Jeremiah 48:40

DESTRUCTION AND RESTORATION

"For thus saith Jehovah: Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread out his wings against Moab. Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized, and the heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs. And Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against Jehovah. He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring upon him, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation, saith Jehovah."

"He shall fly as an eagle ..." (Jeremiah 48:40). The eagle here was Nebuchadnezzar's terrible army. This writer, as a child, witnessed a bald eagle's attack upon a coyote. The helplessness of the doomed animal was pitiful; and the swift, ferocious attack can never be forgotten. Moab was helpless before such a destroyer.

"The fear, and the pit, and the snare ..." (Jeremiah 48:43,44). These verses are almost identical with Isaiah 24:17-18; but if this expression was a popular proverb of that day, which it most probably was, there could be nothing surprising about its being found in Jeremiah as well as in Isaiah. In fact we have the same proverb with different elements in Amos 5:19, "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him!"