his son Jehoram. As
Stade has remarked, the presence of two kings both bearing
the name of Jehoram in the same campaign against Moab would
have been one of those facts which strike the popular
imagination, and would not have been forgotten; if the
Hebrew author has connected the Moabite war with the name of
Jehoshaphat, it is because his sources of information
furnished him with that king's name.

The latter had done his best to repair the losses caused by the war with
Syria. Being Lord of Edom, he had been tempted to follow the example
of Solomon, and the deputy who commanded in his name had constructed a
vessel * at Ezion-geber "to go to Ophir for gold;" but the vessel was
wrecked before quitting the port, and the disaster was regarded by the
king as a punishment from Jahveh, for when Ahaziah suggested that the
enterprise should be renewed at their joint expense, he refused the
offer.** But the sudden insurrection of Moab threatened him as much as
it did Joram, and he gladly acceded to the latter's appeal for help.

* [Both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint the ships are in
the plural number in 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49.--Tr.]

** 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 K