Moab (state)

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Moab around 830 BC Chr. (Purple)

Moab was an ancient small state in the Middle East that is also mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible .

Geography and regional studies

The empire lay east of the Dead Sea, south of Ammon (border Wadi el-Mujib = valley of the Arnon ) and north of Edom (border Wadi el-Hesa) in today's Jordan . The northern border at Wadi Mujib was crossed several times by conquests and then included u. A. Madaba , Dhiban and the Aroer Fortress . The Abǎrim Mountains are also in Moab . The Jordanian government of Kerak lies within similar boundaries today .

Moab in hieroglyphics
N35A M17 D58 G43 N25

Mib / Mab
Mjb

Moab no longer has the more abundant precipitation of the north-lying Ammon, but it had agriculturally heavily used plateaus.

The name Moab for this landscape appears at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the 13th century BC. On an ancient Egyptian inscription by Ramses II , who destroyed the Moabite city of Butarte .

In the 9th century BC According to the biblical representation , the Moabites are said to have come into the tribute obligation to the great kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon .

History of Moab

By the 9th century BC There seems to have been no united kingdom of Moab. Not until 850 BC The Moabite king Mesha apparently used the wars between the northern kingdom of Israel and the Aramaic empire of Aram (Damascus) to shake off the tribute to the Israelite Omrid dynasty.

Moab was founded in the 8th century BC. First tribute to the empire of Assyria and later from Tiglath-Pileser III. in the campaign from 734–732 BC Finally subjected. In the following period Moab's attitude fluctuated politically between open rebellion (713 BC under Sargon II ), submission (701 BC Kamosch-Nadab [Kamoschnadbi; approx. 704–677 BC] to Sennacherib) and something later Musuri [approx. 677–667 BC] opposite Asarhaddon ) and collaboration (Kamosh-Haleth [Kamoschhalte; approx. 650 BC] suppresses a Bedouin rebellion in the interests of Assyria). In Neo-Babylonian times, Nebuchadnezzar II had to march against Ammon and Moab in order to secure his rule in this region.

Moabite religion

The war and national god Kemosch , who is also documented in Ebla and Ugarit and in the Old Testament (e.g. Ri 11.24  EU ; 1 Kings 11.7.33  EU ; 2 Kings 23.13  EU ; Jer 48.13  EU ) , was most likely the main god of Moab, who is documented primarily as a theophoric element in Moabite names and on the Mescha stele as the god of the Moabite king Mescha . No other deities of the Moabite pantheon can yet be identified by name, even if there are iconographic references to the worship of other gods in Moab.

The biblical image of Moab

The Old Testament of the Bible repeatedly tells of Moab and its inhabitants and their relationship with Judah / Israel. It should be emphasized that the biblical image of Moab has negative and sexual connotations: Numbers 25 reports in the story of the zealous Israeli priest Pinhas that the Israelites committed fornication with the daughters of Moab during their wandering in the desert and held cult meals with them and worshiped Kemosh, which, according to history, aroused the wrath of YHWH , the God of Israel. Because of these events, according to the biblical record, 24,000 Israelites died of a plague from God.

According to Deuteronomy , the mountain from which Moses saw the promised land before his death, but did not smell stepped on, is in the "land of Moab":

On the same day the Lord said to Moses: “Go up on Mount Abarim here, on Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, across from Jericho! Look at the land of Canaan that I want to lend as property to the Israelites! (...) ” (Deuteronomy, chapter 32).

Impact history

The cult of Kemosh outlived the loss of the statehood of Moab and the Moabite religion, as an Aramaic inscription from the 3rd century BC. Shows from el-Kerak. The southern cities of Rabba (Rabbat-Moab, Arepolis, Khirbe-en-Robbe) and Kerak (Krak de Moab, also Kir-Moab or El Kerak) still have the word “Moab” in their names at the time of the Crusaders .

Well-known kings of the Moabites

  • later Kamoshjat (approx. 880-850 BC)
  • Mescha (approx. 850–810 BC), who is mentioned not only in the Bible, but also on the Mescha stele named after him, found in Dhiban in 1868 (Old Testament: Dibon ) . The 1.10 m high stele made of black basalt and described with 34 lines reports how Mesha shook off the Israeli yoke during the reign of Omri (882–871 BC) and Ahab . It praises the later military victories over Joram of Israel (852–841 BC) and the re-establishment and expansion of the Moabite Empire with the support of the national god Kemosh . On the stele (line 10) is with the sentence: "I built the road through the Arnontal." Also the Königsstraße ( Gen 14,1-16  EU ; Num 20,17-21  EU and Num 33,1-49  EU ) mentioned, which leads from Damascus through Ammon , Moab and Edom towards the Red Sea .
  • Chemosh-Nadab I., approx. 800 BC Chr.
  • Chemosh-Nadab II., Ca.735 BC. Chr.
  • Chemosh-Nadab III.

See also

literature

  • Pierre Bordreuil: A long common history with Israel. In: World and Environment of the Bible. Issue 7, 1st quarter 1978, p. 22.
  • Galo W. Vera Chamaza: The role of Moab in the neo- Assyrian expansion policy (= Old Orient and Old Testament [AOAT], volume 321). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-934628-61-3 .
  • Herbert Niehr: Religions in Israel's Environment. Introduction to the north-west Semitic religions of Syria-Palestine (= The New Real Bible. Supplementary Volume 5 to the Old Testament). Echter, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-429-01981-5 , pp. 213-216.
  • John FA Sawyer. Midian, Moab and Edom. The History and Archeology of Late Bronze and Iron age Jordan and North-West Arabia (= Journal for the study of the Old Testament. Supplement series, Vol. 24). JSOT Press, Sheffield 1983, ISBN 0-905774-48-5 .
  • Stefan Timm: Moab between the Powers: Studies on historical monuments and texts (= Egypt and Old Testament. [ÄAT] Volume 17). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-447-02940-4 (also Habil.-Schrift, Kiel).
  • Udo Worschech: The Relations of Moab to Israel and Egypt in the Iron Age. Settlement archeology and settlement history studies in the heartland of Moab (= Egypt and Old Testament. Volume 18). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-447-03001-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rainer Hannig: Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German: (2800-950 BC) . von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-8053-1771-9 , p. 1147.