and fourteen and one-half inches thick; rounded at the top, and,
according to the testimony of the discoverer, the Rev. F. Klein, also
at the bottom, which, however, is doubtful. The value of the stone
lies not only in the fact that it preserves one of the most ancient
styles of Hebrew writing, but more especially in the historical,
topographical, and religious information it furnishes. In 2 Kings 3 we
read of the relations between Moab and Omri and his successors. Omri
had subdued Moab and had collected from her a yearly tribute. Ahab had
enjoyed the same revenue, amounting during {131} Mesha's reign to the
wool of a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams. At the
close of Ahab's reign Mesha refused to continue the payment of the
tribute. The allied kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom marched with
their armies against the Moabites, who fled for refuge within the
strong fortress of Kir-hareseth, where Mesha offered up his own son as
a burnt-offering to Chemosh, his god; whereupon "there was great wrath
against Israel, and they departed from them and returned to their own
land."

The Moabite Stone was set up by King Mesha to his god Chemosh in
commemoration of this deliverance. The opening lines read: "I am
Mesha, son of Chemosh-ken, king of Moab, the Daibonite. My father
reigned over Moab for thirty years, and I reigned after my father. And
I made this high place for Chemosh in Korhah, a high place of
salvation, because he had saved me from all the assailants, and because
he had let me see my desire upon all them that hated me. Omri, king of
Israel, afflicted Moab for many days, because Chemosh was angry with
his land; and his son succeeded him; and he also said, I will afflict
Moab. In my days said he thus. But I saw my desire upon him and his
house, and Israel perished with an everlasting destruction." As a
supplement to the Old Testament narrative, this account is very
instructive. The mention of {132} Yahweh, the God of Israel, is of
interest, as also the fact that in Moab, as in Israel, national
disaster was attributed to the anger of the national deity. The idiom
in which the inscription is written differs only dialectically from the
Hebrew of the Old Testament. Small idiomatic differences are
observable, but, on the other hand, it shares with it several
distinctive features, so that, on the whole, it resembles Hebrew far
more closely than any other Semitic language now known. In point of