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I have heard the reproach of Moab - God punished them for the cruel part they had taken in the persecutions of the Jews; for when they lay under the displeasure of God, these nations insulted them in the most provoking manner. See on Amos 1:13; (note), and Genesis 19:25; (note); Deuteronomy 29:23; (note); Isaiah 13:19; (note); Isaiah 34:13; (note); Jeremiah 49:18; (note); Jeremiah 50:40; (note).
I - Dionysius: “God, Who know all things, “I heard” that is, have known within Me, in My mind, not anew but from eternity, and now I shew in effect that I know it; wherefore I say that I hear, because I act after the manner of one who perceiveth something anew.” I, the just Judge, heard (see Isaiah 16:6; Jeremiah 48:39; Ezekiel 35:12-13). He was present and “heard,” even when, because He avenged not, He seemed not to hear, but laid it up in store with Him to avenge in the due time Deuteronomy 32:34-35.
The reproach of Moab and the reviling of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached My people - Both words, “reproached, reviled,” mean, primarily, cutting speeches; both are intensive, and are used of blaspheming God as unable to help His people, or reviling His people as forsaken by Him. If directed against man, they are directed against God through man. So David interpreted the taunt of Goliah, “reviled the armies of the living God” (1 Samuel 17:26, 1 Samuel 17:36, 1 Samuel 17:45, coll. 10. 25), and the Philistine cursed David “by his gods” 1 Samuel 17:43. In a Psalm David complains, “the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me” (Psalm 69:10 (9)); and a Psalm which cannot be later than David, since it declares the national innocency from idolatry, connects with their defeats, the voice of him “that reproacheth and blasphemeth” (Psalm 44:16 (17), joining the two words used here). The sons of Corah say, “with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, where is thy God?” Psalm 42:10. So Asaph, “The enemy hath reproached, the foolish people hath blasphemed Thy Name” Psalm 74:10, Psalm 74:18; and, “we are become a reproach to our neighbors. Wherefore should the pagan say, where is their God? render unto our neighbors - the reproach wherewith they have reproached Thee, O Lord” Psalm 79:4, Psalm 79:10, Psalm 79:12. And Ethan, “Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants - wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of Thine Anointed” Psalm 89:50-51.
In history the repeated blasphemies of Sennacherib and his messengers are expressed by the same words. In earlier times the remarkable concession of Jephthah, “Wilt not thou possess what Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? so whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out before us, them will we possess” Judges 11:24, implies that the Ammonites claimed their land as the gift of their god Chemosh, and that that war was, as that later by Sennacherib, waged in the name of the false god against the True.
The relations of Israel to Moab and Ammon have been so habitually misrepresented, that a review of those relations throughout their whole history may correct some wrong impressions. The first relations of Israel toward them were even tender. God reminded His people of their common relationship and forbade him even to take the straight road to his own future possessions, across their hand against their will. “Distress them not, nor contend with them,” it is said of each, “for I will not give thee of their land for a possession, for I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession” Deuteronomy 2:9, Deuteronomy 2:19. Idolaters and hostile as they were, yet, for their father‘s sake, their title to their land had the same sacred sanction, as Israel‘s to his. “I,” God says, “have given it to them as a possession.” Israel, to their own manifest inconvenience, “went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, but came not within the border of Moab” Judges 11:18. By destroying Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, Israel removed formidable enemies, who had driven Moab and Ammon out of a portion of the land which they had conquered from the Zamzummim and Anakim Deuteronomy 2:10, Deuteronomy 2:20-21, and who threatened the remainder, “Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites” Numbers 21:25, Numbers 21:31.
Heshbon, Dibon, Jahaz, Medeba, Nophah “were cities in the land of the Amorites, in” which “Israel dwelt.” The exclusion of Moab and Ammon from the congregation of the Lord to the tenth generation Deuteronomy 23:3 was not, of course, from any national antipathy, but intended to prevent a debasing intercourse; a necessary precaution against the sensuousness of their idolatries. Moab was the first in adopting the satanic policy of Balaam, to seduce Israel by sensuality to their idolatries; but the punishment was appointed to the partners of their guilt, the Midianites Numbers 25:17; 31, not to Moab. Yet Moab was the second nation, whose ambition God overruled to chasten His people‘s idolatries. Eglon, king of Moab, united with himself Ammon and Amalek against Israel. The object of the invasion was, not the recovery of the country which Moab had lost to the Amorites but, Palestine proper.
The strength of Moab was apparently not sufficient to occupy the territory of Reuben. They took possession only of “the city of palm trees” Judges 3:13; either the ruins of Jericho or a spot close by it; with the view apparently of receiving reinforcements or of securing their own retreat by the ford. This garrison enabled them to carry their forays over Israel, and to hold it enslaved for 18 years. The oppressiveness of this slavery is implied by the cry and conversion of Israel to the Lord, which was always in great distress. The memory of Eglon, as one of the oppressors of Israel, lived in the minds of the people in the days of Samuel 1 Samuel 12:9. In the end, this precaution of Moab turned to its own destruction, for, after Eglon was slain, Ephraim, under Ehud, took the fords, and the whole garrison, 10,000 of Moab‘s warriors, “every strong man and every man of might” Judges 3:29, were intercepted in their retreat and perished. For a long time after this, we hear of no fresh invasion by Moab. The trans-Jordanic tribes remained in unquestioned possession of their land for 300 years Judges 11:13, although claiming the land down to the Arnon, and already being in possession of the southernmost portion of that land, Aroer, since Israel smote him “from Aroer unto Minnith” Judges 11:33. The land then, according to a law recognized by nations, belonged by a twofold right to Israel;
(1) that it had been won, not from Moab, but from the conquerors of Moab, the right of Moab having passed to its conquerors;
(2) that undisputed and unbroken possession “for time immemorial” as we say, 300 years, ought not to be disputed.
The defeat by Jephthah stilled them for near 50 years until the beginning of Saul‘s reign, when they refused the offer of the “men of Jubesh-Gilead” to serve them, and, with a mixture of insolence and savagery, annexed as a condition of accepting that entire submission, “that I may thrust out all your right eyes, to lay it as a reproach to Israel” 1 Samuel 11:1-2. The signal victory of Saul 1 Samuel 11:11 still did not prevent Ammon, as well as Moab, from being among the enemies whom Saul “worsted”. The term “enemies” implies that “they” were the assailants. The history of Naomi shows their prosperous condition, that the famine, which desolated Judah Rth 1:1 , did not reach them, and that they were a prosperous land, at peace, at that time, with Israel. If all the links of the genealogy are preserved Rth 4:21-22 , Jesse, David‘s father, was grandson of a Moabitess, Ruth, and perhaps on this ground David entrusted his parents to the care of the king of Moab 1 Samuel 22:3-4.
Sacred history gives no hint, what was the cause of his terrible execution upon Moab. But a Psalm of David speaks to God of some blow, under which Israel had reeled. “O God, Thou hast abhorred us, and broken us in pieces; Thou hast been wroth: Thou hast made the land to tremble and cloven it asunder; heal its breaches, for it shaketh; Thou hast showed Thy people a hard thing, Thou hast made it drink wine of reeling” Psalm 60:3-5; and thereon David expresses his confidence that God would humble Moab, Edom, Philistia. While David then was engaged in the war with the Syrians of Mesopotamia and Zobah (Psalm 60:1-12 title), Moab must have combined with Edom in an aggressive war against Israel. “The valley of salt”, where Joab returned and defeated them, was probably within Judah, since “the city of salt” Joshua 15:62 was one of the six cities of the wilderness. Since they had defeated Judah, they must have been overtaken there on their return.
Yet this too was a religious war. “‹Thou,‘” David says “hast given a ‹banner to them that fear Thee,‘ to be raised aloft because of the truth” Psalm 60:4.
There is no tradition, that the kindred Psalm of the sons of Corah, Psalm 44:1-3; yet the inroad, by which they had suffered, was one of spoiling Psalm 44:10, Psalm 44:12, not of subdual. Yet this too was a religious war, from their neighbors. They were slain for the sake of God Psalm 44:22, they were covered with shame on account of the reproaches and blasphemies Psalm 44:13-14 of those who triumphed over God, as powerless to help; they were a scorn and derision to the petty nations around them. It is a Psalm of unshaken faith amid great prostration: it describes in detail what the lxth Psalm sums up in single heavy words of imagery; but both alike complain to God of what His people had to suffer for His sake.
The insolence of Ammon in answer to David‘s message of kindness to their new king, like that to the men of Jabesh Gilead, seems like a deliberate purpose to create hostilities. The relations of the previous king of Ammon to David, had been kind 2 Samuel 10:2-3, perhaps, because David being a fugitive from Israel, they supposed him to be Saul‘s enemy. The enmity originated, not with the new king, but with “the princes of the children of Ammon” 2 Samuel 10:3. David‘s treatment of these nations 2 Samuel 8:2; 2 Samuel 12:31 is so unlike his treatment of any others whom he defeated, that it implies an internecine warfare, in which the safety of Israel could only be secured by the destruction of its assailants.
Mesha king of Moab records one war, and alludes to others, not mentioned in Holy Scripture. He says, that before his own time, “Omri, king of Israel, afflicted Moab many days;” that “his son (Ahab) succeeded him, and he too said, ‹I will afflict Moab.‘” This affliction he explains to be that “Omri possessed himself of the land of Medeba” (expelling, it is implied, its former occupiers) “and that” (apparently, Israel), “dwelt therein,” “(in his days and in) the days of his son forty years.” He was also in possession of Nebo, and “the king of Israel” (apparently Omri,) “buil(t) Jahaz and dwelt in it, when he made war with me”. Jahaz was near Dibon. In the time of Eusebius, it was still “pointed out between Dibon and Medeba”.
Mesha says, “And I took it to annex it to Dibon.” It could not, according to Mesha also, have been south of the Arnon, since Aroer lay between Dibon and the Arnon, and Mesha would not have annexed to Dibon a town beyond the deep and difficult ravine of the Arnon, with Aroer lying between them. It was certainly north of the Arnon, since Israel was not permitted to come within the border of Moab, but it was at Jahaz that Sihon met them and fought the battle in which Israel defeated him and gained possession of his land, “from the Arnon to the Jabbok” Numbers 21:23-25. It is said also that “Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites from Aroer which is on the edge of the river Arnon”, and the city which is in the river unto Gilead Joshua 13:16, Joshua 13:18. Aroer on the edge of the river Arnon, and the city which is in the river” Arnon, again occur in describing the southern border of Reuben, among whose towns Jahaz is mentioned, with Beth-Baal-Meon and Kiriathaim, which have been identified.
The afflicting then of Moab by Omri, according to Mesha, consisted in this, that he recovered to Israel a portion of the allotment of Reuben, between 9 and 10 hours in length from north to south, of which, in the time of Israel‘s weakness through the civil wars which followed on Jeroboam‘s revolt, Moab must have dispossessed Reuben. Reuben had remained in undisturbed possession of it, from the first expulsion of the Amorites to the time at least of Rehoboam, about five hundred years.: “The men of Gad” still “dwelt in Ataroth,” Mesha says, “from time immemorial.”
The picture, which Mesha gives, is of a desolation of the southern portion of Reuben. For, “I rebuilt,” he says, “Baal-Meon, Kiriathaim, Aroer, Beth-bamoth, Bezer, Beth-Diblathaim, Beth-baal-Meon.” Of Beth-Bamoth, and probably of Bezer, Mesha says, that they had previously been destroyed. But Reuben would not, of course, destroy his own cities. They must then have been destroyed either by Mesha‘s father, who reigned before him, when invading Reuben, or by Omri, when driving back Moab into his own land, and expelling him from these cities. “Possibly” they were dismantled only, since Mesha speaks only of Omri‘s occupying Medeba, Ataroth, and Jahaz. He held these three cities only, leaving the rest dismantled, or dismantling them, unable to place defenders in them, and unwilling to leave them as places of aggression for Moab. But whether they ever were fortified towns at all, or how they were desolated, is mere conjecture. Only they were desolated in these wars.
But it appears from Mesha‘s own statement, that neither Omri nor Ahab invaded Moab proper. For in speaking of his successful war and its results, he mentions no town south of the Arnon. He must have been a tributary king, but not a foot of his land was taken. The subsequent war was not a mere revolt, nor was it a mere refusal to pay tribute, of which Mesha makes no complaint. Nor could the tribute have been oppressive to him, since the spoils, left in the encampment of Moab and his allies shortly after his revolt, is evidence of such great wealth. The refusal to pay tribute would have involved nothing further, unless Ahaziah had attempted to enforce it, as Hezekiah refused the tribute to Assyria, but remained in his own borders. But Ahaziah, unlike his brother Jehoram who succeeded him, seems to have undertaken nothing, except the building of some ships for trade 2 Chronicles 20:35-36. Mesha‘s war was a renewal of the aggression on Reuben.
Heshbon is not mentioned, and therefore must, even after the war, have remained with Reuben.
Mesha‘s own war was an exterminating war, as far as he records it. “I fought against the city,” (Ataroth), he says, “and took it, and killed all the mighty of the city for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and of Moab;” “I fought against it (Nebo) from break of day until norm and took it, and slew all of it, 7,000 men; the ladies and maidens I devoted to Ashtar Chemosh;” to be desecrated to the degradations of that sensual idolatry. The words too “Israel perished with an everlasting destruction” stand clear, whether they express Mesha‘s conviction of the past or his hope of the future.
The war also, on the part of Moab, was a war of his idol Chemosh against God. Chemosh, from first to last, is the agent. “Chemosh was angry with his land;” “Chemosh (was pleased) with it in my days;” “I killed the mighty for the well-pleasing of Chemosh;” “I took captive thence all (… )and dragged it along before Chemosh at Kiriath;” “Chemosh said to me, Go and take Nebo against Israel;” “I devoted the ladies and maidens to Ashtar-Chemosh;” “I took thence the vessels of ihvh and dragged them before Chemosh;” “Chemosh drove him (the king of Israel) out before (my face);” “Chemosh said to me, Go down against Horonaim.” “Chemosh (… )it in my days.”
Contemporary with this aggressive war against Israel must have been the invasion by “the children of Moab and the children of Ammon, the great multitude from beyond the sea, from Syria” 2 Chronicles 20:1-2, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, which brought such terror upon Judah. It preceded the invasion of Moab by Jehoshaphat in union with Jehoram and the king of Edom. For the invasion of Judah by Moab and Ammon took place, while Ahab‘s son, Ahaziah, was still living. For it was after this, that Jehoshaphat joined with Ahaziah in making ships to go to Tarshish. But the expedition against Moab was in union with Jehoram who succeeded Ahaziah. The abundance of wealth which the invaders of Judah brought with them, and the precious jewels with which they had adorned themselves, show that this was no mere marauding expedition, to spoil; but that its object was, to take possession of the land or at least of some portion of it.
They came by entire surprise on Jehoshaphat, who heard of them first when they were at Hazazon-Tamar or Engedi, some 36 12 miles from Jerusalem. He felt himself entirely unequal to meet them, and cast himself upon God. There was a day of public humiliation of Judah at Jerusalem. “Out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord” 2 Chronicles 20:4. Jehoshaphat, in his public prayer, owned, “we have no might against this great company which cometh against us; neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon Thee” 2 Chronicles 20:13. He appeals to God, that He had forbidden Israel to invade Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, so that they turned away from them and destroyed them not; and now these rewarded them by “coming to cast us out of Thy possession which Thou hast given us to inherit” 2 Chronicles 20:10. One of the sons of Asaph foretold to the congregation, that they might go out fearlessly, for they should not have occasion to fight.
A Psalm, ascribed to Asaph, records a great invasion, the object of which was the extermination of Israel. “They have said; Come and let us cut them off from” being “a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” Psalm 83:4. It had been a secret confederacy. “They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people” Psalm 83:3. It was directed against God Himself, that is, His worship and worshipers. “For they have taken counsel in heart together; against Thee do they make a covenant” Psalm 83:5. It was a combination of the surrounding petty nations; Tyre on the north, the Philistines on the west; on the south the Amalekites, Ishmaelites, Hagarenes; eastward, Edom, Gebal, Moab, Ammon. But its most characteristic feature was, that Assur (this corresponds with no period after Jehoshaphat) occupies a subordinate place to Edom and Moab, putting them forward and helping “them.” “Assur also,” Asaph says, “is joined with them; they have become an arm to the children of Lot” Psalm 83:8. This agrees with the description, “there is come against thee a great multitude from beyond the sea, from Syria.”
Scripture does not record, on what ground the invasion of Moab by Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, with the tributary king of Edom, was directed against Moab proper; but it was the result doubtless of the double war of Moab against Reuben and against Judah. It was a war, in which the strength of Israel and Moab was put forth to the utmost. Jehoram had mustered all Israel 2 Kings 3:6; Moab had gathered all who had reached the age of manhood and upward, “everyone who girded on a girdle and upward” 2 Kings 3:21. The three armies, which had made a seven days‘ circuit in the wilderness, were on the point of perishing by thirst and falling into the hands of Moab, when Elisha in God‘s name promised them the supply of their want, and complete victory over Moab. The eager cupidity of Moab, as of many other armies, became the occasion of his complete overthrow. The counsel with which Elisha accompanied his prediction, “ye shall smite every fenced city and every choice city, and every good tree ye shall fell, and all springs of water ye shall stop up, and every good piece of land ye shall waste with stones” 2 Kings 3:19, was directed, apparently, to dislodge an enemy so inveterate. For water was essential to the fertility of their land and their dwelling there. We hear of no special infliction of death, like what Mesha records of himself. The war was ended by the king of Moab‘s sacrificing the heir-apparent of the king of Edom, which naturally created great displeasure against Israel, in whose cause Edom thus suffered, so that they departed to their own land and finally revolted.
Their departure apparently broke up the siege of Ar and the expedition. Israel apparently was not strong enough to carry on the war without Edom, or feared to remain with their armies away from their own land, as in the time of David, of which Edom might take the advantage. We know only the result.
Moab probably even extended her border to the south by the conquest of Horonaim.
After this, Moab is mentioned only on occasion of the miracle of the dead man, to whom God gave life, when cast into Elisha‘s sepulchre, as he came in contact with his bones. Like the Bedouin now, or the Amalekites of old, “the bands of Moab came into the land, as the year came” 2 Kings 13:20. Plunder, year by year, was the lot of Israel at the hands of Moab.
On the east of Jordan, Israel must have remained in part (as Mesha says of the Gadites of Arocr) in their old border. For after this, Hazael, in Jehu‘s reign, smote Israel “from Aroer which is by the river Arnon” 2 Kings 10:33; and at that time probably Amman joined with him in the exterminating war in Gilead, destroying life before it had come into the world, “that they might enlarge their border”. Jeroboam ii, 825 b.c.; restored Israel “to the sea of the plain” Deuteronomy 3:17) to its northern extremity, lower in latitude than Heshbon, yet above Nebo and Medeba, lcaving accordingly to Moab all which it had gained by Mesha. Uzziah, a few years later, made the Ammonites tributaries 2 Chronicles 26:8; 810 b.c. But 40 years later 771 b.c., Pul, and, after yet another 30 years, 740, Tiglath-pileser having carried away the trans-Jordanic tribes 1 Chronicles 5:26, Moab again possessed itself of the whole territory of Reuben. Probably before.
For 726 b.c., when Isaiah foretold that “the glory of Moab should be contemned with all that great multitude” Isaiah 16:14, he hears the wailing of Moab throughout all his towns, and names all those which had once been Reuben‘s and of whose conquest or possession Moab had boasted Isaiah 15:1-2, Isaiah 15:4, Nebo, Medeba, Dibon, Jahaz, Baiith; as also those not conquered then Isaiah 15:4-5, Isaiah 15:1, Heshbon, Elealeh; and those of Moab proper, Luhith, Horonaim, and its capitals, Ar-Moab and Kir-Moab. He hears their sorrow, sees their desolation and bewails with their weeping Isaiah 16:9. He had prophesied this before, and now, three years Isaiah 16:13-14 before its fulfillment by Tiglath-Pileser, he renews it. This tender sorrow for Moab has more the character of an elegy than of a denunciation; so that he could scarcely lament more tenderly the ruin of his own people.
He mentions also distinctly no sin there except pride. The pride of Moab seems something of common notoriety and speech. “We have heard” Isaiah 16:6. Isaiah accumulates words, to express the haughtiness of Moab; “the pride of Moab; exceeding proud; his pride and his haughtiness and his wrath,” pride overpassing bounds, upon others. His words seem to be formed so as to keep this one bared thought before us, as if we were to say “pride, prideful, proudness, pridefulness;” and withal the unsubstantialness of it all, “the unsubstantiality of his lies.” Pride is the source of all ambition; so Moab is pictured as retiring within her old bounds, “the fords of Arnon,” and thence asking for aid; her petition is met by the counter-petition, that, if she would be protected in the day of trouble, the out-casts of Israel might lodge with her now: “be thou a covert to her from the face of the spoiler” Isaiah 16:4-5. The prophecy seems to mark itself out as belonging to a time, after the two and a half tribes had been desolated, as stragglers sought refuge in Moab, and when a severe infliction was to come on Moab: “the Isaiah 16:14 remnant” shall be “small, small not great.”
Yet Moab recovered this too. It was a weakening of the nation, not its destruction. Some 126 years after the prophecy of Isaiah, 30 years after the prophecy of Zephaniah, Moab, in the time of Jeremiah, was in entire prosperity, as if no visitation had ever come upon her. What Zephaniah says of the luxuriousness of his people, Jeremiah says of Moab; “Moab is one at ease from his youth; he is resting on his lees; and he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity” Jeremiah 48:11. They “say, We are mighty and strong men for the war” Jeremiah 48:14. Moab was a “strong staff, a beautiful rod” Jeremiah 48:17; “he magnified himself against the Lord” Jeremiah 48:26; “Israel was a derision to him” Jeremiah 48:27; “he skipped for joy” at his distress. Jeremiah repeats and even strengthens Isaiah‘s description of his pride; “his pride, proud” Jeremiah 48:29, he repeats, “exceedingly; his loftiness,” again “his pride, his arrogancy, and the haughtiness of his heart.”
Its “strongholds” Jeremiah 48:18 were unharmed; all its cities, “far and near,” are counted one by one, in their prosperity Jeremiah 48:1, Jeremiah 48:3, Jeremiah 48:5, Jeremiah 48:21-24; its summer-fruits and vintage were plenteous; its vines, luxuriant; all was joy and shouting. Whence should this evil come? Yet so it was with Sodom and Gomorrah just before its overthrow. It was, for beauty, “a paradise of God; well-watered everywhere; as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt” Genesis 13:10. In the morning “the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of the furnace” Genesis 19:28. The destruction foretold by Jeremiah is far other than the affliction spoken of by Isaiah. Isaiah prophesies only a visitation, which should reduce her people: Jeremiah foretells, as did Zephaniah, captivity and the utter destruction of her cities. The destruction foretold is complete. Not of individual cities only, but of the whole he saith, “Moab is destroyed” Jeremiah 48:4. “The spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape, and the valley shall perish and the high places shall be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoken” Jeremiah 48:8.
Moab himself was to leave his land. “Flee, save your lives, and ye shall be like the heath in the wilderness. Chemosh shall go forth into captivity; his priests and his princes together. Give pinions unto Moab, that it may flee and get away, and her cities shall be a desolation, for there is none to dwell therein” Jeremiah 17:6. It was not only to go into captivity, but its home was to be destroyed. “I will send to her those who shall upheave her, and they shall upheave her, and her vessels they shall empty, all her flagons” (all that aforetime contained her) “they shall break in pieces” Jeremiah 48:12. Moab is destroyed and her cities” Jeremiah 48:15; “the spoiler of Moab is come upon her; he hath destroyed the strongholds” Jeremiah 48:18. The subsequent history of the Moabites is in the words, “Leave the cities and dwell in the rock, dwellers of Moab, and be like a dove which nesteth in the sides of the mouth of the pit” Jeremiah 48:28. The purpose of Moab and Ammon against Israel which Asaph complains of, and which Mesha probably speaks of, is retorted upon her. “In Heshbon they have devised evil against it; come and let us cut it off from being a nation. Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against the Lord” Jeremiah 48:2, Jeremiah 48:42.
Whence should this evil come? They had, with the Ammonites, been faithful servants of Nebuchadnezzar against Judah 2 Kings 24:2. Their concerted conspiracy with Edom, Tyre, Zidon, to which they invited Zedekiah (Jeremiah 27:2 following), was dissolved. Nebuchadnezzars march against Judaea did not touch them, for they “skipped with joy” Jeremiah 48:27 at Israel‘s distresses. The connection of Baalis, king of the Ammonites, with Ishmael Jeremiah 40:14; Jeremiah 41:10 the assassin of Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land 2 Kings 25:22-26; Jeremiah 40:6; Jeremiah 41:1 out of their own people, probably brought down the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar. For Chaldaeans too were included in the slaughter Jeremiah 41:3. The blow seems to have been aimed at the existence of the people, for the murder of Gedaliah followed upon the rallying of the Jews “out of all the places whither they had been driven” Jeremiah 40:12. It returned on Ammon itself; and on Moab who probably on this, as on former occasions, was associated with it. The two nations, who had escaped at the destruction of Jerusalem, were warred upon and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar in the 23d year of his reign, the 5th after the destruction of Jerusalem.
And then probably followed that complete destruction and disgraced end, in which Isaiah, in a distinct prophecy, sees Moab trodden down by God as “the heap of straw is trodden down in the waters (the kethib) of the dunghill, and he (Moab) stretcheth forth his hands in the midst thereof, as the swimmer stretcheth forth his hands to swim, and He, God, shall bring down his pride with the treacheries of his hands” Isaiah 25:10-12. It speaks much of the continued hostility of Moab, that, in prophesying the complete deliverance for which Israel waited, the one enemy whose destruction is foretold, is Moab and those pictured by Moab. “We have waited for Him and He will save us - For in this mountain (Zion) shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under Him” Isaiah 25:9-10.
After this, Moab, as a nation, disappears from history. Israel, on its return from the captivity, was again enticed into idolatry by Moabite and Anmonite wives, as well as by those of Ashdod and others Nehemiah 13:23-26, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Egyptians, Amorites Ezra 9:1. Sanballat also, who headed the opposition to the rebuilding of Jerusalem, was a Moabite Nehemiah 2:10; Nehemiah 4:1-8; Tobiah, an Ammonite Nehemiah 4:2, Nehemiah 4:9. Yet it went no further than intrigue and the threat of war. They were but individuals, who cherished the old hostility. In the time of the Maccabees, the Ammonites, not Moab, “with a mighty power and much people” were in possession of the Reubenite cities to Jazar (Ezekiel 25:3; and against the land of Israel, because it was desolated; and against the house of Judah, because they went into captivity.” The like temper is shown in the boast, “Because that Moab and Seir do say; Behold the house of Judah is like unto the pagan” Ezekiel 25:8, that is, on a level with them.
Forbearing and long-suffering as Almighty God is, in His infinite mercy, He does not, for that mercy‘s sake, bear the direct defiance of Himself. He allows His creatures to forget Him, not to despise or defy Him. And on this ground, perhaps, He gives to His prophecies a fulfillment beyond what the letter requires, that they may be a continued witness to Him. The Ammonites, some 1600 years ago, ceased to “be remembered among the nations.” But as Nineveh and Babylon, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, by being what they are, are witnesses to His dealings, so the way in which Moab and Ammon are still kept desolate is a continued picture of that first desolation. Both remain rich, fertile; but the very abundance of their fertility is the cause of their desolation. God said to Ammon, as the retribution on his contumely: “therefore, behold, I give thee to the children of the East for a possession, and they shall set their encampments in thee, and place their dwellings in thee; “they” shall eat thy fruit and “they” shall drink thy milk; and I will make Rabbah a dwelling-place of camels, and the children of Ammon a couchingplace for flocks” Ezekiel 25:4-5.
Of Moab He says also, “I will open the side of Moab from the cities, which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, unto the men of the East with the Ammonites” Ezekiel 25:8, Ezekiel 25:10. And this is an exact description of the condition of the land at this day. All travelers describe the richness of the soil. We have seen this as to Moab. But the history is one and the same. One of the most fertile regions of the world, full of ruined towns, destitute of villages or fixed habitations, or security of property, its inhabitants ground down by those, who have succeeded the Midianites and the Amalekites, “the children of the East.” “Thou canst not find a country like the Belka,” says the Arabic proverb, but “the inhabitants cultivate patches only of the best soil in that territory when they have a prospect of being able to secure the harvest against the invasion of enemies.” “We passed many ruined cities,” said Lord Lindsay, “and the country has once been very populous, but, in 35 miles at least, we did not see a single village; the whole country is one vast pasturage, overspread by the flocks and herds of the Anezee and Beni Hassan Bedouins.”
The site of Rabbath Amman was well chosen for strength. Lying “in a long valley” through which a stream passed, “the city of waters” could not easily be taken, flor its inhabitants compelled to surrender from hunger or thirst. Its site, as the eastern bound of Peraea, “the last place where water could be obtained and a frontier fortress against the wild tribes beyond”, marked it for preservation. In Greek times, the disputes for its possession attest the sense of its importance. In Roman, it was one of the chief cities of the Decapolis, though its population was said to be a mixture of Egyptians, Arabians, Phoenicians. The coins of Roman Emperors to the end of the second century contain symbols of plenty, where now reigns utter desolation.
In the 4th century, it and two other now ruined places, Bostra and Gerasa, are named as “most carefully and strongly walled.” It was on a line of rich commerce filled with strong places, in sites well selected for repelling the invasions of the neighboring nations. Centuries advanced. It was greatly beautified by its Roman masters. The extent and wealth of the Roman city are attested both by the remains of noble edifices on both sides of the stream, and by pieces of pottery, which are the traces of ancient civilized dwelling, strewed on the earth two miles from the city.: “At this place, Amman, as well as Gerasa and Gamala, three colonial settlements within the compass of a day‘s journey from one another, there were five magnificent theaters and one ampitheater, besides temples, baths, aqueducts, naumachia, triumphal arches.”: “Its theater was the largest in Syria; its colonnade had at least 50 columns.” The difference of the architecture shows that its aggrandizement must have been the work of different centuries: its “castle walls are thick, and denote a remote antiquity; large blocks of stone are piled up without cement and still hold together as well as if recently placed.” It is very probably the same which Joab called David to take, after the city of waters had been taken; within it are traces of a temple with Corinthian columns, the largest seen there, yet “not of the best Roman times.”
Yet Amman, the growth of centuries, at the end of our 6th century was destroyed. For “it was desolate before Islam, a great ruin.”: “No where else had we seen the vestiges of public magnificence and wealth in such marked contrast with the relapse into savage desolation.” But the site of the old city, so well adapted either for a secure refuge for its inhabitants or for a secure depository for their plunder, was, on that very ground, when desolated of its inhabitants, suited for what God, by Ezekiel, said it would become, a place, where the men of the East should stable their flocks and herds, secure from straying. What a change, that its temples, the center of the worship of its successive idols, or its theaters, its places of luxury or of pomp, should be stables for that drudge of man, the camel, and the stream which gave it the proud title of “city of waters” their drinking trough! And yet of the cities whose destruction is prophesied, this is foretold of Rabbah alone, as in it alone is it fulfilled! “Ammon,” says Lord Lindsay, “was situated on both sides of the stream; the dreariness of its present aspect is quite indescribable. It looks like the abode of death; the valley stinks with dead camels; one of them was rotting in the stream; and though we saw none among the ruins, they were absolutely “covered” in every direction with their dung.” “Bones and skulls of camels were mouldering there (in the area of the ruined theater) and in the vaulted galleries of this immense structure.” “It is now quite deserted, except by the Bedouins, who water their flocks at its little river, descending to it by a “wady,” nearly opposite to a theater (in which Dr. Mac Lennan saw great herds and flocks) and by the “akiba.”
Re-ascending it, we met sheep and goats by thousands, and camels by hundreds.” Another says, “The space intervening between the river and the western hills is entirely covered with the remains of buildings, now only used for shelter for camels and sheep.” Buckingham mentions incidentally, that he was prevented from sleeping at night “by the bleating of flocks and the neighing of horses, barking of dogs etc.” Another speaks of “a small stone building in the Acropolis now used as a shelter for flocks.” While he was “traversing the ruins of the city, the number of goats and sheep, which were driven in among them, was exceedingly annoying, however remarkable, as fulfilling the prophecies”. “Before six tents fed sheep and camels”. “Ezekiel points just to these Ezekiel 20:5, which passage Seetzen cites. And in fact the ruins are still used for such stalls.”
The prophecy is the very opposite to that upon Babylon, though both alike are prophecies of desolation. Of Babylon Isaiah prophesies, “It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it bedwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make fold there, but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and the ostriches shall dwell there, and the jackals shall cry in their desolate houses, and howling creatures in their pleasant palaces” Isaiah 13:20. And the ruins are full of wild beasts. Of Rabbah, Ezekiel prophesied that it should be “a possession for the men of the East, and I” Ezekiel 25:4-5, God says, “will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couching-place for flocks;” and man‘s lawlessness fulfills the will and word of God.