source: the public domain Smith's Bible Dictionary, found at http://www.studylight.org/dic/sbd/view.cgi?word=moab&action=Lookup Note the copyright notice: "these files are public domain"
Edited to remove some anachronisms, framing text added.
This is a classic example of why I believe a 19th century encyclopedia with a religious agenda is a poor source of information. The Moabites were a historical people. Their existence is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over Omri king of Israel. Israelites and Moabites had a complex relationship, as I hinted to with the Ruth reference. They were both Semitic peoples, who spoke virtually identical languages. They fought, but they also mingled. The biblical narrative has a clear agenda, when it describes the Moabites (generally as rivals). That should be described, of course. After all, that is the main reason the Moabites are known today--and they are known: a town in Utah is named after them. However, the ancient people known as Moabites obviously had a very different perspective on that relationship. We are not here to give the biblical perspective, but a historical/archaeological perspective (no matter how limited), with references to the Bible as one ancient source (and useful) source in understanding who the Moabites were. DannyI agree ! And the page still needs cleanup today ! I added quote to the phrase "promised land" which was used in a way that suggests the land actually *was* promised. The text suggests the biblical origin of the Moabites, as incestuous descendants of a nephew of Abraham, is real. Nobel prize 4 peace 00:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
"Unto the 10th generation" should be read as "EVEN unto the 10th generation" as in "Not even 10 generations from the time of this writing shall you let them in" as a way of saying "No generations at all". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.106.7 (talk) 09:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Moabite Religion. The Moabite Stone also called the Mesha Stele is believed to be the earliest reference to the name YHWH Yahweh the God of Israel as used in the Tetragrammaton.
Above unsigned comment by IP 99.188.109.122 on 24 April 2012
See Kings II 10:32ff, it was Aram under Hazael not David.4.249.198.165 (talk) 16:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Should this be a disambiguation page for the various Moab entries?
Anybody working on this page interested in the archaeological evidence for Iron Age Moab? Bporter615 22:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)bporter615
External link or links have recently been deleted by User:Calton as "horrible Tripod pages which add little information, are full of ads, and fail WP:EL standards." No better external links were substituted. Readers may like to judge these deleted links for themselves, by opening Page history. --Wetman 14:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
different sections of the article give different answers.130.86.14.25 (talk) 05:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
What is to be known about the Moabites' history outside of the Bible, what is just a bunch of fairytales? Any real datas could be presented, please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.133.27.75 (talk) 19:55, 18 July 2009 (UTC) ==
The quote from Joshua involves the tribe of Reuven and Gad who settled on the eastern side of the Jordan. They built what appeared to be an altar, even though sacrifices were restricted to the Tabernacle. That is what caused the other tribes to almost start a civil war until the facts were explained. It does not belong in this posting. Sabba Hillel (talk) 19:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Neither in the introduction nor in the history section are there any time references, not even centuries. Surely this would be possible to supply. __meco (talk) 16:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.113.186.64 (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
I could have sworn Wikipedia used to have a Map that showed me exactly where the Moabite Kerioth was. The Kerioth of Judah gets more attention it seems because everyone assumes that's where Judas was from. But there was some overlap between Moabite territory and Reuben, and I've read one tradition that Judas was a Reubenite, it's by no means old enough to anything definitive on, but if Kerioth was north of the Ammon River and in land that was part of Perea in NT times then I think it's an interesting correlation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.25.176.92 (talk) 09:29, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
My students keep using the main map posted here. It isn't terrible for Moab, but everything else is skewed awful. I don't know how to change it. Please do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 35.131.67.2 (talk) 23:12, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Moab (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
There needs to be a new article distinguishing the character Moab from the land of Moab. Editor2020 (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Who were the neighbours to the north in different periods? Arameans? Ammon? The map is not helpful and is contradicted by the Ammon article (see discussion started there). In connection to this, I always had a problem with the term "Plains of Moab". They are located immediately NE of the N tip of the Dead Sea/the mouth of the Jordan, so why aren't they called "Plains of Ammon"? Were the hills to the east of this Plain ever part of Moab? Nelson Glueck describes those hills as descending from the Moabite plateau. He writes that "south of the Wadi el-'Azeimeh, the eastern foothills crowd in towards the NE end of the Dead Sea, effectively closing off the Plains of Moab", and adds on the next page that the even more northerly situated Tell Nimrin "is situated on a western outspur of the hills, which rise to the Moabite plateau."[1] So the Moabite plateau stretches at least as far north as Wadi Nimrin. What, then, is left there to be called Ammon? And when did Moab stretch all the way to Tell Nimrin, if not further north?
Ammon is a mystery on Wiki altogether, as between the historical memory of this (Bronze Age?) Moab going so far north and preserved in the biblical place-name "Plains of Moab", and the 830 BCE situation shown on the map we're using on several pages, where the Plains of Moab plus all of the eastern plateau of Ammon are part of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), there's hardly any time left for Ammon to cover that area, as it is stated in the definition of Ammon on its own page. The standard statement that the entities of Transjordan before the Israelites were, N to S, Ammon, Moab, and Edom, is probably a massive simplification, but what is the truth as far as one can know, century by century, or at least period by period? Very basic question, and it's impossible to figure out an answer from enWiki, and that's very poor indeed. Arminden (talk) 01:54, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
References
In the recent, A History of Ancient Moab from the Ninth to First Centuries BCE, Burton MacDonald states that the territory of Moab is "from just south of Hisban in the north to Wadi al-Hasa in the south... Its maximum north-south extent, a distance of circa 95 km, corresponded approximately to what was the length of the Dead Sea for at least most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. According to archaeology, the Mesha Inscription, and the Hebrew Bible, its northern border seems to have changed from time to time, due to political and military conditions. The escarpment of the Transjordanian Plateau and the desert determined Moab’s western and eastern boundaries respectively. most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. According to archaeology, the Mesha Inscription, and the Hebrew Bible, its northern border seems to have changed from time to time, due to political and military conditions. The escarpment of the Transjordanian Plateau and the desert determined Moab’s western and eastern boundaries respectively... While Moabite territory to the north of Wadi al-Mujib is, for the most part, open to outside influence, its southern segment, that is, the area south of Wadi al-Mujib, is relatively isolated. Here, it is delineated by Wadi al-Mujib on the north, Wadi al-Hasa on the south, the Dead Sea Rift Valley to the west, and the desert to the east".
MacDonald, Burton. A History of Ancient Moab from the Ninth to First Centuries BCE, Society of Biblical Literature, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/tau/detail.action?docID=6147555.
Now clearly this map is not supposed to be absolutely accurate, and it is clearly based on biblical text (which generally fits the archaeological record from the late 9th century) and probably the Mesha inscription. Since this article deals with "Moab" and not with "Moab in 830 BCE", it would be best to have a map of the region, without marking any borders but rather the rivers and sites. The book has a similar map to what I am suggesting which is clearly copyrighted.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 18:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
To sum up, the limited border of Moab, is Wadi al-Mujib and the maximum border of Moab is south of Hisban. By the way, the map in the article is quite odd, stating "Phoenician States" and places Sidon, Beirut and Byblos south of where Tyre actually is. I'll try to remind myself to create a better map when I'll have time.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 18:57, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
By the time Ruth was born Israel had completely destroyed the Moabites according to the Hebrew Bible. Ruth was an Israelite, not an ethnic Moabite. The term Moabite going forward was thus only a geographical term, not ethnic and referred to Israelites and or other nations living in the Moab region of Israel. Evidence: “And they slew of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man.” (Judges 3:29, KJV) Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh: he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity, unto Sihon king of the Amorites. “Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh: he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity unto Sihon king of the Amorites.” (Numbers 21:29, KJV) 30 We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even unto Dibon, and we have laid them waste even unto Nophah, which reacheth unto Medeba. Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites. And Moses sent to spy out Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof, and drove out the Amorites that were there. And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Edrei. And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land; and thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon. So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land. 41.147.0.81 (talk) 19:10, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I challenge you to find a single reliable source that concludes that Ruth was "written as a polemic against xenophobia". I am re-instating my edit, pending your reply to this comment here.41.147.0.112 (talk) 19:41, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
"And they slew of Moab" "..and there escaped not a man" not a man. Not one of the soldiers. "...he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity, unto Sihon king of the Amorites." The rest were deported to the Amorites. " given unto Sihon king of the Amorites" Do you know what that means?? It means not living in Moab anymore. Then Israel did the same to then Amorites too. More slewing and deporting of them too. "And Moses sent to spy out Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof, and drove out the Amorites that were there". You are trying to say I am incapable of understanding a verse from the Hebrew Bible and because the verse doesn't use the exact same wording that I have used to summarise the verse, then I have therefore misrepresented the verse which is absurd. I have explained above why the verse says what I say it says in the true meaning of the verse. There is no policy that says I have to use direct quotes, or the lack of such means a misunderstanding. If anyone reverses my edit again without good reason discussed here first, I will be reporting you. [Special:Contributions/41.147.0.28|41.147.0.28]] (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)