extend their holdings beyond this point; the region north of their border was held by amorrite tribes, the ammonites, and the Israelites at various times in their history. The folkloric accounts of lot's settlement east of the Dead Sea (Gn 13.1–13) and of his fatherhood of the eponymous ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites through intercourse with his daughters (Gn 19.30–38), reflect both the Israelite awareness of their kinship with the tribes that settled in this region and their contempt for the hostility toward them.

Although the Moabites may have dwelt in this territory as nomads at an earlier period—there is no trace of a settled population there after the 20th century b.c. until their kingdom appears—it is only at the beginning of the Iron Age (13th century b.c.) that they emerged as a settled people, as the explorations of N. Glueck have shown. The Biblical account accords well with Glueck's findings, for when the Israelites were en route to the conquest of Palestine, they were forced to detour around Moab (Nm 21.10–20; Dt 2.8–13) instead of passing through as they had intended (Jgs 11.16–18), an indication that there was a strong, well-organized population there at that time. According to Nm 21.26–30, Moab had previously possessed territory north of the Arnon, but was driven from it by the Amorrites; although the Israelites took this territory from the Amorrites by conquest (Nm 21.21–25), Moab continued to lay claim to it. There is at least a strong possibility that the words of Jephthah in Jgs 11.15–27, although they are presented as a message to the Ammonite king, may have originally concerned the Moabites and their claim to this territory; 11.24 is to be noted especially, for it identifies the god of the king addressed as chemosh, who was the god of Moab, not of Ammon.

Although a successful campaign against the Moabites is attributed to Saul in 1 Sm 14.47, it was only under David that Moab was subjugated and made to pay tribute (2 Sm 8.2). David's harsh treatment of the Moabite captives on this occasion is hard to reconcile with his earlier friendly relations with this people (1 Sm 22.3–4) and with the tradition preserved in the Book of ruth that his grandmother was a Moabite. It is possible that during the time of Israel's divided monarchy Moab regained independence for a while and was reconquered by the northern kingdom, for the mesha inscription names Omri, King of Israel, (c. 876–869 b.c.) as the subjugator, and the OT account indicates that it was to Israel (rather than to Judah) that Moab paid tribute during this period and that it was against Israel that they rebelled under Mesha, their king (2 Kgs 1.1; 3.4–27), in 849 b.c. The united forces of Israel and Judah were unable to bring Moab under control again. This successful rebellion is the theme of the inscription of Mesha's famed stele. During the Persian period Moab's territory was incorporated into the kingdom of the Nabataeans.

The bad feelings that existed between Moabites and Israelites are reflected not only in the Genesis accounts and David's cruelty mentioned above, but also in other OT texts. The Moabites (along with the Ammonites) are singled out for special discrimination in Dt 23.4–7, and many prophetic oracles were directed against them (e.g., Is 15.1–9; Ez 25.8–11; Zep 2.8–11). Yet the Book of Ruth portrays the Moabite heroine as a noble personage, and after the Exile, marriages with Moabite women were so frequent that both Ezra and Nehemiah took measures against the practice (Ezr 9.1–10.44; Neh 13.23–30).

Bibliography: Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, tr. and adap. by l. hartman (New York 1963) 1544–46. h. eising, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 7:505–506. m. noth, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 v. (3d ed. Tübingen 1957–65) 4:1065–66. f. m. abel, Géographie de la Palestine 2 v. (Paris 1933–38) 1:278–281. a. h. van zyl, The Moabites (Leiden 1960). m. noth, "Israelitische Stämme zwischen Ammon und Moab," Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 19 (1944) 11–57. r. e. murphy, "Israel and Moab in the Ninth Century b.c.," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 15 (1943) 409–417. n. glueck, "Explorations in Eastern Palestine I–III," Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 14 (1933–34) 1–113; 15 (1934–35) 1–102; 18–19 (1937–39) 1–50. r. de vaux, "Notes d'histoire et de topographie transjordanienne," Vivre et Penser 1 (1941) 16–29.

[w. m. duffy]