Jeremiah 48:1

Against Moab thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,.... The prophecy concerning Moab is introduced with these epithets of God, partly to observe that the God of Israel was the only true

Against Moab thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Woe unto Nebo! for it is spoiled: Kiriathaim is confounded and taken: Misgab is confounded and dismayed.

CHAPTER 48 The judgment of Moab, , for their pride, ; for their security and human confidence, ; especially for their contempt of God, and insolence towards his people, . Their restoration, . The prophet having, Jeremiah 46; denounced God’ s judgment against Egypt, and against the Philistines, Jeremiah 47, in this chapter he cometh to do the like against the Moabites. Moab, the father of these Moabites, was the son of Lot, . the Moabites’ country lay in the way the Israelites went to Canaan, ,13, near the country of the Ammonites. Balak was king of it when the Israelites passed by it, who sent for the sorcerer Balaam to curse them, , who, , &c., blessed them. They seduced the Israelites to adultery and idolatry, . Moab was a large country, and had many cities; we shall have divers of them named in this chapter; the first that we read of Nebo in holy writ is ,38. Reuben built both that and Kirathaim, as may be read there, ,39. It was also the name of a mountain, . It should seem that in Jeremiah’ s time, the Moabites had got both the possession of Nebo, and Kiriathaim, and Misgab, of which we read no more in Scripture. It seems to be a city built upon some hill or high place. The prophet threateneth ruin to all these three cities.

Jeremiah 48:1 Against Moab thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Woe unto Nebo! for it is spoiled: Kiriathaim is confounded [and] taken: Misgab is confounded and dismayed.Ver. 1. Against Moab.] That bastardly brood, infamous for their inveterate hatred of God’ s Israel, at whom they were anciently irked, fretted, vexed, though no way provoked, whom also they outwitted, by the counsel of Balaam, in the business of Baal-peor, had been plagued and judged by the kings of Israel, by David especially, as also by Sennacherib, but were no whit amended; and are therefore here, and Ezekiel 25:9, threatened with utter destruction by the Chaldeans, and that very much in a scoffing way; like as they were a proud, petulant, scornful people, despisers of all other nations, but especially of the Jews, their near neighbours and allies. Woe unto Nebo.] Their oracular city, as it may seem by the name. See Isaiah 15:2. Kiriathaim is confounded.] It is of a dual form, and so seemeth to have been Bipolis, a double city; as was of old Jerusalem, and as are now Rome, Prague, Craeovia. Misgab is confounded.] It signifieth the high place, and is the same, say some, with Bamoth, and Selah.

XLVIII. (1) Against Moab thus saith the Lord of hosts . . .—Better, with a different punctuation, Concerning Moab (this being the title of the section), Thus saith the Lord of hosts. In the long prophecy that follows Jeremiah in part follows in the wake of “the burden of Moab” in Isaiah 15, 16, entering even more fully into geographical details. (See Notes there.) The relations between Moab and Israel had for a long period been more or less uneasy. The former had been tributary to the latter under Ahab, but on his death Mesha revolted, and a war ensued, which ended in the defeat of the Moabites by the allied forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom (2 Kings 3). They repeated their attack, however (2 Kings 13:20), and appear to have occupied the territory of the Trans-jordanic tribes on their deportation by Tiglath-pileser. Of the three places named, Nebo, memorable as the summit of Pisgah, from which Moses looked upon the land of promise, and forming part of the range of the mountains of Abarim (Deuteronomy 32:49; Deuteronomy 34:1), has been identified conjecturally with Djebel-el-Attarus, or Djebel-el-Jel’ad. Hitzig derives the name from the Sanscrit Nabho (= the cloud-heaven). Kiriathaim (= the double city) is named in Genesis 14:5 and Numbers 32:37, in the latter passage in conjunction with Elealeh, Heshbon, and Nebo. Jerome places it at a distance of ten miles west of Medaba, as one of the cities rebuilt by the Reubenites, but it has not been identified. Misgab, the “high fort” or “citadel” of Isaiah 25:12, has shared the same fate, but has been referred by some writers to Kir-Moab, or Kir-heres, as the chief fortified city of the country (see Jeremiah 48:31; Jeremiah 48:36; Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 16:7). The article which is prefixed to it in the Hebrew has led Fürst (Lexicon) to take it in a wider sense, as meaning the plateau or highland country of Moab generally.

CHAPTER XLVIII The following prophecy concerning the Moabites is supposed to have had its accomplishment during the long siege of Tyre in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. The whole of this chapter is poetry of the first order. The distress of the cities of Moab, with which it opens, is finely described. The cries of one ruined city resound to those of another, 1-3. The doleful helpless cry of the children is heard, 4; the highways, on either hand, resound with the voice of weeping, 5; and the few that remain resemble a blasted tree in the wide howling waste, 6. Chemosh, the chief god of the Moabites, and the capital figure in the triumph, is represented as carried off in chains, with all his trumpery of priests and officers, 7. The desolation of the country shall be so general and sudden that, by a strong figure, it is intimated that there shall be no possibility of escape, except it be in the speediest flight, 8, 9. And some idea may be formed of the dreadful wickedness of this people from the consideration that the prophet, under the immediate inspiration of the Almighty, pronounces a curse on those who do the work of the Lord negligently, in not proceeding to their utter extermination, 10. The subject is then diversified by an elegant and well-supported comparison, importing that the Moabites increased in insolence and pride in proportion to the duration of their prosperity, 11; but this prosperity is declared to be nearly at an end; the destroyer is already commissioned against Moab, and his neighbours called to sing the usual lamentation at his funeral, 13-18. The prophet then represents some of the women of Aroer and Ammon, (the extreme borders of Moab,) standing in the highways, and asking the fugitives of Moab, What intelligence? They inform him of the complete discomfiture of Moab, 19-24, and of the total annihilation of its political existence, 25. The Divine judgments about to fall upon Moab are farther represented under the expressive metaphor of a cup of intoxicating liquor, by which he should become an object of derision because of his intolerable pride, his magnifying himself against Jehovah, and his great contempt for the children of Israel in the day of their calamity, 26, 27. The prophet then points out the great distress of Moab by a variety of striking figures, viz., by the failure of the customary rejoicings at the end of harvest, by the mournful sort of music used at funerals, by the signs which were expressive among the ancients of deep mourning, as shaving the head, clipping the beard, cutting the flesh, and wearing sackcloth; and by the methods of catching wild beasts in toils, and by the terror and pitfall, 28-46. In the close of the chapter it is intimated that a remnant shall be preserved from this general calamity whose descendants shall be prosperous in the latter days, 47. NOTES ON CHAP. XLVIII Verse 1. Against Moab] This was delivered some time after the destruction of Jerusalem.

1. Moab] Its territory was the high tableland E. of the Dead Sea. See further on Jeremiah 48:2. Nebo] not the mountain (Deuteronomy 32:49; Deuteronomy 34:1), but the city (Numbers 32:38). It was taken by Mesha king of Moab (c. 895 b.c.) according to the records of the “Moabite stone.” See transl. of lines 14–18 in HDB. III. 406. Kiriathaim, Kerioth, Jahzah, Dibon, Aroer, Bozrah (Bezer), Beth-diblathaim, Baal-meon (see on Jeremiah 48:23), and Horonaim are also mentioned on that stone. Kiriathaim] probably Kureyat, ten miles N. of the Dead Sea. Misgab] better, as mg. the high fort. Cp. Isaiah 25:12. broken down] better than (mg.) dismayed. So in Jeremiah 48:20; Jeremiah 48:39.

Against Moab - Concerning Moab. Is confounded - Is brought to shame. Misgab - The high fort; some special fortress, probably Kir-haraseth 2 Kings 3:25.

IN MOAB, Jeremiah 48:1-8.1. Against Moab — Rather, concerning “Moab.” In Isaiah (chaps. 15 and 16) and Amos (Amos 2:1-3) are prophecies against Moab.