Ezekiel 25:9

9. The side Hebrews, the shoulder; that is, the frontier plateau or mesa (Hebrews, meshar), which had always been Moab’s best defense.

From the cities Davidson reads, “at the cities;” Smend and Cornill, “that the cities be no more, even his,” etc.

Which are on his frontiers Rather, in every quarter.

Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim It is curious that two of these cities which were “the glory of the country” should appear in the Mesha inscription (ninth century B.C.) where the king says, “I built Baal-meon and made therein the ditches; I built Kirjathaim;” and again, “I built Beth-medeba and Beth-diblathaim and Beth-baal-meon.” (CompareJoshua 13:17; Joshua 13:17; Numbers 32:37.) Beth (house), Baal (Lord), and Kir or Gir (the old homeland of the Arameans between Elam and Babylon) are constantly found in compound Moabitish names. The ruins of these three cities are on the northeast border of the Dead Sea (Numbers 32:37-38; Numbers 33:49; Joshua 12:3; Joshua 13:19-20; Jeremiah 48:22-23), in the Belka (compare Balak, Numbers xxii), a region famous in ancient and modern times as a pasture land. A Bedouin proverb says, “There is no land like the Belka.”