Isa 14:29-17:1 | KD | STEP | It was therefore in a most eventful and decisive year that Isaiah began to prophesy as follows. “Rejoice not so fully, O Philistia, that the rod which smote thee is broken to pieces; for out of the serpent’s root comes forth a basilisk, and its fruit is a flying dragon.” Shēbet maccēk , “the rod which smote thee” (not “of him that smote thee,” which is not so appropriate), is the Davidic sceptre, which had formerly kept the Philistines in subjection under David and Solomon, and again in more recent times since the reign of Uzziah. This sceptre was now broken to pieces, for the Davidic kingdom had been brought down by the Syro-Ephraimitish war, and had not been able to recover itself; and so far as its power over the surrounding nations was concerned, it had completely fallen to pieces. Philistia was thoroughly filled with joy in consequence, but this joy was all over now. The power from which Philistia had escaped was a common snake ( nâchâsh ), which had been either cut to pieces, or had died out down to the very roots. But out of this root, i.e., out of the house of David, which had been reduced to the humble condition of its tribal house, there was coming forth a zepha‛ , a basilisk ( regulus , as Jerome and other early translators render it: see at ); and this basilisk, which is dangerous and even fatal in itself, as soon as it had reached maturity, would bring forth a winged dragon as its fruit. The basilisk is Hezekiah, and the flying dragon is the Messiah (this is the explanation given by the Targum); or, what is the same thing, the former is the Davidic government of the immediate future, the latter the Davidic government of the ultimate future. The figure may appear an inappropriate one, because the serpent is a symbol of evil; but it is not a symbol of evil only, but of a curse also, and a curse is the energetic expression of the penal justice of God. And it is as the executor of such a curse in the form of a judgment of God upon Philistia that the Davidic king is here described in a threefold climax as a snake or serpent. The selection of this figure may possibly have also been suggested by ; for the saying of Jacob concerning Dan was fulfilled in Samson, the sworn foe of the Philistines.

‏ Isaiah 14:29-32

It was therefore in a most eventful and decisive year that Isaiah began to prophesy as follows. “Rejoice not so fully, O Philistia, that the rod which smote thee is broken to pieces; for out of the serpent’s root comes forth a basilisk, and its fruit is a flying dragon.” Shēbet maccēk, “the rod which smote thee” (not “of him that smote thee,” which is not so appropriate), is the Davidic sceptre, which had formerly kept the Philistines in subjection under David and Solomon, and again in more recent times since the reign of Uzziah. This sceptre was now broken to pieces, for the Davidic kingdom had been brought down by the Syro-Ephraimitish war, and had not been able to recover itself; and so far as its power over the surrounding nations was concerned, it had completely fallen to pieces. Philistia was thoroughly filled with joy in consequence, but this joy was all over now. The power from which Philistia had escaped was a common snake (nâchâsh), which had been either cut to pieces, or had died out down to the very roots. But out of this root, i.e., out of the house of David, which had been reduced to the humble condition of its tribal house, there was coming forth a zepha‛, a basilisk (regulus, as Jerome and other early translators render it: see at Isa 11:8); and this basilisk, which is dangerous and even fatal in itself, as soon as it had reached maturity, would bring forth a winged dragon as its fruit. The basilisk is Hezekiah, and the flying dragon is the Messiah (this is the explanation given by the Targum); or, what is the same thing, the former is the Davidic government of the immediate future, the latter the Davidic government of the ultimate future. The figure may appear an inappropriate one, because the serpent is a symbol of evil; but it is not a symbol of evil only, but of a curse also, and a curse is the energetic expression of the penal justice of God. And it is as the executor of such a curse in the form of a judgment of God upon Philistia that the Davidic king is here described in a threefold climax as a snake or serpent. The selection of this figure may possibly have also been suggested by Gen 49:17; for the saying of Jacob concerning Dan was fulfilled in Samson, the sworn foe of the Philistines. Isa 14:30

The coming Davidic king is peace for Israel, but for Philistia death. “And the poorest of the poor will feed, and needy ones lie down in peace; and I kill thy root through hunger, and he slays thy remnant.” “The poorest of the poor:” becōrē dallim is an intensified expression for benē dallim, the latter signifying such as belong to the family of the poor, the former (cf., Job 18:13, mors dirissima) such as hold the foremost rank in such a family - a description of Israel, which, although at present deeply, very deeply, repressed and threatened on every side, would then enjoy its land in quietness and peace (Zep 3:12-13). In this sense ורעוּ is used absolutely; and there is no necessity for Hupfeld’s conjecture (Ps. ii. 258), that we should read בכרי (in my pastures). Israel rises again, but Philistia perishes even to a root and remnant; and the latter again falls a victim on the one hand to the judgment of God (famine), and on the other to the punishment inflicted by the house of David. The change of persons in Isa 14:30 is no synallage; but the subject to yaharōg (slays) is the basilisk, the father of the flying dragon. The first strophe of the massah terminates here. It consists of eight lines, each of the two Masoretic Isa 14:29, Isa 14:30 containing four clauses. Isa 14:31

The massah consists of two strophes. The first threatens judgment from Judah, and the second - of seven lines - threatens judgment from Asshur. “Howl, O gate! cry, O city! O Philistia, thou must melt entirely away; for from the north cometh smoke, and there is no isolated one among his hosts.” שׁער, which is a masculine everywhere else, is construed here as a feminine, possibly in order that the two imperfects may harmonize; for there is nothing to recommend Luzzatto’s suggestion, that שׁער should be taken as an accusative. The strong gates of the Philistian cities (Ashdod and Gaza), of world-wide renown, and the cities themselves, shall lift up a cry of anguish; and Philistia, which has hitherto been full of joy, shall melt away in the heat of alarm (Isa 13:7, nâmōg, inf. abs. niph.; on the form itself, compare Isa 59:13): for from the north there comes a singing and burning fire, which proclaims its coming afar off by the smoke which it produces; in other words, an all-destroying army, out of whose ranks not one falls away from weariness or self-will (cf., Isa 5:27), that is to say, an army without a gap, animated throughout with one common desire. (מועד, after the form מושב, the mass of people assembled at an appointed place, or mō'ed, Jos 8:14; 1Sa 20:35, and for an appointed end.) Isa 14:32

To understand Isa 14:32, which follows here, nothing more is needed than a few simple parenthetical thoughts, which naturally suggest themselves. This one desire was the thirst for conquest, and such a desire could not possibly have only the small strip of Philistian coast for its object; but the conquest of this was intended as the means of securing possession of other countries on the right hand and on the left. The question arose, therefore, How would Judah fare with the fire which was rolling towards it from the north? For the very fact that the prophet of Judah was threatening Philistia with this fire, presupposed that Judah itself would not be consumed by it.

And this is just what is expressed in Isa 14:32 : “And what answer do the messengers of the nations bring? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and that the afflicted of His people are hidden therein.” “The messengers of the nations” (maleacē goi): goi is to be taken in a distributive sense, and the messengers to be regarded either as individuals who have escaped from the Assyrian army, which was formed of contingents from many nations, or else (as we should expect pelitē in that case, instead of mal'acē) messengers from the neighbouring nations, who were sent to Jerusalem after the Assyrian army had perished in front of the city, to ascertain how the latter had fared. And they all reply as if with one mouth (yaaneh): Zion has stood unshaken, protected by its God; and the people of this God, the poor and despised congregation of Jehovah (cf., Zec 11:7), are, and know that they are, concealed in Zion. The prophecy is intentionally oracular. Prophecy does not adopt the same tone to the nations as to Israel. Its language to the former is dictatorially brief, elevated with strong self-consciousness, expressed in lofty poetic strains, and variously coloured, according to the peculiarity of the nation to which the oracle refers. The following prophecy relating to Moab shows us very clearly, that in the prophet’s view the judgment executed by Asshur upon Philistia would prepare the way for the subjugation of Philistia by the sceptre of David. By the wreck of the Assyrian world-power upon Jerusalem, the house of David would recover its old supremacy over the nations round about. And this really was the case. But the fulfilment was not exhaustive. Jeremiah therefore took up the prophecy of his predecessor again at the time of the Chaldean judgment upon the nations (Jer 47:1-7), but only the second strophe. The Messianic element of the first was continued by Zechariah (Zech 9). The Oracle Concerning Moab - Isaiah 15-16

So far as the surrounding nations were concerned, the monarchy of Israel commenced with victory and glory. Saul punished them all severely for their previous offences against Israel (1Sa 14:47), and the Moabites along with the rest. The latter were completely subdued by David (2Sa 8:2). After the division of the kingdom, the northern kingdom took possession of Joab. The Moabites paid tribute from their flocks to Samaria. But when Ahab died, Mesha the king of Moab refused this tribute (2Ki 1:1; 2Ki 3:4.). Ahaziah of Israel let this refusal pass. In the meantime, the Moabites formed an alliance with other nations, and invaded Judah. But the allies destroyed one another, and Jehoshaphat celebrated in the valley of Berachah the victory which he had gained without a battle, and which is commemorated in several psalms. And when Jehoram the king of Israel attempted to subjugate Moab again, Jehoshaphat made common cause with him. And the Moabites were defeated; but the fortress, the Moabitish Kir, which was situated upon a steep and lofty chalk rock, remained standing still. The interminable contests of the northern kingdom with the Syrians rendered it quite impossible to maintain either Moab itself, or the land to the east of the Jordan in general. During the reign of Jehu, the latter, in all its length and breadth, even as far south as the Arnon, was taken by the Syrians (2Ki 10:32-33). The tribes that were now no longer tributary to the kingdom of Israel oppressed the Israelitish population, and avenged upon the crippled kingdom the loss of their independence. Jeroboam II, as the prophet Jonah had foretold (2Ki 14:25), was the first to reconquer the territory of Israel from Hamath to the Dead Sea. It is not indeed expressly stated that he subjugated Moab again; but as Moabitish bands had disturbed even the country on this side under his predecessor Joash (2Ki 13:20), it may be supposed that he also attempted to keep Moab within bounds. If the Moabites, as is very probable, had extended their territory northwards beyond the Arnon, the war with Joab was inevitable. Moreover, under Jeroboam II on the one hand, and Uzziah-Jotham on the other, we read nothing about the Moabites rising; but, on the contrary, such notices as those contained in 1Ch 5:17 and 2Ch 26:10, show that they kept themselves quiet. But the application made by Ahaz to Assyria called up the hostility of Joab and the neighbouring nations again. Tiglath-pileser repeated what the Syrians had done before. He took possession of the northern part of the land on this side, and the whole of the land on the other side, and depopulated them. This furnished an opportunity for the Moabites to re-establish themselves in their original settlements to the north of the Arnon. And this was how it stood at the time when Isaiah prophesied. The calamity which befel them came from the north, and therefore fell chiefly and primarily upon the country to the north of the Arnon, which the Moabites had taken possession of but a short time before, after it had been peopled for a long time by the tribes of Reuben and Gad.

‏ Isaiah 15

Isa 15:1

There is no other prophecy in the book of Isaiah in which the heart of the prophet is so painfully affected by what his mind sees, and his mouth is obliged to prophesy. All that he predicts evokes his deepest sympathy, just as if he himself belonged to the unfortunate nation to which he is called to be a messenger of woe. He commences with an utterance of amazement. “Oracle concerning Moab! for in a night 'Ar-Moab is laid waste, destroyed; for in a night Kir-Moab is laid waste, destroyed.” The ci (for) is explanatory in both instances, and not simply affirmative, or, as Knobel maintains, recitative, and therefore unmeaning. The prophet justifies the peculiar heading to his prophecy from the horrible vision given him to see, and takes us at once into the very heart of the vision, as in Isa 17:1; Isa 23:1. 'Ar Moab (in which 'Ar is Moabitish for 'Ir; cf., Jer 49:3, where we find 'Ai written instead of 'Ar, which we should naturally expect) is the name of the capital of Moab (Grecized, Areopolis), which was situated to the south of the Arnon, at present a large field of ruins, with a village of the name of Rabba. Kir Moab (in which Kir is the Moabitish for Kiryah) was the chief fortress of Joab, which was situated to the south-east of Ar, the present Kerek, where there is still a town with a fortification upon a rock, which can be seen from Jerusalem with a telescope on a clear day, and forms so thoroughly one mass with the rock, that in 1834, when Ibrahim Pasha resolved to pull it down, he was obliged to relinquish the project. The identity of Kir and Kerek is unquestionable, but that of Ar and Rabba has been disputed; and on the ground of Num 22:36, where it seems to be placed nearer the Arnon, it has been transposed to the ruins on the pasture land at the confluence of the Lejûm and Mujib (= “the city that is by the river” in Deu 2:36 and Jos 13:9, Jos 13:16 : see Comm. on Num 21:15) - a conjecture which has this against it, that the name Areopolis, which has been formed from Ar, is attached to the “metropolis civitas Ar,” which was called Rabba as the metropolis, and of which Jerome relates (on the passage before us), as an event associated with his own childhood, that it was then destroyed by an earthquake (probably in 342). The two names of the cities are used as masculine here, like Dammesek in Isa 17:1, and Tzor in Isa 23:1, though it cannot therefore be said, as at Mic 5:1, that the city stands for the inhabitants (Ges. Lehrgebäude, p. 469). “In a night” (ליל absolute, as in Isa 21:11, not construct, which would give an illogical assertion, as shuddad and nidmâh are almost coincident, so far as the sense is concerned) the two pillars of the strength of Moab are overthrown. In the space of a night, and therefore very suddenly (Isa 17:14), Moab is destroyed. The prophet repeats twice what it would have been quite sufficient to say once, just as if he had been condemned to keep his eye fixed upon the awful spectacle (on the asyndeton, see at Isa 33:9; and on the anadiplosis, Isa 15:8; Isa 8:9; Isa 21:11; Isa 17:12-13). His first sensation is that of horror. Isa 15:2-4

But just as horror, when once it begins to reflect, is dissolved in tears, the thunder-claps in Isa 15:1 are followed by universal weeping and lamentation. “They go up to the temple-house and Dibon, up to the heights to weep: upon Nebo and upon Medebah of Moab there is weeping: on all heads baldness, every beard is mutilated. In the markets of Moab they gird themselves with sackcloth; on the roofs of the land, and in its streets, everything wails, melting into tears. Heshbon cries, and 'Elâle; even to Jahaz they hear their howling; even the armed men of Moab break out into mourning thereat; its soul trembles within it.” The people (the subject to עלה) ascend the mountain with the temple of Chemosh, the central sanctuary of the land. This temple is called hab-baith, though not that there was a Moabitish town or village with some such name as Bêth-Diblathaim (Jer 48:22), as Knobel supposes. Dibon, which lay above the Arnon (Wady Mujib), like all the places mentioned in Isa 15:2-4, at present a heap of ruins, a short hour to the north of the central Arnon, in the splendid plain of el-Chura, had consecrated heights in the neighbourhood (cf., Jos 13:17; Num 22:41), and therefore would turn to them. Moab mourns upon Nebo and Medebah; ייליל, for which we find יהיליל in Isa 52:5, is written intentionally for a double preformative, instead of ייליל (compare the similar forms in Job 24:21; Psa 138:6, and Ges. §70, Anm.). על is to be taken in a local sense, as Hendewerk, Drechsler, and Knobel have rendered it. For Nebo was probably a place situated upon a height on the mountain of that name, towards the south-east of Heshbon (the ruins of Nabo, Nabau, mentioned in the Onom.); and Medebah (still a heap of ruins bearing the same name) stood upon a round hill about two hours to the south-east of Heshbon. According to Jerome, there was an image of Chemosh in Nebo; and among the ruins of Madeba, Seetzen discovered the foundations of a strange temple. There follows here a description of the expressions of pain. Instead of the usual ראשיו, we read ראשיו here. And instead of gedu‛âh (abscissae), Jeremiah (Jer 48:37) has, according to his usual style, geru'âh (decurtatae), with the simple alteration of a single letter. ^{▼▼At the same time, the Masora on this passage before us is for geru‛ah with Resh, and we also find this reading in Nissel, Clodius, Jablonsky, and in earlier editions; whilst Sonc. 1486, Ven. 1521, and others, have gedu‛ah, with Daleth.}

All runs down with weeping (culloh, written as in Isa 16:7; in Isa 9:8, Isa 9:16, we have cullo instead). In other cases it is the eyes that are said to run down in tears, streams, or water-brooks; but here, by a still bolder metonymy, the whole man is said to flow down to the ground, as if melting in a stream of tears. Heshbon and Elale are still visible in their ruins, which lie only half an hour apart upon their separate hills and are still called by the names Husban and el-Al. They were both situated upon hills which commanded an extensive prospect. And there the cry of woe created an echo which was audible as far as Jahaz (Jahza), the city where the king of Heshbon offered battle to Israel in the time of Moses (Deu 2:32). The general mourning was so great, that even the armed men, i.e., the heroes (Jer 48:41) of Moab, were seized with despair, and cried out in their anguish (the same figure as in Isa 33:7). על־כן(, thereat, namely on account of this universal lamentation. Thus the lamentation was universal, without exception. Naphsho (his soul) refers to Moab as a whole nation. The soul of Moab trembles in all the limbs of the national body; ירעה (forming a play upon the sound with יריעוּ), an Arabic word, and in יריעה a Hebrew word also, signifies tremere, huc illuc agitari - an explanation which we prefer, with Rosenmüller and Gesenius, to the idea that ירע is a secondary verb to רעע, fut. ירע. לו is an ethical dative (as in Psa 120:6 and Psa 123:4), throwing the action or the pathos inwardly (see Psychology, p. 152). The heart of the prophet participates in this pain with which Moab is agitated throughout; for, as Rashi observes, it is just in this that the prophets of Israel were distinguished from heathen prophets, such as Balaam for example, viz., that the calamities which they announced to the nations went to their own heart (compare Isa 21:3-4, with Isa 22:4). Isa 15:5-6

The difficult words in which the prophet expresses this sympathy we render as follows: “My heart, towards Moab it crieth out; its bolts reached to Zoar, the three-year-old heifer.” The Lamed in l'Moab is the same both here and in Isa 16:11 as in Isa 14:8-9, viz., “turned toward Moab.” Moab, which was masculine in Isa 15:4, is feminine here. We may infer from this that עד־צער בריחה is a statement which concerns Moab as a land. Now, berichim signifies the bolts in every other passage in which it occurs; and it is possible to speak of the bolts of a land with just as much propriety as in Lam 2:9 and Jer 51:30 (cf., Jon 2:7) of the bolts of a city. And the statement that the bolts of this land went to Zoar is also a very appropriate one, for Kir Moab and Zoar formed the southern fortified girdle of the land; and Zoar, on the south-western tongue of land which runs into the Dead Sea, was the uttermost fortress of Moab, looking over towards Judah; and in its depressed situation below the level of the sea it formed, as it were, the opposite pole of Kir Moab, the highest point in the high land itself. Hence we agree with Jerome, who adopts the rendering vectes ejus usque ad Segor, whereas all the modern translators have taken the word in the sense of fugitives. ‛Eglath sheilshiyyâh, which Rosenmüller, Knobel, Drechsler, Meier, and others have taken quite unnecessarily as a proper name, is either in apposition to Zoar or to Moab. In the former case it is a distinguishing epithet. An ox of the three years, or more literally of the third year (cf., meshullesheth, Gen 15:9), i.e., a three-year-old ox, is one that is still in all the freshness and fulness of its strength, and that has not yet been exhausted by the length of time that it has worn the yoke. The application of the term to the Moabitish nation is favoured by Jer 46:20, where Egypt is called “a very fair heifer” (‛eglâh yephēh-phiyyâh), whilst Babylon is called the same in Jer 50:11 (cf., Hos 4:16; Hos 10:11). And in the same way, according to the lxx, Vulg., Targum, and Gesenius, Moab is called juvenca tertii anni, h. e. indomita jugoque non assueta, as a nation that was still in the vigour of youth, and if it had hitherto borne the yoke, had always shaken it off again. But the application of it to Zoar is favoured (1.) by Jer 48:34, where this epithet is applied to another Moabitish city; (2.) by the accentuation; and (3.) by the fact that in the other case we should expect berı̄châh (the three-year-old heifer, i.e., Moab, is a fugitive to Zoar: vid., Luzzatto). Thus Zoar, the fine, strong, and hitherto unconquered city, is now the destination of the wildest flight before the foe that is coming from the north. A blow has fallen upon Joab, that is more terrible than any that has preceded it.

In a few co-ordinate clauses the prophet now sets before us the several scenes of mourning and desolation. “for the mountain slope of Luhith they ascend with weeping; for on the road to Horonayim they lift up a cry of despair. For the waters of Nimrim are waste places from this time forth: for the grass is dried up, the vegetation wasteth away, the green is gone.” The road to Luhith (according to the Onom. between Ar-Moab and Zoar, and therefore in the centre of Moabitis proper) led up a height, and the road to Horonayim (according to Jer 48:5) down a slope. Weeping, they ran up to the mountain city to hide themselves there (bo, as in Psa 24:3; in Jer 48:5 it is written incorrectly בּכי). Raising loud cries of despair, they stand in front of Horonayim, which lay below, and was more exposed to the enemy. יעערוּ is softened from יערערוּ (possibly to increase the resemblance to an echo), like כּוכב from כּבכּב. The Septuagint renders it very well, κραυγὴν συντριμμοῦ ἐξαναγεροῦσιν - an unaccustomed expression of intense and ever renewed cries at the threatening danger of utter destruction, and with the hope of procuring relief and assistance (sheber, as in Isa 1:28; Isa 30:26). From the farthest south the scene would suddenly be transferred to the extreme north of the territory of Moab, if Nimrim were the Nimra (Beth-Nimra, Talm. nimrin) which was situated near to the Jordan in Gilead, and therefore farther north than any of the places previously mentioned, and the ruins of which lie a little to the south of Salt, and are still called Nimrin. But the name itself, which is derived from the vicinity of fresh water (Arab. nemir, nemı̄r, clear, pure, sound), is one of frequent occurrence; and even to the south of Moabitis proper there is a Wadi Numere, and a brook called Moyet Numere (two diminutives: “dear little stream of Nimra”), which flows through stony tracks, and which formerly watered the country (Burckhardt, Seetzen, and De Saulcy). In all probability the ruins of Numere by the side of this wady are the Nimrim referred to here, and the waters of the brook the “waters of Nimrim” (me Nimrim). The waters that flowed fresh from the spring had been filled up with rubbish by the enemy, and would now probably lie waste for ever (a similar expression to that in Isa 17:2). He had gone through the land scorching and burning, so that all the vegetation had vanished. On the miniature-like short sentences, see Isa 29:20; Isa 33:8-9; Isa 32:10; and on היה לא (“it is not in existence,” or “it has become not,” i.e., annihilated), vid., Eze 21:32. Isa 15:7-9

As Moabitis has thus become a great scene of conflagration, the Moabites cross the border and fly to Idumaea. The reason for this is given in sentences which the prophet again links on to one another with the particle ci (for). “Therefore what has been spared, what has been gained, and their provision, they carry it over the willow-brook. For the scream has gone the round in the territory of Moab; the wailing of Joab resounds to Eglayim, and his wailing to Beeer-Elim. For the waters of Dimon are full of blood: for I suspend over Dimon a new calamity, over the escaped of Moab a lion, and over the remnant of the land.” Yithrâh is what is superfluous or exceeds the present need, and pekuddâh (lit. a laying up, depositio) that which has been carefully stored; whilst ‛âsâh, as the derivative passage, Jer 48:36, clearly shows (although the accusative in the whole of Isa 15:7 is founded upon a different view: see Rashi), is an attributive clause (what has been made, worked out, or gained). All these things they carry across nachal hâ‛arâbim, i.e., not the desert-stream, as Hitzig, Maurer, Ewald, and Knobel suppose, since the plural of ‛arâbâh is ‛arâboth, but either the Arab stream (lxx, Saad.), or the willow-stream, torrens salicum (Vulg.). The latter is more suitable to the connection; and among the rivers which flow to the south of the Arnon from the mountains of the Moabitish highlands down to the Dead Sea, there is one which is called Wadi Sufsaf, i.e., willow-brook (Tzaphtzâphâh is the name of a brook in Hebrew also), viz., the northern arm of the Seil el-Kerek. This is what we suppose to be intended here, and not the Wadi el-Ahsa, although the latter (probably the biblical Zered ^{▼▼Hence the Targ. II renders nachal zered “the brook of the willows.” See Buxtorf, Lex. chald. s.v. Zerad.)} is the boundary river on the extreme south, and separates Moab from Edom (Kerek from Gebal: see Ritter, Erdk. xv 1223-4). Wading through the willow-brook, they carry their possessions across, and hurry off to the land of Edom, for their own land has become the prey of the foe throughout its whole extent, and within its boundaries the cry of wailing passes from Eglayim, on the south-west of Ar, and therefore not far from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea (Eze 47:10), as far as Beer-elim, in the north-east of the land towards the desert (Num 21:16-18; עד must be supplied: Ewald, §351, a), that is to say, if we draw a diagonal through the land, from one end to the other. Even the waters of Dibon, which are called Dimon here to produce a greater resemblance in sound to dâm, blood, and by which we are probably to understand the Arnon, as this was only a short distance off (just as in Jdg 5:19 the “waters of Megiddo” are the Kishon), are full of blood, ^{▼▼דם מלאוּ, with munach (which also represents the metheg) at the first syllable of the verb (compare Isa 15:4, לּו ירעה, with mercha), according to Vened. 1521, and other good editions. This is also grammatically correct.} so that the enemy must have penetrated into the very heart of the land in his course of devastation and slaughter. But what drives them across the willow-brook is not this alone; it is as if they forebode that what has hitherto occurred is not the worst or the last. Jehovah suspends (shith, as in Hos 6:11) over Dibon, whose waters are already reddened with blood, nōsâphōth, something to be added, i.e., a still further judgment, namely a lion. The measure of Moab’s misfortunes is not yet full: after the northern enemy, a lion will come upon those that have escaped by flight or have been spared at home (on the expression itself, compare Isa 10:20; Isa 37:32, and other passages). This lion is no other than the basilisk of the prophecy against Philistia, but with this difference, that the basilisk represents one particular Davidic king, whilst the lion is Judah generally, whose emblem was the lion from the time of Jacob’s blessing, in Gen 49:9.

‏ Isaiah 16

Isa 16:1

But just because this lion is Judah and its government, the summons goes forth to the Moabites, who have fled to Edom, and even to Sela, i.e., Petra (Wady Musa), near Mount Hor in Arabia Petraea, to which it gave its name, to turn for protection to Jerusalem. “Send a land-ruler’s tribute of lambs from Sela desert-wards to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.” This v. is like a long-drawn trumpet-blast. The prophecy against Moab takes the same turn here as in Isa 14:32; Isa 18:7; Isa 19:16., Isa 23:18. The judgment first of all produces slavish fear; and this is afterwards refined into loving attachment. Submission to the house of David is Moab’s only deliverance. This is what the prophet, weeping with those that weep, calls out to them in such long-drawn, vehement, and urgent tones, even into the farthest hiding-place in which they have concealed themselves, viz., the rocky city of the Edomites. The tribute of lambs which was due to the ruling prince is called briefly car mōshēl-'eretz. This tribute, which the holders of the pasture-land so rich in flocks have hitherto sent to Samaria (2Ki 3:4), they are now to send to Jerusalem, the “mountain of the daughter of Zion” (as in Isa 10:32, compared with Isa 18:7), the way to which lay through “the desert,” i.e., first of all in a diagonal direction through the Arabah, which stretched downwards to Aelath. Isa 16:2

The advice does not remain without effect, but they embrace it eagerly.”And the daughters of Moab will be like birds fluttering about, a scared nest, at the fords of the Arnon.” “The daughters of Moab,” like “the daughters of Judah,” for example, in Psa 48:12, are the inhabitants of the cities and villages of the land of Moab. They were already like birds soaring about (Pro 27:8), because of their flight from their own land; but here, as we may see from the expression תהיינה ... והיה, the simile is intended to depict the condition into which they would be thrown by the prophet’s advice. The figure (cf., Isa 10:14) as well as the expression (cf., Isa 17:2) is thoroughly Isaiah's. It is a state of anxious and timid indecision, resembling the fluttering to and fro of birds, that have been driven away from their nest, and wheel anxiously round and round, without daring to return to their old home. In this way the daughters of Moab, coming out of their hiding-places, whether nearer or more remote, show themselves at the fords of the Arnon, that is to say, on the very soil of their old home, which was situated between the Arnon and Wady el-Ahsa, and which was now devastated by the hand of a foe. לארנון מעברות we should regard as in apposition to benoth Moab (the daughters of Moab), if ma‛bâroth signifies the coast-lands (like ‛ebrē in Isa 7:20), and not, as it invariably does, the fords. It is locative in its meaning, and is so accentuated. Isa 16:3-5

There they show themselves, on the spot to which their land once reached before it passed into the possession of Israel - there, on its farthest boundary in the direction towards Judah, which was seated above; and taking heart, address the following petitions to Zion, or to the Davidic court, on the other side. “Give counsel, form a decision, make thy shadow like night in the midst of noon; hide the outcasts, do not betray the wanderers. Let mine outcasts tarry in thee, Moab; be a covert to it from before the spoiler.” In their extremity they appeal to Zion for counsel, and the once proud but now thoroughly humbled Moabites place the decision of their fate in the hands of the men of Judah (so according to the Keri), and stand before Zion praying most earnestly for shelter and protection. Their fear of the enemy is so great, that in the light of the noon-day sun they desire to be covered with the protecting shade of Zion as with the blackness of night, that they may not be seen by the foe. The short-sentences correspond to the anxious urgency of the prayer (cf., Isa 33:8). Pelilâh (cf., peililyyâh, Isa 28:7) is the decision of a judge (pâlil); just as in Isa 15:5 sheilshiyyâh is the age and standing of three years. The figure of the shadow is the same as in Isa 30:2-3; Isa 32:2, etc.; nōdēd is the same as in Isa 21:14; niddâchai as in Isa 11:12; sēther as in Isa 32:2, and other passages; shōdēd as in Isa 33:1; mippenē as in Isa 21:15. The whole is word for word Isaiah's. There is no necessity to read nidchē instead of niddâc Mo'âb in Isa 16:4; still less is ay a collective termination, as in Isa 20:4. Nor are the words to be rendered “my outcasts ... of Moab,” and the expression to be taken as a syntaxis ornata (cf., Isa 17:6). On the contrary, such an expression is absolutely impossible here, where the speaker is alluding to himself. It is better to abide by the punctuation as we have it, with niddâchai (zakeph) closing the first clause of Isa 16:4, and Moab (tebir, which is subordinate to the following tiphchah, and with this to athnach) opening the second as an absolute noun. This is the way in which we have rendered it above: “Moab ... be a shield to it ... ” (though without taking lâmō as equivalent to lō).

The question then arises, By what means has Zion awakened such reverence and confidence on the part of Moab? This question is answered in Isa 16:4, Isa 16:5 : “For the extortioner is at an end, desolation has disappeared, treaders down are away from the land. And a throne is established by grace, and there sits thereon in truth in the tent of David one judging, and zealous for right, and practised in righteousness.” The imperial world-power, which pressed out both marrow and blood (mētz, a noun of the same form as lētz, like mı̄tz in Pro 30:33, pressure), and devastated and trod down everything (Isa 29:20; Isa 10:6; Isa 33:1, cf., Isa 16:8), is swept away from the land on this side of the Jordan; Jerusalem is not subject to it now, but has come forth more gloriously out of all her oppressions than ever she did before. And the throne of the kingdom of Judah has not fallen down, but by the manifestation of Jehovah’s grace has been newly established. There no longer sits thereon a king who dishonours Him, and endangers His kingdom; but the tent-roof of the fallen and now re-erected hut of David (Amo 9:11) is spread over a King in whom the truth of the promise of Jehovah is verified, inasmuch as justice and righteousness are realized through all that He does. The Messianic times must therefore have dawned (so the Targum understands it), since grace and truth (chesed ve'emeth) and “justice and righteousness” (mishpât ūtzedâkâh) are the divino-human signs of those times, and as it were their kindred genii; and who can here fail to recall to mind the words of Isa 9:6 (cf., Isa 33:5-6)? The king depicted here is the same as “the lion out of Judah,” threatened against Moab in Isa 15:9. Only by thus submitting to Him and imploring His grace will it escape the judgment. Isa 16:6

But if Moab does this, and the law of the history of Israel, which is that “a remnant shall return,” is thus reflected in the history of Moab; Isa 16:6 cannot possibly contain the answer which Moab receives from Zion, as the more modern commentators assume according to an error that has almost become traditional. On the contrary, the prophecy enters here upon a new stage, commencing with Moab’s sin, and depicting the fate of Moab in still more elegiac strains. “We have heard of the pride of Moab, the very haughty (pride), his haughtiness, and his pride, and his wrath, the falsehood of his speech.” The future self-humiliation of Moab, which would be the fruit of its sufferings, is here contrasted with the previous self-exaltation, of which these sufferings were the fruit. “We have heard,” says the prophet, identifying himself with his people. Boasting pompousness has hitherto been the distinguishing characteristic of Moab in relation to the latter (see Isa 25:11). The heaping up of words of the same verbal stem (cf., Isa 3:1) is here intended to indicate how thoroughly haughty was their haughtiness (cf., Rom 7:13, “that sin might become exceeding sinful”), and how completely it had taken possession of Moab. It boasted and was full of rage towards Israel, to which, so far as it retained its consciousness of the truth of Jehovah, the talk of Moab (בדיו from בדד = בדא, בטא, to talk at random) must necessarily appear as לא־כן, not-right, i.e., at variance with fact. These expressions of opinion had been heard by the people of God, and, as Jeremiah adds in Jer 48:29-30, by Israel’s God as well. Isa 16:7-8

Therefore the delightful land is miserably laid waste. “Therefore will Moab wail for Moab, everything will wail: for the grape-cakes of Kir-hareseth will ye whine, utterly crushed. For the fruit-fields of Heshbon have faded away: the vine of Sibmah, lords of the nations its branches smote down; they reached to Ja'zer, trailed through the desert: its branches spread themselves out wide, crossed over the sea.” The Lamed in l'Moab is the same as in Isa 15:5, and in la'ashishē, which follows here. Kir-hareseth (written Kir-heres in Isa 16:11, and by Jeremiah; compare 2Ki 3:25, where the vowel-pointing is apparently false): Heres or Hareseth may possibly refer to the glazed tiles or grooved stones. As this was the principal fortress of Moab, and according to Isa 15:1 it had already been destroyed, ‛ashishē appears to mean the “strong foundations,” - namely, as laid bare; in other words, the “ruins” (cf., Jer 50:15, and mōsedē in Isa 58:12). But in every other passage in which the word occurs it signifies a kind of cake; and as the devastation of the vines of Moab is made the subject of mourning afterwards, it has the same meaning here as in Hos 3:1, namely raisin-cakes, or raisins pressed into the form of cakes. Such cakes as these may have been a special article of the export trade of Kir. Jeremiah has altered 'ashishē into 'anshē (Jer 48:31), and thus made men out of the grapes. Hâgâh is to be understood in accordance with Isa 38:14; Isa 59:11 (viz., of the cooing of the dove); 'ac (in good texts it is written with mercha, not with makkeph) according to Deu 16:15. On the construction of the pluralet. shadmoth, compare Hab 3:17. We have rendered the clause commencing with baalē goyim (lords of the nations) with the same amphibolism as we find in the Hebrew. It might mean either “lords of the nations (domini gentium) smote down its branches” (viz., those of the vine of Sibmah; ^{▼▼In MSS Shibmah is written with gaya, in order that the two labials may be distinctly expressed.}hâlam being used as in Isa 41:7), or “its branches smote down (i.e., intoxicated) lords of the nations” (dominos gentium; hâlam having the same meaning as in the undisputed prophecy of Isaiah in Isa 28:1). As the prophet enlarges here upon the excellence of the Moabitish wine, the latter is probably intended. The wine of Sibmah was so good, that it was placed upon the tables of monarchs, and so strong that it smote down, i.e., inevitably intoxicated, even those who were accustomed to good wines. This Sibmah wine was cultivated, as the prophet says, far and wide in Moab - northwards as far as Ja'zer (between Ramoth, i.e., Salt, and Heshbon, now a heap of ruins), eastwards into the desert, and southwards across the Dead Sea - a hyperbolical expression for close up to its shores. Jeremiah defines yâm (the sea) more closely as yam Ja‛zer (the sea of Jazer; vid., Jer 48:32), so that the hyperbole vanishes. But what sea can the sea of Jazer be? Probably some celebrated large pool, like the pools of Heshbon, in which the waters of the Wady (Nahr) Sir, which takes its rise close by, were collected. Seetzen found some pools still there. The “sea” (yâm) in Solomon’s temple shows clearly enough that the term sea was also commonly applied to artificial basins of a large size; and in Damascus the marble basins of flowing water in the halls of houses are still called baharât; and the same term is applied to the public reservoirs in all the streets of the city, which are fed by a network of aqueducts from the river Baradâ. The expression “break through the desert” (tâ‛u midbâr) is also a bold one, probably pointing to the fact that, like the red wines of Hungary at the present time, they were trailing vines, which did not require to be staked, but ran along the ground. Isa 16:9

The beauties of nature and fruitfulness of the land, which come into the possession of any nation, are gifts from the riches of divine goodness, remnants of the paradisaical commencement of the history of man, and types of its paradisaical close; and for this very reason they are not matters of indifference to the spirit of prophecy. And for the same reason, it is not unworthy of a prophet, who predicts the renovation of nature and the perfecting of it into the beauty of paradise, to weep over such a devastation as that of the Moabitish vineyards which was now passing before his mind (cf., Isa 32:12-13).“Therefore I bemoan the vines of Sibmah with the weeping of Jazer; I flood thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh, that Hêdad hath fallen upon thy fruit-harvest and upon thy vintage.” A tetrastich, the Hebrew equivalent, in measure and movement, of a sapphic strophe. The circumstantiality of the vision is here swallowed up again by the sympathy of the prophet; and the prophecy, which is throughout as truly human as it is divine, becomes soft and flowing like an elegy. The prophet mingles his tears with the tears of Jazer. Just as the latter weeps for the devastated vines of Sibmah, so does he also weep. The form אריּוך, transposed from ארוּיך = ארוּך (cf., Ewald, §253, a, where it is explained as being a rare “voluntative” formation), corresponds to the elegiac tone of the whole strophe. Heshbon and Elealeh, those closely connected cities, with their luxuriant fields (shedemoth, Isa 16:8), are now lying in ruins; and the prophet waters them with tears, because hedad has fallen upon the fruit-harvest and vintage of both the sister cities. In other instances the term kâtzı̄r is applied to the wheat-harvest; but here it is used in the same sense as bâtzı̄r, to which it is preferred on account of Isaiah’s favourite alliteration, viz., with kaytz (compare, for example, the alliteration of mistor with sēther in Isa 4:6). That it does not refer to the wheat-harvest here, but to the vintage, which was nearly coincident with the fruit-harvest (which is called kaytz, as in Isa 28:4), is evident from the figure suggested in the word hēdâd, which was the shout raised by the pressers of the grapes, to give the time for moving their feet when treading out the wine (Isa 16:10; Jer 25:30). A hēdâd of this kind had fallen upon the rich floors of Heshbon-Elealeh, inasmuch as they had been trodden down by enemies - a Hedad, and yet no Hedad, as Jeremiah gives it in a beautiful oxymoron (Jer 48:33), i.e., no joyous shout of actual grape-treaders. Isa 16:10-11

The prophet, to whose favourite words and favourite figures Carmel belongs, both as the name of a place and as the name of a thing, now proceeds with his picture, and is plunged still more deeply into mourning. “And joy is taken away, and the rejoicing of the garden-land; and there is no exulting, no shouting in the vineyards: the treader treads out no wine in the presses; I put an end to the Hedad. Therefore my bowels sound for Moab like a harp, and my inside for Kir-heres.” It is Jehovah who says “I put an end;” and consequently the words, “My bowels sound like a harp,” or, as Jeremiah expresses it (Jer 48:36), like flutes, might appear to be expressive of the feelings of Jehovah. And the Scriptures do not hesitate to attribute mē‛ayim (viscera) to God (e.g., Isa 63:15; Jer 31:20). But as the prophet is the sympathizing subject throughout the whole of the prophecy, it is better, for the sake of unity, to take the words in this instance also as expressing the prophet’s feelings. Just as the hand or plectrum touches the strings of the harp, so that they vibrate with sound; so did the terrible things that he had heard Jehovah say concerning Moab touch the strings of his inward parts, and cause them to resound with notes of pain. By the bowels, or rather entrails (viscera), the heart, liver, and kidneys are intended - the highest organs of the Psyche, and the sounding-board, as it were, of those “hidden sounds” which exist in every man. God conversed with the prophet “in the spirit;” but what passed there took the form of individual impressions in the domain of the soul, in which impressions the bodily organs of the psychical life sympathetically shared. Thus the prophet saw in the spirit the purpose of God concerning Moab, in which he could not and would not make any change; but it threw his soul into all the restlessness of pain. Isa 16:12

The ultimate reason for this restlessness is, that Moab does not know the living God. “And it will come to pass, when it is seen that Moab is weary with weeping upon the mountain height, and enters into its sanctuary to pray, it will not gain anything.” נלאה נראה, a pictorial assonance, such as Isaiah delights in. נראה .ni st is transferred from the Israelitish worship (appearance before God in His temple) to the heathen; syntactically, si apparuerit, etc., with Vav before the apodosis. It would be with the Moabites as with the priests of Baal in the time of Elijah (1Ki 18:26.). Isa 16:13-14

The massa is now brought to a close, and there follows an epilogue which fixes the term of the fulfilment of what is not predicted now for the first time, from the standpoint of the anticipated history. “This is the word which Jehovah spake long ago concerning Moab. And now Jehovah speaketh thus: In three years, like years of a hireling, the glory of Moab is disgraced, together with all the multitude of the great; a remnant is left, contemptibly small, not great at all.” The time fixed is the same as in Isa 20:3. Of working time the hirer remits nothing, and the labourer gives nothing in. The statement as to the time, therefore, is intended to be taken exactly: three years, not more, rather under than over. Then will the old saying of God concerning Moab be fulfilled. Only a remnant, a contemptible remnant, will be left (וּשׁאר, cf., וּמשׂושׂ, Isa 8:6, in sense equivalent to ושׁאר); for every history of the nations is but the shadow of the history of Israel.

The massa in Isaiah 15:1-16:12 was a word that had already gone forth from Jehovah “long ago.” This statement may be understood in three different senses. In the first place, Isaiah may mean that older prophecies had already foretold essentially the same concerning Moab. But what prophecies? We may get an answer to this question from the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning Moab in Jer 48. Jeremiah there reproduces the massa Moab of the book of Isaiah, but interweaves with it reminiscences (1.) out of the mâshal on Moab in Num 21:27-30; (2.) out of Balaam’s prophecy concerning Moab in Num 24:17; (3.) out of the prophecy of Amos concerning Moab (Amo 2:1-3). And it might be to these earlier words of prophecy that Isaiah here refers (Hävernick, Drechsler, and others). But this is very improbable, as there is no ring of these earlier passages in the massa, such as we should expect if Isaiah had had them in his mind. Secondly, Isaiah might mean that Isa 15:1. contained the prophecy of an older prophet, which he merely brought to remembrance in order to connect therewith the precise tenor of its fulfilment which had been revealed to him. This is at present the prevailing view. Hitzig, in a special work on the subject (1831), as well as in his Commentary, has endeavoured to prove, on the ground of 2Ki 14:25, that in all probability Jonah was the author of the oracle which Isaiah here resumes. And Knobel, Maurer, Gustav Baur, and Thenius agree with him in this; whilst De Wette, Ewald, and Umbreit regard it as, at any rate, decidedly non-Messianic. If the conjecture that Jonah was the author could but be better sustained, we should heartily rejoice in this addition to the history of the literature of the Old Testament. But all that we know of Jonah is at variance with such a conjecture. He was a prophet of the type of Elijah and Elisha, in whom the eloquence of a prophet’s words was thrown altogether into the shade by the energy of a prophet’s deeds. His prophecy concerning the restoration of the kingdom of Israel to its old boundaries, which was fulfilled by the victories of Jeroboam II, we cannot therefore imagine to have been so pictorial or highly poetical as the massa Moab (which would only be one part of that prophecy) really is; and the fact that he was angry at the sparing of Nineveh harmonizes very badly with its elegiac softness and its flood of tears. Moreover, it is never intimated that the conquerors to whom Moab was to succumb would belong to the kingdom of Israel; and the hypothesis is completely overthrown by the summons addressed to Moab to send tribute to Jerusalem. But the conclusion itself, that the oracle must have originated with any older prophet whatever, is drawn from very insufficient premises. No doubt it is a thing altogether unparalleled even in Isaiah, that a prophecy should assume so thoroughly the form of a kinah, or lamentation; still there are tendencies to this in Isa 22:4 (cf., Isa 21:3-4), and Isaiah was an inexhaustible master of language of every character and colour. It is true we do light upon many expressions which cannot be pointed out anywhere else in the book of Isaiah, such as baalē goyim, hedâd, yelâlâh, yâra‛, yithrâh, mâhir, mētz, nosâphoth, pekuddâh (provision, possession); and there is something peculiar in the circular movement of the prophecy, which is carried out to such an extent in the indication of reason and consequence, as well as in the perpetually returning, monotonous connection of the sentences by ci (for) and ‛al-cēn (lâcēn, therefore), the former of which is repeated twice in Isa 15:1, three times in Isa 15:8-9, and four times in succession in Isa 15:5-6. But there is probably no prophecy, especially in chapters 13-23, which does not contain expressions that the prophet uses nowhere else; and so far as the conjunctions ci and a‛ l-cēn (lâcēn), are concerned, Isaiah crowds them together in other passages as well, and here almost to monotony, as a natural consequence of the prevailing elegiac tone. Besides, even Ewald can detect the characteristics of Isaiah in Isa 16:1-6; and you have only to dissect the whole rhetorically, syntactically, and philologically, with the carefulness of a Caspari, to hear throughout the ring of Isaiah’s style. And whoever has retained the impression which he brought with him from the oracle against Philistia, will be constrained to say, that not only the stamp and outward form, but also the spirit and ideas, are thoroughly Isaiah's. Hence the third possible conjecture must be the correct one. Thirdly, then, Isaiah may mean that the fate of Moab, which he has just proclaimed, was revealed to him long ago; and the addition made now is, that it will be fulfilled in exactly three years. מאז does not necessarily point to a time antecedent to that of Isaiah himself (compare Isa 44:8; Isa 48:3, Isa 48:5, Isa 48:7, with 2Sa 15:34). If we assume that what Isaiah predicts down to Isa 16:12 was revealed to him in the year that Ahaz died, and that the epilogue reckons from the third or tenth year of Hezekiah, in either case the interval is long enough for the mê'âz (from of old). And we decide in favour of this. Unfortunately, we know nothing certain as to the time at which the three years commence. The question whether it was Shalmanassar, Sargon, or Sennacherib who treated the Moabites so harshly, is one that we cannot answer. In Herodotus (ii. 141), Sennacherib is called “king of the Arabians and Assyrians;” and Moab might be included in the Arabians. In any case, after the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy in the Assyrian times, there was still a portion left, the fulfilment of which, according to Jer 48, was reserved for the Chaldeans. The Oracle Concerning Damascus and Israel - Isa 17:1-14

From the Philistines on the west, and the Moabites on the east, the prophecy relating to the neighbouring nations now turns, without any chronological order, to the people of Damascene Syria on the north. The curse pronounced on them, however, falls upon the kingdom of Israel also, because it has allied itself with heathen Damascus, in opposition to its own brother tribe to the south, as well as to the Davidic government; and by this unnatural alliance with a zâr, or stranger, had become a zâr itself. From the period of Hezekiah’s reign, to which the massa Moab belongs, at least so far as its epilogue is concerned, we are here carried back to the reign of Ahaz, and indeed far beyond “the year that Ahaz died” (Isa 14:28), to the very border of the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz - namely, to the time when the league for the destruction of Judah had only just been concluded. At the time when Isaiah incorporated this oracle in his collection, the threats against the kingdoms of Damascus and Israel had long been fulfilled. Assyria had punished both of them. And Assyria itself had also been punished, as the fourth turn in the oracle indicates. Consequently the oracle stands here as a memorial of the truthfulness of the prophecy; and it answers a further purpose still, viz., to furnish a rich prophetic consolation for the church of all times, when persecuted by the world, and sighing under the oppression of the kingdom of the world.

‏ Isaiah 17:1

Isa 17:1-3

The first turn: “Behold, Damascus must (be taken)away out of the number of the cities, and will be a heap of fallen ruins. The cities of Aroer are forsaken, they are given up to flocks, they lie there without any one scaring them away. And the fortress of Ephraim is abolished, and the kingdom of Damascus; and it happens to those that are left of Aram as to the glory of the sons of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts.” “Behold,” etc.: hinnēh followed by a participle indicates here, as it does everywhere else, something very near at hand. Damascus is removed מעיר (= עיר מהיות, cf., 1Ki 15:13), i.e., out of the sphere of existence as a city. It becomes מעי, a heap of ruins. The word is used intentionally instead of עי, to sound as much as possible like מעיר: a mutilated city, so to speak. It is just the same with Israel, which has made itself an appendage of Damascus. The “cities of Aroer” (gen. appos. Ges. §114, 3) represent the land to the east of the Jordan: there the judgment upon Israel (executed by Tiglath-pileser) first began. There were two Aroers: an old Amoritish city allotted to the tribe of Reuben, viz., “Aroer on the Arnon” (Deu 2:36; Deu 3:12, etc.); and an old Ammonitish one, allotted to the tribe of Gad, viz., “Aroer before Rabbah” (Rabbath, Ammon, Jos 13:25). The ruins of the former are Arair, on the lofty northern bank of the Mugib; but the situation of the latter has not yet been determined with certainty (see Comm. on Jos 13:25). The “cities of Aroer” are these two Aroers, and the rest of the cities similar to it on the east of the Jordan; just as “the Orions” in Isa 13:10 are Orion and other similar stars. We meet here again with a significant play upon the sound in the expression ‛ârē ‛Aro‛ēr (cities of Aroer): the name of Aroer was ominous, and what its name indicated would happen to the cities in its circuit. ערער means “to lay bare,” to pull down (Jer 51:58); and ערער, ערירי signifies a stark-naked condition, a state of desolation and solitude. After Isa 17:1 has threatened Damascus in particular, and Isa 17:2 has done the same to Israel, Isa 17:3 comprehends them both. Ephraim loses the fortified cities which once served it as defences, and Damascus loses its rank as a kingdom. Those that are left of Aram, who do not fall in the war, become like the proud citizens of the kingdom of Israel, i.e., they are carried away into captivity. All this was fulfilled under Tiglath-pileser. The accentuation connects ארם שׁאר (the remnant of Aram) with the first half of the verse; but the meaning remains the same, as the subject to יהיוּ is in any case the Aramaeans.