Moab, the region immediately east of the Dead Sea and of the lower Jordan, though in part suited for agriculture, is in the main a great grazing country. Mesha resembled a modern Arab Sheikh, whose wealth is usually estimated by the number of his flocks and herds. His tribute of the wool of 100, 000 lambs was a tribute in kind, the ordinary tribute at this time in the East.
Mesha is the monarch who wrote the inscription on the “Moabite stone” (2 Kings 1:1 note). The points established by the Inscription are:
1. That Moab recovered from the blow dealt by David 2Sa 8:2, 2 Samuel 8:12, and became again an independent state in the interval between David’s conquest and the accession of Omri;
2. That Omri reconquered the country, and that it then became subject to the northern kingdom, and remained so throughout his reign and that of his son Ahab, and into the reign of Ahab’s son and successor, Ahaziah;
3. That the independence was regained by means of a war, in which Mesha took town after town from the Israelites, including in his conquests many of the towns which, at the original occupation of the holy land, had passed into the possession of the Reubenites or the Gadites, as Baal-Meon Numbers 32:38, Kirjathaim Numbers 32:37, Ataroth Numbers 32:34, Nebo Numbers 32:38, Jahaz Joshua 13:18, etc.;
4. That the name of Yahweh was well known to the Moabites as that of the God of the Israelites; and
5. That there was a sanctuary of Yahweh at Nebo, in the Trans-Jordanic territory, where “vessels” were used in His service.