mo'av

The name serves as both toponym and ethnonym and is externally attested. The Mesha Inscription (KAI 181), erected by the Moabite king Mesha in the second half of the ninth century, uses it of the land and of its people and supplies the closest external control on the campaign narrative of 2 Kings 3; a proposed occurrence in the topographical list of Ramesses II at Luxor is read by some Egyptologists and contested by others. Genesis 19:37 supplies a popular etymology deriving the name from me-'ab, "from the father," which the Septuagint makes explicit in an expansion at that verse. HALOT and BDB register the association without endorsing it as the historical origin, and the alternative proposals remain speculative; the referent itself is not in question at any point in the corpus.

Two fixed constructions account for a large share of the occurrences and are lexicographically distinguished. 'arbot mo'ab, conventionally "the plains of Moab," designates the steppe of the eastern Jordan valley opposite Jericho and functions in the Pentateuch as the locator for the final legislative block and for the death of Moses (Num 22:1; 26:3, 63; 31:12; 33:48-50; 35:1; 36:13; Deut 34:1, 8; Josh 13:32); the extended Strong's system counts it as its own sub-entry. sedeh / sede mo'ab, "the field(s) of Moab," belongs to a different idiom and clusters in Ruth and in the Edomite king list of Gen 36:35 par. 1 Chr 1:46.

The two great oracle collections, Isa 15-16 and Jer 48, share a substantial body of material, and the direction of dependence is a standard critical question: most treatments since Duhm posit a common older source rather than direct borrowing in either direction. The pronounced sympathy of both laments, and the sustained personification of Moab as a male figure with body parts and emotions, have generated a large literature on the genre of the oracle against the nations; the restoration formula of Jer 48:47 is widely regarded as a later addition. For the history and archaeology of Iron Age Moab the standard treatments are those of Dearman, Miller and Routledge.