- MOABITE STONE a basalt stone, bearing an inscription by King Mesha,
which was discovered at Dibon by Klein, a German missionary at
Jerusalem, in 1868. It was 3 1/2 feet high and 2 in breadth and in thickness,
rounded at the top. It consisted of thirty-four lines, written in
Hebrew-Phoenician characters. It was set up by Mesha as a record and
memorial of his victories. It records (1) Mesha’s wars with Omri, (2) his
public buildings, and (3) his wars against Horonaim. This inscription in a
remarkable degree supplements and corroborates the history of King
Mesha recorded in 2 Kings 3:4-27.
With the exception of a very few variations, the Moabite language in which
the inscription is written is identical with the Hebrew. The form of the
letters here used supplies very important and interesting information
regarding the history of the formation of the alphabet, as well as,
incidentally, regarding the arts of civilized life of those times in the land of
Moab.
This ancient monument, recording the heroic struggles of King Mesha with
Omri and Ahab, was erected about B.C. 900. Here “we have the identical
slab on which the workmen of the old world carved the history of their
own times, and from which the eye of their contemporaries read thousands
of years ago the record of events of which they themselves had been the
witnesses.” It is the oldest inscription written in alphabetic characters, and
hence is, apart from its value in the domain of Hebrew antiquities, of great
linguistic importance.
- MOLADAH birth, a city in the south of Judah which fell to Simeon
(Joshua 15:21-26; 19:2). It has been identified with the modern el-Milh, 10
miles east of Beersheba. - MOLE Hebrews tinshameth (Leviticus 11:30), probably signifies some
species of lizard (rendered in R.V., “chameleon”). In Leviticus 11:18,
Deuteronomy 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, “swan” (R.V.,
“horned owl”).
The Hebrews holed (Leviticus 11:29), rendered “weasel,” was probably
the mole-rat. The true mole (Talpa Europoea) is not found in Palestine.
The mole-rat (Spalax typhlus) “is twice the size of our mole, with no
external eyes, and with only faint traces within of the rudimentary organ;
no apparent ears, but, like the mole, with great internal organs of hearing; a