Isaiah 16:1

Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land,.... Or tribute, as the Targum rightly interprets it.

Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land from Sela to the wilderness, unto the mount of the daughter of Zion.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 16 The Moabites exhorted to entertain kindly the banished Jews, . They are threatened for their pride and arrogance, . The prophet bewaileth them, . Their judgment, . The prophet continues his prophecy against Moab in this chapter, and here turneth his speech to them, and gives them counsel what to do, to prevent, if possible, the threatened desolation. In these first words he adviseth them to the practice either, 1. Of justice; Pay that tribute of lambs and goats which you obliged yourselves to pay unto David, and to his posterity, , and pay it not unto Israel, as you have done, , but unto the king of Judah, who is the rightful heir of David, and king of the land. Or, 2. Of piety; Send a lamb, for a sacrifice, unto God, who is Ruler of the land, to wit, of your land, no less than of ours; or, of the earth, as the word is commonly rendered, who is the God of the whole earth, as he is called, , the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, . Make your peace with God, by sacrifice, for all your injuries done to him, and to his people. These words may be understood ironically, and the design of them may be to represent their miserable and desperate condition; as if he had said, You have tried all other ways, and sought to your idols, , and all in vain; now seek to the God of Israel, who alone can help you. But, alas! he is highly incensed against you, and coming to destroy you. But this seems rather to be a serious advice, by comparing these words with ,4. Sela; an eminent city of Moab, seated upon a rock, which is here named, either because the king and his court at this time resided there, or for some other reason then evident, though now unknown. To the wilderness; to the wilderness of Moab, of which we read ; Dent. ii. 8, and so onward to Zion, as it follows. Or this may be added as a description of the place called Sela. Hence some render the words, Sela of the wilderness; and others, Sela which lieth or looketh towards the wilderness. And this limitation might be the more necessary, to distinguish this from other places of Moab called by the same name, which, signifying a rock, might be common to several places in that rocky country. Unto the mount of the daughter of Zion; unto the temple upon Mount Zion.

Isaiah 16:1 Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land from Sela to the wilderness, unto the mount of the daughter of Zion.Ver. 1. Send ye the lamb.] For prevention of those lions, submit to Hezekiah, your right liege lord, a lamb, i.e., your appointed number of tribute lambs, in token of homage. But especially make your peace with God, the Ruler of the whole world, by paying him homage and fealty, that there may be a lengthening of your tranquillity. From Selo in the wilderness.] Otherwise called Petra (because beset with rocks), whence the country it stood in was called Arabia Petraea. Some make it the head city of Moab, others of Edom, a place, it seemeth, that was full of cattle, and by king Amaziah, who took it, called Jokteel. Strabo, lib. xvi.

XVI. (1) Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land.—In the days of Ahab, Mesha, the then king of Moab, had paid a tribute of sheep and lambs to the king of Israel (2 Kings 3:4). On his revolt (as recorded in the Moabite Inscription) that tribute had ceased. The prophet now calls on the Moabites to renew it, not to the northern kingdom, which was on the point of extinction, but to the king of Judah as the true “ruler of the land.” The name Sela (“a rock”) may refer either to the city so-called (better known by its Greek name of Petra), 2 Kings 14:7, or to the rock-district of Edom and the confines of Moab generally. In either case the special direction implies that the presence of the invaders described in Isaiah 15 would make it impossible to send the tribute across the fords of the Jordan, and that it must accordingly be sent by the southern route, which passed through Sela and the desert country to the south of the Dead Sea (Cheyne). Possibly the words are a summons to Edom, which had attacked Judah in the reign of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:17), to join in a like submission.

CHAPTER XVI The distress of Moab pathetically described by the son of the prince, or ruler of the land, being forced to flee for his life through the desert, that he may escape to Judea; and the young women, like young birds scared from their nest, wade helpless through the fords of Arnon, the boundary of their country, to seek protection in some foreign land, 1, 2. The prophet addresses Sion, exhorting her to show mercy to her enemies in their distress, that her throne may be established in righteousness, 3-5. Exceeding great pride of Moab, 6. The terrible calamities about to fall upon Moab farther described by the languishing of the vine, the ceasing of the vintage, the sound of the prophet's bowels quivering like a harp, c., 7-13. Awful nearness of the full accomplishment of the prophecy, 14. NOTES ON CHAP. XVI Verse 1. Send ye the lamb, c. - "I will send forth the son, &c."] Both the reading and meaning of this verse are still more doubtful than those of the preceding. The Septuagint and Syriac read אשלח eshlach, I will send, in the first person singular, future tense: the Vulgate and Talmud Babylon, read שלח shelach, send, singular imperative: some read שלחו shilchu, send ye forth, or shalechu, they send forth. The Syriac, for כר car, a lamb, reads בר bar, a son, which is confirmed by five MSS. of Kennicott and De Rossi. The two first verses describe the distress of Moab on the Assyrian invasion in which even the son of the prince of the country is represented as forced to flee for his life through the desert, that he may escape to Judea and the young women are driven forth like young birds cast out of the nest, and endeavouring to wade through the fords of the river Arnon. Perhaps there is not so much difficulty in this verse as appears at first view. "Send the lamb to the ruler of the land," may receive light from 2Kg 3:4-5: "And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs with their wool, and one hundred thousand rams: but when Ahab was dead, the king of Moab rebelled against Israel." Now the prophet exhorts them to begin paying the tribute as formerly, that their punishment might be averted or mitigated.

1–6. Arrived in Edom, the Moabitish refugees are within the sphere of Judah’s political influence (see Introd. Note). Their first anxiety, therefore, is to secure protection and the right of asylum by sending an embassy to Jerusalem.

Send ye the lamb - Lowth renders this, ‘I will send forth the son from the ruler of the land;’ meaning, as he supposes, that under the Assyrian invasion, even the young prince of Moab would be

1. Send ye the lamb — Collective for lambs, the traditional yearly tribute due to Judah.