Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from sketches by Warren.
Moab alone offered any serious resistance. It had preserved its independence ever since the reign of Mesha, having escaped from being drawn into the wars which had laid waste the rest of Syria. It was now suddenly forced to pay the penalty of its long prosperity. Jeroboam made a furious onslaught upon its cities—Ar of Moab, Kir of Moab, Dibon, Medeba, Heshbon, Elealeh—and destroyed them all in succession. The Moabite forces carried a part of the population with them in their flight, and all escaped together across the deserts which enclose the southern basin of the Dead Sea. On the frontier of Edom they begged for sanctuary, but the King of Judah, to whom the Edomite valleys belonged, did not dare to shelter the vanquished enemies of his suzerain, and one of his prophets, forgetting his hatred of Israel in delight at being able to gratify his grudge against Moab, greeted them in their distress with a hymn of joy—“I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon Elealeh: for upon thy summer fruits and upon thy harvest the battle shout is fallen. And gladness is taken away and joy out of the fruitful fields; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither joyful noise; no treader shall tread out wine in the presses; I have made the vintage shout to cease. Wherefore my bowels sound like an harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir-Heres. And it shall come to pass, when Moab presenteth himself, when he wearieth himself upon the high place, and shall come to his sanctuary to pray, he shall not prevail!”*
* Isa. xv. 1-9; xvi. 1-12. This prophecy, which had been
pronounced against Moab “in the old days,” and which is
appropriated by Isaiah (xvi. 13, 14), has been attributed to
Jonah, son of Amittaî, of Gath-Hepher, who actually lived in
the time of Jeroboam II. (2 Kings xiv. 25). It is now
generally recognised as the production of an anonymous
Judsean prophet, and the earliest authentic fragment of
prophetic literature which has come down to us.
This revival, like the former greatness of David and Solomon, was due not so much to any inherent energy on the part of Israel, as to the weakness of the nations on its frontiers. Egypt was not in the habit of intervening in the quarrels of Asia, and Assyria was suffering from a temporary eclipse. Damascus had suddenly collapsed, and Hadrach or Mansuati, the cities which sought to take its place, found themselves fully employed in repelling the intermittent attacks of the Assyrian; the Hebrews, for a quarter of a century, therefore, had the stage to themselves, there being no other actors to dispute their possession of it. During the three hundred years of their existence as a monarchy they had adopted nearly all the laws and customs of the races over whom they held sway, and by whom they were completely surrounded. The bulk of the people devoted themselves to the pasturing and rearing of cattle, and, during the better part of the year, preferred to live in tents, unless war rendered such a practice impossible.* They had few industries save those of the potter** and the smith,*** and their trade was almost entirely in the hands of foreigners.
* Cf. the passage in 2 Kings xiii. 5, “And the children of
Israel dwelt in their tents as beforetime.” Although the
word ôhel had by that time acquired the more general
meaning of habitation, the context here seems to require
us to translate it by its original meaning tent.
** Pottery is mentioned in 2 Sam. xvii. 28; numerous
fragments dating from the monarchical period have been found
at Jerusalem and Lachish.
*** The story of Tubal-Cain (Gen. iv. 22) shows the
antiquity of the ironworker’s art among the Israelites; the
smith is practically the only artisan to be found amongst
nomadic tribes.
We find, however, Hebrew merchants in Egypt,* at Tyre, and in Coele-Syria, and they were so numerous at Damascus that they requested that a special bazaar might be allotted to them, similar to that occupied by the merchants of Damascus in Samaria from time immemorial.**
* The accurate ideas on the subject of Egypt possessed by
the earliest compilers of the traditions contained in
Genesis and Exodus, prove that Hebrew merchants must have
been in constant communication with that country about the
time with which we are now concerned.
** 1 Kings xx. 34; cf. what has been said on this point in
vol. vi. pp. 432, 441.
The Hebrew monarchs had done their best to encourage this growing desire for trade. It was only the complicated state of Syrian politics that prevented them from following the example of Solomon, and opening communications by sea with the far-famed countries of Ophir, either in competition with the Phoenicians or under their guidance. Indeed, as we have seen, Jehoshaphat, encouraged by his alliance with the house of Omri, tried to establish a seagoing fleet, but found that peasants could not be turned into sailors at a day’s notice, and the vessel built by him at Eziongeber was wrecked before it left the harbour.
