Mesha Stele

Sayce1892 historical source page 84

']6 THE MOABITE STONE. The last line or two, describing the war against the Edomites, is unfortunately lost beyond recovery. The rest of the text, however, it will be seen, is pretty perfect, and is full of interest to Biblical students. The whole inscription reads like a chapter from one of the historical books of the Old Testament. Not only are the phrases the same, but the words and grammatical forms are, with one or two exceptions, all found in Scriptural Hebrew. We learn that the language of Moab differed less from that of the Israelites than does one English dialect from another. Perhaps the most interesting fact disclosed by the inscription is that Chemosh, the national god of the Moabites, had come to be regarded not only as the supreme deity, but even as almost the only object of their worship. Except in the passage which alludes to the dedication of women and maidens to Ashtar-Che- mosh, Mesha speaks as a monotheist, and even here the female Ashtar or Ashtoreth is identified with the supreme male deity Chemosh. Like the Assyrian kings, more- over, who ascribed their victories and campaigns to the inspiration of the god Assur, Mesha ascribes his suc- cesses to the orders of Chemosh. He uses, in fact, the language of Scripture ; as the Lord said to David, 'Go and smite the Philistines' (i Sam. xxiii. 2), so Chemosh is made to say to Mesha, 'Go, take Nebo;' and, as God promised to * drive out' the Canaanites before Israel, so Mesha declares that Chemosh drove out Israel before him from Jahaz. Mesha even sets up a stone of salvation to Chemosh, like Eben-ezer, 'the stone of help,' set up by Samuel (i Sam. vii. 12) ; and the statement that Chemosh had been ' angry with his land,' but had made Mesha 'see his desire upon all his enemies,' reminds us of the well-known passages in