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Mesha was a king of Moab, and paid an annual tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool from 100,000 rams to King Ahab of Israel (2 Kings 3:4).
But after King Ahab's death, Mesha rebelled and refused to pay the tribute. King Jehoshaphat of Judah, fought Mesha, who led the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites in an invasion of Judah. Mesha and his army were defeated, when the Lord caused them to turn on one another.
When Jehoram became King of Israel, he wanted to resume the tribute and asked King Jehoshaphat to join him in battle. The two kings marched around the southern end of the Dead Sea to attack Mesha, and ran out of water.
But the Lord through the prophet Elisha, provided water through a miracle. In the morning sun the water looked like blood, and the Moabites were thrown into confusion, and were soundly defeated by the Hebrews.
Mesha, in a last ditch effort, offered his oldest son as a holocaust on the wall of Kir-hareseth. "The wrath against Israel was so great that they gave up the siege and returned to their own land" (2 Kings 3).
Mesha means "salvation."
Next person in the Bible: Meshullemeth
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