Isaiah 15
Judgment on Moab
Prophecies about the Gentile Nations1
The burden of Moab.For in a night, Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to nothing. For in a night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to nothing.
2
3
In their streets, they clothe themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.
4
Heshbon cries out with Elealeh. Their voice is heard even to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud. Their souls tremble within them.
5
6
For the waters of Nimrim will be desolate; for the grass has withered away, the tender grass fails, there is no green thing.
7
Therefore they will carry away the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have stored up, over the brook of the willows.
8
For the cry has gone around the borders of Moab; its wailing to Eglaim, and its wailing to Beer Elim.
9
For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; for I will bring yet more on Dimon, a lion on those of Moab who escape, and on the remnant of the land.
Isa 15:1-9. THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CHAPTERS FORM ONE PROPHECY ON MOAB.
LOWTH thinks it was delivered in the first years of Hezekiah's reign and fulfilled in the fourth when Shalmaneser, on his way to invade Israel, may have seized on the strongholds of Moab. Moab probably had made common cause with Israel and Syria in a league against Assyria. Hence it incurred the vengeance of Assyria. Jeremiah has introduced much of this prophecy into his forty-eighth chapter.
1. Because--rather, "Surely"; literally, "(I affirm) that" [MAURER].
night--the time best suited for a hostile incursion (Isa 21:4; Jer 39:4).
Ar--meaning in Hebrew, "the city"; the metropolis of Moab, on the south of the river Arnon.
Kir--literally, "a citadel"; not far from Ar, towards the south.
He--Moab personified.
Bajith--rather, "to the temple" [MAURER]; answering to the "sanctuary" (Isa 16:12), in a similar context.
to Dibon--Rather, as Dibon was in a plain north of the Arnon, "Dibon (is gone up) to the high places," the usual places of sacrifice in the East. Same town as Dimon (Isa 15:9).
to weep--at the sudden calamity.
over Nebo--rather "in Nebo"; not "on account of" Nebo (compare Isa 15:3) [MAURER]. The town Nebo was adjacent to the mountain, not far from the northern shore of the Dead Sea. There it was that Chemosh, the idol of Moab, was worshipped (compare De 34:1).
Medeba--south of Heshbon, on a hill east of Jordan.
baldness . . . beard cut off--The Orientals regarded the beard with peculiar veneration. To cut one's beard off is the greatest mark of sorrow and mortification (compare Jer 48:37).