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Isaiah Chapter
Fifteen
Isaiah 15
Chapter Contents
The Divine judgments about to come upon the Moabites.
This prophecy coming to pass within three years
would
confirm the prophet's mission
and the belief in all his other prophecies.
Concerning Moab it is foretold
1. That their chief cities should be surprised
by the enemy. Great changes
and very dismal ones
may be made in a very little
time. 2. The Moabites would have recourse to their idols for relief. Ungodly
men
when in trouble
have no comforter. But they are seldom brought by their
terrors to approach our forgiving God with true sorrow and believing prayer. 3.
There should be the cries of grief through the land. It is poor relief to have
many fellow-sufferers
fellow-mourners. 4. The courage of their soldiers should
fail. God can easily deprive a nation of that on which it most depended for
strength and defence. 5. These calamities should cause grief in the
neighbouring parts. Though enemies to Israel
yet as our fellow-creatures
it
should be grievous to see them in such distress. In verses 6-9
the prophet describes the woful
lamentations heard through the country of Moab
when it became a prey to the
Assyrian army. The country should be plundered. And famine is usually the sad
effect of war. Those who are eager to get abundance of this world
and to lay
up what they have gotten
little consider how soon it may be all taken from
them. While we warn our enemies to escape from ruin
let us pray for them
that
they may seek and find forgiveness of their sins.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 15
Verse 1
[1] 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;
The burden — A prophecy of the destruction of
the Moabites
the inveterate enemies of the Jews
begun by the Assyrian
and
finished by the Babylonian emperors.
In a night — Suddenly and unexpectedly.
Ar — The chief city of Moab.
Kir — Another eminent city of Moab.
Verse 2
[2] He is gone up to Bajith
and to Dibon
the high places
to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo
and over Medeba: on all their heads shall
be baldness
and every beard cut off.
Bajith — Which signifies an house. It is supposed to be some
eminent house or temple of their idols.
Dibon — Another city of Moab.
To weep — To offer their supplications with tears to their idols
for help.
Medeba — Two considerable cities
anciently belonging to the
Moabites.
Beard — The hair of their heads and beards was shaved
as was
usual in great mournings.
Verse 3
[3] In their streets they shall gird themselves with
sackcloth: on the tops of their houses
and in their streets
every one shall
howl
weeping abundantly.
On the tops — Which were made flat
to which
men used to go up
to cry to God in heaven
or to men for help.
Verse 4
[4] And Heshbon shall cry
and Elealeh: their voice shall be
heard even unto Jahaz: therefore the armed soldiers of Moab shall cry out; his
life shall be grievous unto him.
Heshbon — Two other Moabitish cities.
Jahaz — Another city in the utmost borders of Moab.
Soldiers — Who use to be the most courageous.
Verse 5
[5] My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugitives shall
flee unto Zoar
an heifer of three years old: for by the mounting up of Luhith
with weeping shall they go it up; for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise
up a cry of destruction.
Moab — Tho' they are a most vile nation.
Zoar — Zoar was a town bordering upon Moab.
Of destruction — Such a cry as men send forth when
they are just falling into the pit of destruction.
Verse 6
[6] For the waters of Nimrim shall be desolate: for the hay
is withered away
the grass faileth
there is no green thing.
Waters — Watery grounds being very fruitful
are commonly most
inhabited; but now they also
much more the dry and barren grounds
shall be
desolate and without inhabitant.
Verse 7
[7] Therefore the abundance they have gotten
and that which
they have laid up
shall they carry away to the brook of the willows.
They — Their enemies.
Brook — Possibly he means some such river which ran into Euphrates
and so gave them opportunity of carrying their spoils by water unto Babylon.
Verse 8
[8] For the cry is gone round about the borders of Moab; the
howling thereof unto Eglaim
and the howling thereof unto Beerelim.
The cry — Their cry fills all the parts of the country.
Verse 9
[9] For the waters of Dimon shall be full of blood: for I
will bring more upon Dimon
lions upon him that escapeth of Moab
and upon the
remnant of the land.
More — More than hath been already mentioned.
Lions — God shall send lions to find out those that escape the
fury of men.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
15 Chapter 15
Verses 1-9
The harden of Moab
The Moabite stone
From the inscription of Mesha (c. 900 B.C.)
found at Dibon in
1869
and commonly known as the “Moabite stone
” we learn that the Moabites
spoke a language differing only dialectically from Hebrew; and it is probable
also that
in matters of material prosperity and civilisation
Moab stood
hardly upon an inferior level to Israel itself. (Prof. S. R. Driver
D. D.)
The prophet’s pity for Moab
There is no prophecy in the Book of Isaiah in which the heart of
the prophet is so painfully moved by what his spirit beholds and his mouth must
prophesy. All that he prophesies is felt as deeply by him as if he belonged to
the poor people whose messenger of misfortune he is compelled to be. (F.
Delitzsch.)
In the night
Ar and Kir of Moab
The seizing of them laid the whole country open
and made all the
wealth of it an easy prey to the victorious army.
1. Great changes
and very dismal ones
may be made in a very little
time. Here are two cities lost in a night
though that is the time of
quietness. Let us
therefore
lie down as those who know not what a night may
bring forth.
2. As the country feeds the cities
so the cities protect the
country
and neither can say to the other
“I have no need of thee.” (M.
Henry.)
God works in the night time
1. Man has but a little day to work in
but God’s working hours never
cease; man becomes weary with his day’s work
and lies down to rest
and whilst
he is in slumber destruction swiftly overtakes him
so that the morning looks
upon a branch cut off
a city laid to waste and brought to silence.
2. Men should diligently consider this in musing upon the judgments
of providence. They cannot always be awake; they cannot always be upon the
walls defending the fortress; they must retire for a time to renew their
strength
and whilst they are resting the enemy acquires additional power
and
comes down upon their boasted masonry
and hurls it to the dust.
3. Only the Christian man has confidence in the night time. He says
He that keepeth me will not slumber nor sleep.
4. God is against evil-workers
and it delights Him to trouble them
by nightly visits
so that in the morning they cannot recall their own plans
and purposes
or give an account of that which has happened whilst their eyes
have been closed in sleep.
5. Have we any safety in the darkness? Have we made no provision for
the night time? If not
then woe will fall upon us
and when the morning comes
it will rise upon a scene of desolation. Remember what God said to the fool in
the parable who was counting his riches
and forecasting the happy years which
his soul was to enjoy--“Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of
thee.”
6. Ponder deeply upon the moral of night; the darkness should
instruct us
remind us of our exhaustion
helplessness
and dependence upon
others for security and rest
and should
above all things
lead us to put our
confidence in Him to whom the darkness and the light are both alike. (J.
Parker
D. D.)
Verses 1-9
The harden of Moab
The Moabite stone
From the inscription of Mesha (c. 900 B.C.)
found at Dibon in
1869
and commonly known as the “Moabite stone
” we learn that the Moabites
spoke a language differing only dialectically from Hebrew; and it is probable
also that
in matters of material prosperity and civilisation
Moab stood
hardly upon an inferior level to Israel itself. (Prof. S. R. Driver
D. D.)
The prophet’s pity for Moab
There is no prophecy in the Book of Isaiah in which the heart of
the prophet is so painfully moved by what his spirit beholds and his mouth must
prophesy. All that he prophesies is felt as deeply by him as if he belonged to
the poor people whose messenger of misfortune he is compelled to be. (F.
Delitzsch.)
In the night
Ar and Kir of Moab
The seizing of them laid the whole country open
and made all the
wealth of it an easy prey to the victorious army.
1. Great changes
and very dismal ones
may be made in a very little
time. Here are two cities lost in a night
though that is the time of
quietness. Let us
therefore
lie down as those who know not what a night may
bring forth.
2. As the country feeds the cities
so the cities protect the
country
and neither can say to the other
“I have no need of thee.” (M.
Henry.)
God works in the night time
1. Man has but a little day to work in
but God’s working hours never
cease; man becomes weary with his day’s work
and lies down to rest
and whilst
he is in slumber destruction swiftly overtakes him
so that the morning looks
upon a branch cut off
a city laid to waste and brought to silence.
2. Men should diligently consider this in musing upon the judgments
of providence. They cannot always be awake; they cannot always be upon the
walls defending the fortress; they must retire for a time to renew their
strength
and whilst they are resting the enemy acquires additional power
and
comes down upon their boasted masonry
and hurls it to the dust.
3. Only the Christian man has confidence in the night time. He says
He that keepeth me will not slumber nor sleep.
4. God is against evil-workers
and it delights Him to trouble them
by nightly visits
so that in the morning they cannot recall their own plans
and purposes
or give an account of that which has happened whilst their eyes
have been closed in sleep.
5. Have we any safety in the darkness? Have we made no provision for
the night time? If not
then woe will fall upon us
and when the morning comes
it will rise upon a scene of desolation. Remember what God said to the fool in
the parable who was counting his riches
and forecasting the happy years which
his soul was to enjoy--“Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of
thee.”
6. Ponder deeply upon the moral of night; the darkness should
instruct us
remind us of our exhaustion
helplessness
and dependence upon
others for security and rest
and should
above all things
lead us to put our
confidence in Him to whom the darkness and the light are both alike. (J.
Parker
D. D.)
Verse 2
He is gone up to Bajith
and to Dibon
the high places
to weep
The helplessness of heathen gods
We have a picture of men going to old altars
and finding there
nothing but silence.
Bajith may be regarded as the temple of the Moabite god.
1. So they were reduced to a state of helplessness; their very gods
had forsaken them
and had thus revealed their own character as deities. It is
under such circumstances--namely
of desertion and sorrow--that men find out
what their religion is really worth. The Lord taunts all the heathen nations
because their gods forsook them in the hour of calamity. One prophet exclaims
“Thy calf hath cast thee off
O Samaria.” The Lord Himself is represented as
going up and down throughout the temples of heathenism
mocking and taunting
the gods with which they were filled
because they were merely ornamental or
decorative gods
and were utterly without power to assuage the sorrow of the
human heart.
2. Whilst
however
all this is true of heathenism
there is a sense
in which even Christian men may go back to old altars and find them forsaken.
The Lord
the living One
the Father of the universe
is not pledged to abide
at the altar forever to await the return of the prodigal. In the very first
book of the Bible we read
“My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” There
is a day of grace
so measurement can be determined with sufficient nearness to
excite alarm
lest its golden hours should be lost. When the door is once shut
it will not be opened again. Men may so live that when they go to the sanctuary
itself
where the sweetest Gospel is preached in all its purity and nobleness
they find no comfort in the place that is devoted to consolation. The fault is
to be found in themselves; they have sinned away their opportunities
they have
enclosed themselves within walls of adamant
they have betaken themselves to
the worship of their own vanity and the pursuit of their own selfish purposes
so that when they return to the house of God they find that the Lord has
abandoned His temple. “They shall call upon Me
and I will not answer.” This is
more than silence; it is silence aggravated
silence intensified
silence
increased into burdensomeness. (J. Parlour
D. D.)
Signs of mourning
The sorrow of those who mourn is represented by a very
graphic
figure:--“On all their heads shall be baldness
and every beard cut off.” The
primary reference is probably to some sacrificial ceremony. At a very early
period baldness was regarded as a symbol of intensest sorrow amongst Eastern
nations. Baldness was forbidden to Israel
for the probable reason that it was
identified with the sacrificial worship of heathen deities. The picture of
lamentation is continued in the third verse. In Eastern countries
when men
were afflicted with great sorrow
they betook themselves to the fiat roofs of
their houses
and there publicly and loudly wailed on account of their agony. (J.
Parlour
D. D.)
Verse 5
My heart shall cry out for Moab
The burden of souls
Too often have God’s servants spoken with dry eyes and hard voices
of the doom of the ungodly; and have only made them more obdurate and
determined.
We never need so much brokenness of spirit as when we utter God’s judgments
against sin. In his autobiography
Finney says
“Here I must introduce the name
of a man whom I shall have occasion to mention frequently
Mr. Abel Clary
He
was the son of a very excellent man
and an elder of the Church where I was
converted. He had been licensed to preach; but his spirit of prayer was such
he was so burdened with the souls of men
that he was not able to preach much
his whole time and strength being given to prayer. The burden of his soul would
frequently be so great that he was unable to stand
and he would writhe and
groan in agony. I was well acquainted with him
and knew something of the
wonderful spirit of prayer that was upon him The pastor told me afterwards that
he found that in the six weeks I was in that church five hundred souls had been
converted.” (F. B. Meyer
B. A.)
The prophet’s distress concerning Moab
(see also Isaiah 16:9):--These are the men who
prevail with men. In the early part of the sixteenth century there was a great
religious awakening in Ulster
which began under a minister named Glendinning.
He was of very meagre natural gifts
but would spend many days and nights alone
with God
and seems to have been greatly burdened with the souls of men and
their state before God. It is not to be wondered at
therefore
that
under his
pleading
multitudes of hearers were brought into great anxiety and terror of
conscience. They looked on themselves as altogether lost. They were stricken
into a swoon by the vower of God’s Word. A dozen in one day were carried out of
doors as dead. These were not women
but some of the boldest spirits of the
neighbourhood “some who had formerly not feared with their swords to put the
whole market town into a fray.” This revival changed the whole character of
northern Ireland. Would that God might lay on our hearts a similar burden for
our Churches and our land! (F. B. Meyer
B. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》