When it is seen that Moab, etc. "When Moab shall see," etc. - For נראה nirah , a MS. reads ראה raah , and so the Syriac and Chaldee. "Perhaps נראה כי ki nirah is only a various reading of נלאה כי ki nilah ." Secker. A very probable conjecture. read more
THE BURDEN OF MOAB ( CONTINUED ). This portion of the "burden" is divided into three sections. In section 1 (from Isaiah 16:1 to the end of Isaiah 16:5 ) an offer of mercy is made to Moab on certain conditions, viz. that she return to her allegiance to the house of David, and show kindness to fugitive Israelites. In section 2 ( Isaiah 16:6-12 ) she is supposed to have rejected this offer, and is threatened (as in Isaiah 15:1-9 .) with severe punishment. In section 3... read more
Guilty arrogance and commendable compassion. I. THE GUILT OF ARROGANCE . ( Isaiah 16:6 .) Moab was proud, haughty, insolent, boastful; she lifted up herself in contemptuous defiance of Judah, of the city of God; and the prophet of Jehovah speaks of her arrogance as a very great offence in 'the eyes of the supreme Disposer. There is nothing which is more emphatically, or more repeatedly condemned in Scripture than haughtiness of heart or spiritual pride; it is a very rank offence... read more
Every one shall howl ; rather, the whole of it shall howl ; i.e. the entire nation collectively (comp. Herod; 8:99; 9:24). For the foundations of Kir-Hareseth shall ye mourn . The word here translated "foundations" is elsewhere always rendered "flagons" or "flagons of wine" ( 2 Samuel 6:19 ; So 2 Samuel 2:5 ; Hosea 3:1 ). And this rendering is more agreeable to the context than "foundations," since it is the loss of the products of the soil which is threatened in the next three... read more
Lament over Moab. I. MOAB 'S SELF - LAMENTATION . "Moab will wail for Moab; everything will wail." In her misery and distress, she reflects on her beauty. A fair land is like a fair maiden, and her desolation excites the like poignant self-pity. "I know not a greater grief," said Dante, "than to recall the happy time in the midst of distress." The picture of Moab ' s former happiness . The vineyard and all its gladdening associations represent the endearing charms of the land.... read more
The fields of Heshbon (see the comment on Isaiah 15:4 ). The whole of the Mishor, or Belka, on the edge of which Hesbdn stands, is cultivable and capable of producing good crops. The Moabites stored water in reservoirs ( Song of Solomon 7:4 ), and made their country a garden. The vine of Sib-mah . "Sibmah" is mentioned in Numbers 32:8 and Joshua 13:19 among the towns of the Reubenites. According to Jerome ('Comment. in Esaiam'), it was less than half a mile distant from Heshbon.... read more
Therefore I will bewail (comp. Isaiah 15:5 , and see the Homiletics on that verse). With the weeping of Jazer . "With tears as genuine as Jazer's own" (Kay). O Heshbon and Elealeh (on the close connection of these two cities, see the comment on Isaiah 15:4 ). For the shouting , etc.; rather, for on thy summer fruits and on thy harvest a shouting is fallen . The "shouting" intended is that of the invading enemy, which replaces the ordinary joy-song of the vintagers (see Isaiah... read more
The sadness of a silent land. These verses bring before us the picture of a country from which, at the proper seasons, there rises no harvest and no vintage song. "Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in its vineyard there shall be no singing, neither shall there be shouting." In every age and every land the gladness of the people has found expression in the joy of harvest, and no picture of woe, want, and desolation could be so effective as this simple one of the... read more
The plentiful field ; Hebrew, Carmel. The word carmel seems to designate "garden," or "orchard ground" generally, without reference to the degree of fertility. It is generally rendered by our translators "fruitful field," which is right, if we regard "fruitful" as equivalent to "fruit-producing." No singing … no shouting . Those who have heard the vintage-songs in the north of Italy and elsewhere will appreciate the sadness of this silence. The treaders shall tread out no wine in their... read more
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Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 16:10
Neither shall there be shouting "An end is put to the shouting" - The Septuagint read השבת hishbeth , passive, and in the third person; rightly, for God is not the speaker in this place. The rendering of the Septuagint is πεπαυται γαρ κελευσμα , "the cry ceaseth;" which last word, necessary to the rendering of the Hebrew and to the sense, is supplied by MSS. Pachom. and 1. D. II., having been lost out of the other copies. read more