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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Isaiah 15:1 - 15:1
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Isa 15:1-9. The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters form one prophecy on Moab.
Lowth thinks it was delivered in the first years of Hezekiah’s reign and fulfilled in the fourth when Shalmaneser, on his way to invade Israel, may have seized on the strongholds of Moab. Moab probably had made common cause with Israel and Syria in a league against Assyria. Hence it incurred the vengeance of Assyria. Jeremiah has introduced much of this prophecy into his forty-eighth chapter.
Because - rather, “Surely”; literally, “(I affirm) that” [Maurer].
night - the time best suited for a hostile incursion (Isa 21:4; Jer 39:4).
Ar - meaning in Hebrew, “the city”; the metropolis of Moab, on the south of the river Arnon.
Kir - literally, “a citadel”; not far from Ar, towards the south.
He - Moab personified.
Bajith - rather, “to the temple” [Maurer]; answering to the “sanctuary” (Isa 16:12), in a similar context.
to Dibon - Rather, as Dibon was in a plain north of the Arnon, “Dibon (is gone up) to the high places,” the usual places of sacrifice in the East. Same town as Dimon (Isa 15:9).
to weep - at the sudden calamity.
over Nebo - rather “in Nebo”; not “on account of” Nebo (compare Isa 15:3) [Maurer]. The town Nebo was adjacent to the mountain, not far from the northern shore of the Dead Sea. There it was that Chemosh, the idol of Moab, was worshipped (compare Deu 34:1).
Medeba - south of Heshbon, on a hill east of Jordan.
baldness ... beard cut off - The Orientals regarded the beard with peculiar veneration. To cut one’s beard off is the greatest mark of sorrow and mortification (compare Jer 48:37).