a tribe descended from Moab, the son of Lot, and consequently related to the Hebrews. (Gen. xix. 37.) Previous to the exodus from Egypt, the Moabites, after expelling the original inhabitants, called Emims (Gen. xiv. 5; Deut. ii. 11), had possessed themselves of the region on the E. of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, as far N. as the River Jabok. But the northern portion of the territory, extending from the Jabok to the Arnon, had passed into the hands of the Amorites, and hence the valley and river Arnon constituted the northern boundary of Moab. (Numb. xxii. 13; Judg. xi. 18; Josephus, Antiq. iv. 5, 1.) The Moabites, on the advance of the Hebrews towards Canaan, fearing the numbers that were marching around them, gave evidence of a spirit of hostility (Deut. xxxiii. 3); and their king, Balak, hired Balaam to utter prophetic curses, which were converted into blessings in his mouth (Num. xxii. sq.). The Gadites now took possession of the northern portion of the territory, which the Amorites had wrested from the Moabites, while the Reubenites occupied the south. (Num. xxxii. 34; comp. Josh. xiii.)

We see the first hostilities breaking out in the beginning of the period of the Judges, when the Hebrews had been for a long time tributary to the Moabites, but threw off their yoke under Ehud. (Judg. iii. 12-50.) Peace and friendship, however, were afterwards restored; and Moab appears often to have afforded a place of refuge to outcasts and emigrant Hebrews. (Ruth i. 1; comp. I Sam. xxii. 3, 4; Jer. xl. 11; Isa. xvi. 2.) After Saul had waged successful war against them (I Sam. xvii. 47), David made them tributary (2 Sam. viii. 2, 12; xxiii. 20); and the right to levy this tribute seems to have been transferred to Israel after the division of the kingdom (2 Kings i. 1, iii. 4; comp. Isa. xvi. 1). To avenge an invasion of their territory, in which the King of Judah had taken part, the Moabites formed a powerful confederacy with the Ammonites, Edomites, and others, who marched in great force into Judaea, and having formed their camp at Engedi, they fell out among themselves and destroyed each other.

The most natural explanation of the recovery by Moab (Isa. xvi.) of the territory between the Arnon and the Jabok, and respecting which Jewish history is silent, is that of Roland (Palestina, p. 720), Paulus (Clariss, p. 110), and Rosenmüller (in loc.), that, after the carrying away of Reuben and Gad into captivity, the Moabites occupied their territory. Still later, under Nebuchadnezzar, we see the Moabites acting as the auxiliaries of the Chaldeans (2 Kings xxiv. 2), and beholding with malicious satisfaction the destruction of a kindred people (Ezek. xxv. 8-11); yet, according to an account in Josephus (Antiq. x. 9, 7), Nebuchadnezzar, when on his way to Egypt, made war upon them, and subdued them, together with the Ammonites, five years after the destruction of Jerusalem. On the other hand, there is no authority in any one ancient account for that which modern historians have repeatedly copied from one another,—viz., that Moab was carried into exile by Nebuchadnezzar, and restored with the Hebrews under Cyrus.

Continual wars and contention must have created a feeling of national hostility between the Hebrews and the Moabites; and this feeling manifested itself on the part of the Hebrews in bitter proverbs and in the denunciations of their prophets. Moreover, the subjection of Moab finds a place in every ideal description of splendid wars and golden ages predicted for Israel (Isa. xi. 14, xxv. 10; Ps. lx. 8; Moabites, Ps. lxxxiii. 6).

After the exile an intimate connection between the two nations had found place by means of intermarriages (Ezra ix. 1, sq.; Neh. xiii. 1), which, however, were dissolved by the theocratic zeal of Ezra. The last notice (chronologically) of the Moabites which occurs in Scripture is in Dan. xi. 41, which contains an obscure intimation of the escape of the Moabites from the overthrow with which neighbouring countries would be visited; but Josephus, in the history of Alexander Jannaeus, mentions the cities between Arnon and Jabok under the title of cities of Moab. (Antiq. xiii. 15.) Thenceforth their name is lost under that of the Arabians, as was also the case with Ammon and Edom. At the time of Abulfeda, Moab proper, S. of the Arnon, bore the name of Karak, from the city so called; and the territory N. of the Arnon, that of Beïka, which includes also the Ammonites. Since that time the accounts of that region are uncommonly meagre; for, through fear of the predatory and mischievous Arabs that people it, few of the numerous travellers in Palestine have ventured to explore it. (For scanty accounts, see Blisching's Asia, pp. 507, 508.) Seetzen, who in February and March 1806, not without danger of losing his life, undertook a tour from Damascus down to the south of Jordan and the Dead Sea, and thence to Jerusalem, was the first to shed a new and altogether unexpected light upon the topography of this region. He found a multitude of places, or at least ruins of places, still bearing the old names; and thus has set bounds to the perfectly arbitrary designations of them on the old charts. From June to September 1812, Burckhardt made the same tour; and the details of this journey, which are contained in his Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, 1822, threw much light upon the ancient topography and present condition of the lands of Moab and Edom. The accounts of Seetzen and Burckhardt give the substance of all the information which we even yet possess concerning the land of Moab. The Travels of Irby and Mangels in 1818, and Legh's Supplement to Dr Macmichael's Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, 1819, furnish the most valuable additions which have as yet been obtained to the information of Seetzen and Burckhardt. More recent travellers in Palestine have added little to our previous knowledge of the land of Moab.

From the sources already alluded to we learn that in the land of Moab, which lay to the E. and S.E. of Judaea, and which bordered on the E., N.E., and partly on the S. of the Dead Sea, the soil is rather more diversified than that of Ammon; and, where the desert and plains of salt have not encroached upon its borders, of equal fertility. There are manifest and abundant signs of its ancient importance. "The whole of the plains are covered with the sites of towns on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one; and as the land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be no doubt that the country, now so deserted, once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility." (Irby and Mangels, p. 378.) The form of fields is still visible; and there are remains of Roman highways, which are in some places completely paved, and on which there are milestones of the times of Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus, with the numbers of the miles legible upon them. It was in its state of highest prosperity that the prophets foretold that the cities of Moab should become desolate, without any to dwell in them; and accordingly we find, that although the sites, ruins, and names of many ancient cities of Moab can still be traced, not one of them exists at the present day as tenanted by man.