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48. Message About Moab

¹ Concerning Moab:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says:

   “Woe to Nebo, for it will be ruined.
   Kiriathaim will be disgraced and captured;
   the stronghold Or captured; / Misgab will be disgraced and shattered.
² Moab will be praised no more;
   in Heshbon The Hebrew for Heshbon sounds like the Hebrew for plot. people will plot her downfall:
   ‘Come, let us put an end to that nation.’
You, the people of Madmen, The name of the Moabite town Madmen sounds like the Hebrew for be silenced. will also be silenced;
   the sword will pursue you.
³ Cries of anguish arise from Horonaim,
   cries of great havoc and destruction.
⁴ Moab will be broken;
   her little ones will cry out. Hebrew; Septuagint / proclaim it to Zoar
⁵ They go up the hill to Luhith,
   weeping bitterly as they go;
on the road down to Horonaim
   anguished cries over the destruction are heard.
⁶ Flee! Run for your lives;
   become like a bush Or like Aroer in the desert.
⁷ Since you trust in your deeds and riches,
   you too will be taken captive,
and Chemosh will go into exile,
   together with his priests and officials.
⁸ The destroyer will come against every town,
   and not a town will escape.
The valley will be ruined
   and the plateau destroyed,
   because the LORD has spoken.
⁹ Put salt on Moab,
   for she will be laid waste Or Give wings to Moab, / for she will fly away;
her towns will become desolate,
   with no one to live in them.

¹⁰ “A curse on anyone who is lax in doing the LORD’s work!
A curse on anyone who keeps their sword from bloodshed!

    ¹¹ “Moab has been at rest from youth,
   like wine left on its dregs,
not poured from one jar to another—
   she has not gone into exile.
So she tastes as she did,
   and her aroma is unchanged.
¹² But days are coming,”
   declares the LORD,
“when I will send men who pour from pitchers,
   and they will pour her out;
they will empty her pitchers
   and smash her jars.
¹³ Then Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh,
   as Israel was ashamed
   when they trusted in Bethel.

    ¹⁴ “How can you say, ‘We are warriors,
   men valiant in battle’?
¹⁵ Moab will be destroyed and her towns invaded;
   her finest young men will go down in the slaughter,”
   declares the King, whose name is the LORD Almighty.
¹⁶ “The fall of Moab is at hand;
   her calamity will come quickly.
¹⁷ Mourn for her, all who live around her,
   all who know her fame;
say, ‘How broken is the mighty scepter,
   how broken the glorious staff!’

    ¹⁸ “Come down from your glory
   and sit on the parched ground,
   you inhabitants of Daughter Dibon,
for the one who destroys Moab
   will come up against you
   and ruin your fortified cities.
¹⁹ Stand by the road and watch,
   you who live in Aroer.
Ask the man fleeing and the woman escaping,
   ask them, ‘What has happened?’
²⁰ Moab is disgraced, for she is shattered.
   Wail and cry out!
Announce by the Arnon
   that Moab is destroyed.
²¹ Judgment has come to the plateau—
   to Holon, Jahzah and Mephaath,
    ²² to Dibon, Nebo and Beth Diblathaim,
    ²³ to Kiriathaim, Beth Gamul and Beth Meon,
    ²⁴ to Kerioth and Bozrah—
   to all the towns of Moab, far and near.
²⁵ Moab’s horn Horn here symbolizes strength. is cut off;
   her arm is broken,” declares the LORD.

    ²⁶ “Make her drunk,
   for she has defied the LORD.
Let Moab wallow in her vomit;
   let her be an object of ridicule.
²⁷ Was not Israel the object of your ridicule?
   Was she caught among thieves,
that you shake your head in scorn
   whenever you speak of her?
²⁸ Abandon your towns and dwell among the rocks,
   you who live in Moab.
Be like a dove that makes its nest
   at the mouth of a cave.

    ²⁹ “We have heard of Moab’s pride—
   how great is her arrogance!—
of her insolence, her pride, her conceit
   and the haughtiness of her heart.
³⁰ I know her insolence but it is futile,” declares the LORD,
   “and her boasts accomplish nothing.
³¹ Therefore I wail over Moab,
   for all Moab I cry out,
   I moan for the people of Kir Hareseth.
³² I weep for you, as Jazer weeps,
   you vines of Sibmah.
Your branches spread as far as the sea Probably the Dead Sea;
   they reached as far as Two Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint; most Hebrew manuscripts as far as the Sea of Jazer.
The destroyer has fallen
   on your ripened fruit and grapes.
³³ Joy and gladness are gone
   from the orchards and fields of Moab.
I have stopped the flow of wine from the presses;
   no one treads them with shouts of joy.
Although there are shouts,
   they are not shouts of joy.

    ³⁴ “The sound of their cry rises
   from Heshbon to Elealeh and Jahaz,
from Zoar as far as Horonaim and Eglath Shelishiyah,
   for even the waters of Nimrim are dried up.
³⁵ In Moab I will put an end
   to those who make offerings on the high places
   and burn incense to their gods,” declares the LORD.
³⁶ “So my heart laments for Moab like the music of a pipe;
   it laments like a pipe for the people of Kir Hareseth.
   The wealth they acquired is gone.
³⁷ Every head is shaved
   and every beard cut off;
every hand is slashed
   and every waist is covered with sackcloth.
³⁸ On all the roofs in Moab
   and in the public squares
there is nothing but mourning,
   for I have broken Moab
   like a jar that no one wants,” declares the LORD.
³⁹ “How shattered she is! How they wail!
   How Moab turns her back in shame!
Moab has become an object of ridicule,
   an object of horror to all those around her.”

⁴⁰ This is what the LORD says:

   “Look! An eagle is swooping down,
   spreading its wings over Moab.
⁴¹ Kerioth Or The cities will be captured
   and the strongholds taken.
In that day the hearts of Moab’s warriors
   will be like the heart of a woman in labor.
⁴² Moab will be destroyed as a nation
   because she defied the LORD.
⁴³ Terror and pit and snare await you,
   you people of Moab,” declares the LORD.
⁴⁴ “Whoever flees from the terror
   will fall into a pit,
whoever climbs out of the pit
   will be caught in a snare;
for I will bring on Moab
   the year of her punishment,” declares the LORD.

    ⁴⁵ “In the shadow of Heshbon
   the fugitives stand helpless,
for a fire has gone out from Heshbon,
   a blaze from the midst of Sihon;
it burns the foreheads of Moab,
   the skulls of the noisy boasters.
⁴⁶ Woe to you, Moab!
   The people of Chemosh are destroyed;
your sons are taken into exile
   and your daughters into captivity.

⁴⁷ “Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab
in days to come,” declares the LORD.

Here ends the judgment on Moab.

The Prophet here reproves the pride of the Moabites, because they trusted in their own strength, and derided God and what the Prophets announced. We indeed know that ungodly men, when all things prosper with them, are moved by no fear, divest themselves of every feeling, and become so sunk in indifference, that they not only disdainfully disregard the true God, but also what is connected with moral obligation. Such, then, was the confidence which prevailed among the Moabites. Hence the Prophet here checks this foolish boasting.

How say ye, We are strong, we are warlike men? as though he had said, “These boastings, while God is seriously contending with you, are all empty, and will avail you nothing: ye think yourselves beyond the reach of danger, because ye possess great power, and are surrounded with strong defences; but God will reduce to nothing whatever you regard as your protection.” Wasted, then, is Moab He sets up this threatening in opposition to their arrogance. He indeed foretells what was to come, but speaks of it as a thing already fulfilled. Wasted, he says, is Moab, and the enemy has cut off his cities The verb עלה, ole, is to be taken in a transitive sense; it is indeed a neuter verb, but the other meaning is more suitable to this place, that the enemy would cut off the cities of the Moabites. I yet allow that it may be explained otherwise, that the inhabitants would ascend or depart from his cities; for, עלה, ole, metaphorically, indeed, signifies to ascend, and to flow off, or to go away, as they say, in smoke; and if an anomaly as to number, common in Hebrew, be approved, the sense will be, “and from his cities they have vanished.” ⁸⁸     There is no agreement in the Versions and Targ., as to these words, nor among critics. The easiest construction is presented by Blayney, —
   A spoiler of Moab and of her cities is gone up.
   The next clause is not so well rendered by Blayney. He applies it to the Chaldeans. “Moab” is spoken of in this chapter, both in the feminine and in the masculine gender. In our language the neuter would be the most suitable, it and its. I render the verse thus, —
   15. The waster of Moab and of its cities is going up, And the choice of its youth shall descend to the slaughter, Saith the King, Jehovah of hosts is his name.
   “Going up” as ascribed to the conqueror, and “descending” to the conquered. — Ed. And this explanation agrees well with what follows, and his young men have descended to the slaughter; that is, they who seem the strongest among them shall be drawn to destruction, or shall descend to the slaughter. But as the event seemed difficult to be believed, God is again introduced. Then the Prophet says, that he did not speak from his own mind, but announced what God had committed to him. And he adds his title, that the Jews might be more attentive to the consideration of God’s power. God, he says, is he who speaks, the King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts He sets up God’s name in opposition to the warlike preparations, of which the Moabites, as we have seen, boasted; as though he had said, that if the Moabites had to do with mortals, they might indeed have justly gloried; but as they had a contest with the living God, all their power would vanish away, since God was prepared to execute vengeance. It follows —