Moab alone offered any serious resistance. It had preserved its independence ever since the reign of Mesha, having escaped from being drawn into the wars which had laid waste the rest of Syria. It was now suddenly forced to pay the penalty of its long prosperity. Jeroboam made a furious onslaught upon its cities--Ar of Moab, Kir of Moab, Dibon, Medeba, Heshbon, Elealeh--and destroyed them all in succession. The Moabite forces carried a part of the population with them in their flight, and all escaped together across the deserts which enclose the southern basin of the Dead Sea. On the frontier of Edom they begged for sanctuary, but the King of Judah, to whom the Edomite valleys belonged, did not dare to shelter the vanquished enemies of his suzerain, and one of his prophets, forgetting his hatred of Israel in delight at being able to gratify his grudge against Moab, greeted them in their distress with a hymn of joy--"I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon Elealeh: for upon thy summer fruits and upon thy harvest the battle shout is fallen. And gladness is taken away and joy out of the fruitful fields; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither joyful noise; no treader shall tread out wine in the presses; I have made the vintage shout to cease. Wherefore my bowels sound like an harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir-Heres. And it shall come to pass, when Moab presenteth himself, when he wearieth himself upon the high place, and shall come to his sanctuary to pray, he shall not prevail!"* * Isa. xv. 1-9; xvi. 1-12. This prophecy, which had been pronounced against Moab "in the old days," and which is appropriated by Isaiah (xvi. 13, 14), has been attributed to Jonah, son of Amittai, of Gath-Hepher, who actually lived in the time of Jeroboam II. (2 Kings xiv. 25). It is now generally recognised as the production of an anonymous Judsean prophet, and the earliest authentic fragment of prophetic literature which has come down to us.