Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

In Jer 48:18-25 is further described the downfall of this strong and glorious power. The inhabitants if Dibon are to come down from their glory and sit in misery; those of Aroer are to ask the fugitives what has happened, that they may learn that the whole table-land on to the Arnon has been taken by the enemy; and they are to howl over the calamity. The idea presented in Jer 48:18 is an imitation of that in Isa 47:1, "Come down, O daughter of Babylon, sit in the dust;" but רדי is intensified by the addition of מכּבוד, and וּשׁבי על is changed into וּשׁבי בצּמא (the Kethib ישׁבי has evidently been written by mistake for וּשׁבי, the Qeri). צמא elsewhere means "thirst;" but "sit down in the thirst" would be too strange an expression; hence צמא must here have the meaning of צמא, Isa 44:3, "the thirsty arid land:" thus it remains a question whether we should point the word צמא, or take צמא as another form of צמא, as חלב sa ,צמא fo mro is of חלב, Eze 23:19. There is no sufficient reason why Hitzig and Ewald should give the word a meaning foreign to it, from the Arabic or Syriac. Dibon lay about four miles north from the Arnon, at the foot of a mountain, in a very beautiful plain, where, under the name of Dibn, many traces of walls, and a well by the wayside, hewn out of the rock, are still to be found (Seetzen, i. S. 409f.). Hence it must have been well provided with water, even though we should be obliged to understand by "the water of Dimon" (Dibon), which Isaiah mentions (Isa 15:9), the river Arnon, which is about three miles off. The command to "sit down in an arid land" thus forms a suitable figure, representing the humiliation and devastation of Dibon. That the city was fortified, is evident from the mention of the fortifications in the last clause. ישׁבת , as in Jer 46:19. Aroer was situated on the north bank of the Arnon (Mojeb), where its ruins still remain, under the old name Arג'ir (Burckhardt, p. 372). It was a frontier town, between the kingdom of Sihon (afterwards the territory of the Israelites) and the possession of the Moabites (Deu 2:36; Deu 3:12; Deu 4:48; Jos 12:2; Jos 13:9, Jos 13:16). But after the Moabites had regained the northern portion of their original territory, it lay in the midst of the land. The fugitives here represented as passing by are endeavouring, by crossing the Arnon, to escape from the enemy advancing from the north, and subduing the country before them. נס ונמלטה means fugitives of every kind. The co-ordination of the same word or synonymous terms in the masc. and fem. serves to generalize the idea; see on Isa 3:1, and Ewald, 172, c. In נמלטה the tone is retracted through the influence of the distinctive accent; the form is participial. The question, "What has happened?" is answered in Jer 48:20. כּי חתּה, "for (= certainly) it is broken down." The Kethib הלילי וּזעקי must not be changed. Moab is addressed: with הגּידוּ is introduced the summons, addressed to individuals, to proclaim at the Arnon the calamity that has befallen the country to the north of that river.