Oracle Concerning Moab
E. Johnson Isaiah 15:1-9 The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence… I. HISTORY or Moan. Zoar was the cradle of the race, the house of the tribal father Lot. While the brother-tribe of Ammon wandered to the pastures of the northeast, Moab remained nearer the original seat. They were confined to a narrower district by the invasion of the Amorites (Numbers 21:26-30; Deuteronomy 2:10, 11). Their long feud with the tribe of Benjamin lasted to the time of Saul. But in the Book of Ruth we have a pleasant glimpse of the intercourse between the people of Moab and those of Judah; and David, by descent from Ruth, had Moabite blood in his veins. Eglaim, a Moabite king, had reigned at Jericho; but a fearful war, the last of David's, had crushed, almost extirpated, Moab (2 Samuel 8.; 1 Chronicles 18.). On the division of the kingdom, Moab fell under the dominion of Israel, and paid its kings an enormous tribute (2 Kings 3:21). On the death of Ahab this tribute was refused, and Moab, in alliance with the Ammonites and others, attacked the kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 20.). A fearful disaster followed, and Israel, Judah, and Edom united in an attack upon the Moabites, who, deceived by a stratagem, were overcome with fearful carnage. And then, to crown these horrors, the king Mesha, having retreated to the strong place of Kir-Hareseth, was seen by the host of Israel sacrificing his own son upon the wails, as an extreme measure, with a view to obtain deliverance from the gods of the land. From that time we know little of the fortunes of Moab until the date of this prophecy, about a century and a half later, B.C. 726. She had regained the lost ground, and was settled in the territory north of the Arnon, when this disaster overtook her. Ewald thinks that three prophets were concerned in this prophecy, and that it is preserved in Jeremiah 48, more nearly in its original form. II. THE PATHOS OF MOAB'S FATE. The whole description is characterized by a tone of deep sympathy. The prophet's heart is torn by sorrow and compassion; it melts with tenderness. The mood is elegiac rather than prophetic. The fragment is unique among the elder prophets; even in Hoses there is nothing quite like it (Ewald). "In a night Ar-Moab is laid waste, destroyed; for in a night Kir-Moab is laid waste, destroyed." Perhaps the ruins of the capital and the fortress may be identified by antiquarians; perhaps not. But what is more important to us to notice is the pathos of ruined cities. What are they but the speaking symbols of man's efforts and man's failures, his soaring ambition, his profound disappointment and humiliation? So the poet in our own time amidst the colossal ruins of Egypt: "I surveyed the generations of man from Rameses the Great and Menmon the beautiful, to the solitary pilgrim whose presence now violated the sanctity of those, gorgeous sepulchers. And I found that the history of my race was but one tale of rapid destruction and gradual decay. And in the anguish of my heart I lifted up my hands to the blue ether, and I said, 'Is there no hope? What is knowledge and what is truth? How shall I gain wisdom?'" (Disraeli). A city is to the passionate fancy of prophet and poet as a living person, a woman glorious in her beauty, and extorting tears from the onlooker in her fall. He sees the people going up to the central temple of the land, not to rejoice, but to weep. Every head is bald, and every beard is torn in sign of mourning for the departed. Figures move about in the market-places, not in holiday attire, but in sackcloth; on the roofs and in the streets universal wailing is heard, and there is beheld as it were a deluge of tears. The hill Heshbon cries, and Elealeh returns a hollow sound, and from far-off Jahaz an echo comes. The heroes' hearts are paralyzed; they cry out with the women in helpless lamentation. The very heart of the land trembles; it is an earthquake of woe. In sudden calamities, the sudden deaths of individuals, the sudden fall of cities, there is an expression of the mystery of destiny which overwhelms the soul. Goethe, after describing the awful earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, which "spread a vast horror over a world already accustomed to peace and rest," speaks of his own feelings as a boy on hearing the details often repeated. "He was no little moved. God the Creator and Upholder of heaven and earth, whom the explanation of the first article of belief represented as so wise and generous, had, in dealing out like destruction to the just and the unjust, by no means acted as a father. In vain his young spirit strove to recover from these impressions; and it was the less possible, because the wise men and the doctors could not agree on the manner in which the phenomenon should be viewed." Without attempting to unravel the tragic enigmas of existence, it may be welt to note how deep is the abyss of thought and passion in our own hearts opened by the tale of such horrors; and thus to learn something of that Divine sympathy which broods over nature and over men, and to be reminded of those tears shed over Jerusalem, already seen by Jesus in the lurid light of its approaching doom. III. THE SYMPATHY OF THE PROPHET. It is expressed in appropriate figures. His heart cries out with passionate yearning towards Mesh. The city of Zoar seems to him as a heifer of three years old, in all the unexhausted fullness of its strength. This is an image of a fair and fertile land, applied also to Egypt and to Babylon (Jeremiah 46:20; Jeremiah 48:34; Jeremiah 50:11; cf. Hosea 4:16; Hosea 10:1). The roads are filled with fugitives, weeping and raising the cries of death and despair. At Nimrim, the "fair waters," the springs have been filled up with rubbish, and will probably be a waste forever. The greenness of the spot has vanished beneath the hand of the conqueror, and the fugitives, with their savings and stores, are seen hurrying across the brook of the willows into the territory of Edom. From south to north, from Eglaim to Beer-Elim, there is wailing, there is wailing! Dimon or Dibon's (perhaps the Arnon) waters are full of blood. And yet a further perspective of evil opens. A lion is to be brought upon the fugitives and the survivors; probably Judah, as this animal was Judah's tribal ensign (Genesis 49:9). But we must be content to leave the passage obscure. IV. MUSINGS AMONG THE RUINS OF MOAB. The land has been but seldom visited by Europeans, and their descriptions vary; but all agree in stating that the country is covered with an extraordinary number of ruins. Of the language we do not know very much, but the Moabite Stone shows that it was closely akin to Hebrew. Of the religion we know still less. Of what nature was their great god Chemosh, whose worship Sdomon introduced into and Josiah expelled from Judah? Here almost all is conjectural, and imagination has fled course and unchecked play amidst the ruins of Moab. The ruins are symbolic of human greatness, of human diseases and decay. "All things have their end; Temples and cities, which have diseases like to man, Must have like death that we have." The moldering stones sermonize with silent eloquence on the old text, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." They remind us of man's short life and long hopes. He builds for a thousand years, though he may have but as many months to live. Thus, bearing their witness to the aspiration for immortality, the passion to create the beautiful that - hall not die, venerable ruins of remote antiquity have a lofty spiritual expression. "There is given Unto the things of earth, which time hath bent, A spirit's feeling; and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower." They remind us, by contrast of that which falls not into ruin - the edifice of God in the human spirit; the shrine not to be found on the mounts of Moab or of Judah; the jiving altar on which the fire goes not out from age to age; the element in life which abides forever, when this world and the lust thereof hath passed away. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; WEB: 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.