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15. Prophecy Against Moab

1 A prophecy against Moab:

   Ar in Moab is ruined,
   destroyed in a night!
Kir in Moab is ruined,
   destroyed in a night!

2 Dibon goes up to its temple,
   to its high places to weep;
   Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba.
Every head is shaved
   and every beard cut off.

3 In the streets they wear sackcloth;
   on the roofs and in the public squares
they all wail,
   prostrate with weeping.

4 Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,
   their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz.
Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out,
   and their hearts are faint.

    5 My heart cries out over Moab;
   her fugitives flee as far as Zoar,
   as far as Eglath Shelishiyah.
They go up the hill to Luhith,
   weeping as they go;
on the road to Horonaim
   they lament their destruction.

6 The waters of Nimrim are dried up
   and the grass is withered;
the vegetation is gone
   and nothing green is left.

7 So the wealth they have acquired and stored up
   they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars.

8 Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab;
   their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim,
   their lamentation as far as Beer Elim.

9 The waters of Dimon Dimon, a wordplay on Dibon (see verse 2), sounds like the Hebrew for blood. are full of blood,
   but I will bring still more upon Dimon Dimon, a wordplay on Dibon (see verse 2), sounds like the Hebrew for blood.—
a lion upon the fugitives of Moab
   and upon those who remain in the land.


4. And Heshbon shall cry, and Elealeh. Here he names other cities; for his design is to bind up, as it were, in a bundle all the cities of that country, that they may be involved in the general destruction; as if he had said, that none at all shall be exempted.

Therefore the light-armed soldiers of Moab shall howl. Though על כן (gnal ken) literally signifies therefore, yet some think that a reason is not here assigned; but that is of little importance. The Prophet shows that there will be none that does not howl; for he declares that the bold and courageous shall mourn. Next he adds, the soul of every one shall howl to him. 241241    {Bogus footnote} Every one shall be so engrossed with his own grief, that he will not think of his neighbors.


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