** 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49, where the Hebrew writer calls the vessel constructed by Jehoshaphat a "ship of Tarshish;" that is, a vessel built to make long voyages. The author of the Chronicles thought that the Jewish expedition to Ezion- geber on the Red Sea was destined to go to Tarshish in Spain. He has, moreover, transformed the vessel into a fleet, and has associated Ahaziah in the enterprise, contrary to the testimony of the Book of Kings; finally, he has introduced into the account a prophet named Eliezer, who represents the disaster as a chastisement for the alliance with Ahaziah (2 Ghron. xx. 35-37). Apparently the simplest way of approaching the enemy 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.