would have been from the north, choosing Gilead as a base of operations; but the line of fortresses constructed by Mesha at this vulnerable point of his frontier was so formidable, that the allies resolved to attack from the south after passing the lower extremity of the Dead Sea.  They marched for seven days in an arid desert, digging wells as they proceeded for the necessary supply of water.  Mesha awaited them with his hastily assembled troops on the confines of the cultivated land; the allies routed him and blockaded him within his city of Kir-hareseth.* Closely beset, and despairing of any help from man, he had recourse to the last resource which religion provided for his salvation; taking his firstborn son, he offered him to Chemosh, and burnt him on the city wall in sight of the besiegers.  The Israelites knew what obligations this sacrifice entailed upon the Moabite god, and the succour which he would be constrained to give to his devotees in consequence.  They therefore raised the siege and disbanded in all directions.** Mesha, delivered at the very moment that his cause seemed hopeless, dedicated a stele in the temple of Dhibon, on which he recorded his victories and related what measures he had taken to protect his people.***

     * Kir-Hareseth or Kir-Moab is the present Kcrak, the Krak of
     mediaeval times.

** The account of the campaign (2 Kings iii. 8-27) belongs to the prophetic cycle of Elisha, and seems to give merely a popular version of the event.  A king of Edom is mentioned (9-10, 12-13), while elsewhere, under Jehoshaphat, it is stated “there was no king in Edom” (1 Kings xxii. 47); the geography also of the route taken by the expedition is somewhat confused.  Finally, the account of the siege of Kir- hareseth is mutilated, and the compiler has abridged the episode of the human sacrifice, as being too conducive to the honour of Chemosh and to the dishonour of Jahveh.  The main facts of the account are correct, but the details are not clear, and do not all bear the stamp of veracity.

     *** This is the famous Moabite Stone or stele of Dhibon,
     discovered by Clermont-Ganneau in 1868, and now preserved in
     the Louvre.

[Illustration:  123.jpg THE MOABITE STONE OF STELE OF MESHA]

     From a photograph by Faucher-Gudin, retouched by Massias
     from the original in the Louvre.  The fainter parts of the
     stele are the portions restored in the original.

He still feared a repetition of the invasion, but this misfortune was spared him; Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers,* and his Edomite subjects revolted on receiving the news of his death.  Jeho—­his son and successor, at once took up arms to bring them to a sense of their duty; but they surrounded his camp, and it was with difficulty that he cut his way through their ranks and escaped during the night.