recorded in the third chapter of Second Kings. In this famous inscription Mesha commemorates his breaking Israel’s domination, which he says lasted forty years. There are also various comments made therein about the places Mesha captured (Medeba, Ataroth, Nebo, Jahaz). In boasting of building cities and a highway, and being very religious, Mesha gives all the credit to the god Chemosh. Mesha also knew of Israel’s God Jehovah, for in the eighteenth line of this document the Tetragrammaton is found. There Mesha brags: “I took thence the vessels of Yahweh and I dragged them before Chemosh.” (The Bible and Archæology, Frederic Kenyon, 1940, p. 166) However, his own defeat and the sacrifice of his son are, expectedly, omitted.

3. [Heb., Mei·shaʼʹ]. A son of Shaharaim by his wife Hodesh. Mesha became head of a father’s house in the tribe of Benjamin.—1 Chron. 8:1, 8-10.

4. [Heb., Me·shaʼʹ]. One of the limits of the region inhabited by the descendants of Joktan. (Gen. 10:29, 30) The Greek Septuagint Version has translated the name “Mesha” as Mas·seʹ. For this reason “Mesha” is thought to be a variant spelling for “Massa,” the name of an Ishmaelite whose descendants appear to have settled in N Arabia.—Gen. 25:13, 14.

MESHACH

(Meʹshach).

The Babylonian name given by Nebuchadnezzar’s chief court official to Daniel’s companion Mishael. The meaning of this new name is uncertain, but is sometimes equated with “Who is what Aku is?” similar to Mishael (“Who is what God is?”). The new names given to Mishael and three other prominent captives apparently incorporated the names of Babylonian deities in place of Jehovah’s name or title.—Dan. 1:7.

MAINTAINS INTEGRITY AS YOUTH

Meshach (Mishael) was carried captive from Jerusalem to Babylon in 617 B.C.E. along with Jehoiachin and others. Mishael, Azariah, Hananiah and Daniel were then put through a three-year training course by the Babylonian royalty, at the end of which they proved superior even to the king’s counselors. (2 Ki. 24:1, 6, 8, 12-16; Dan. 1:1-7, 17-20) During this time these four remained firm in their devotion to God, even refusing to pollute themselves with the king’s delicacies.—Dan. 1:8-16.

There are three probable reasons why they considered the king’s delicacies ‘polluting’: (1) The Babylonians ate animals declared unclean by the Mosaic law; (2) they would not be careful to see that the animals were properly bled, some perhaps being strangled; (3) the pagans often first sacrificed the animals to their gods, considering the eating of such meat as a part of worship of these gods.—Compare 1 Corinthians 10:18-20, 28.

Later, after Daniel had been advanced to a high governmental position in the court of the king, Nebuchadnezzar, at Daniel’s request, appointed Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego over the administration of the jurisdictional district of Babylon.—Dan. 2:48, 49.

REFUSES TO BOW TO IMAGE

Meshach and his two companions again came to notice because of refusing, in sight of all the other government personnel, to bow down before the great image Nebuchadnezzar had built. With full faith in Jehovah, they told Nebuchadnezzar that they would not join in serving the king’s gods. As to whether their God chose to deliver them from the furnace, that made no difference; they would nonetheless maintain integrity to him rather than compromise for release. (Hebrews chapter 11 mentions those who “stayed the force of fire” and who would not “accept release by some ransom, in order that they might attain a better resurrection.” [Vss. 34, 35]) For their faith Jehovah preserved them by means of his angel. In fact, on their coming out, “the smell of fire itself had not come onto them.” Nebuchadnezzar, who had been so enraged that he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times more than customary before throwing the three men into it, now acknowledged their God as a deliverer. Furthermore, he commanded that anyone saying anything wrong against Meshach’s God should be dismembered and his house be made a public privy.—Dan. 3:1-30.

MESHECH

(Meʹshech) [a drawing out, or skinning].

1. One of the sons born after the Flood to Japheth, the son of Noah. (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chron. 1:5) The name evidently extended to his descendants and the land of their settlement. The prophet Ezekiel regularly mentions Meshech along with Tubal, indicating that they were located to the N of Palestine. They are described as exporting slaves and copper to Tyre and as being warlike and as either allies or subjects of ‘Gog of Magog’ in his prophesied vicious campaign against “the mountains of Israel.” (Ezek. 27:13; 32:26; 38:2, 3; 39:1, 2; see GOG No. 2.) Meshech is mentioned independently of Tubal at Psalm 120:5, evidently as representing an aggressive, barbarous people.

About a thousand years after the Flood Assyrian inscriptions begin to mention a people called the Mushku occupying an area in Asia Minor to the W of Assyria. Assyrian Emperors Tiglath-pileser I, Tukulti-Ninurta II, Ashurnasirpal II and Sargon all mention conflicts with them. The fact that the Mushku are frequently mentioned along with the Tabali (evidently the Biblical Tubal) gives reason for believing that the name Mushku derives from Meshech. Herodotus