Isaiah 15:5 - Exposition

My heart shall cry out for Moab (comp. Isaiah 16:9 , Isaiah 16:11 ). The prophet sympathizes with the sufferings of Moab, as a kindred people ( Genesis 19:37 ), and perhaps as having, in the person of Ruth, furnished an ancestress to the Messiah ( Matthew 1:5 ). His fugitives ; literally, her fugitives . The country is here personified, instead of the people , the former being feminine, the latter masculine. Shall flee unto Zoar . Zoar, the "little" town, spared for Lot's sake ( Genesis 19:20-22 ), is placed by some at the northern, by others at the southern, extremity of the Dead Sea. The present passage makes in favor of the more southern site. An heifer of three years old . Those who defend this rendering refer the simile either to Zest, or to Moab, or to the fugitives. Having regard to the parallel passage of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 48:34 ), we may pronounce the last explanation to be the best. The resemblance to the heifer will consist in the cries uttered. To ninny critics, however, this idea appears harsh, and the alternative is proposed of regarding Eglath— the word translated "heifer"—as a place, and the epithet, "of three years old ," as really meaning "the third." Attempts are made to show the existence of three Eglaths in these parts; but they are not very successful; nor is any instance adduced of a city being distinguished from others of the same name by a numerical suffix. The rendering of the Authorized Version may therefore stand, the comparison being regarded as one of the fugitive Moabites to a heifer in its third year, " rushing along with loud, hopeless bellowings" (Kay). By the mounting up of Luhith . This ascent has not been identified. It should have been on the way from Moab proper to Zoar. The way of Horonaim . On the Moabite Stone Horonaim is mentioned as a town of the Edomites attacked and taken by Mesha (11:31-33). It lay probably south or southeast of the Dead Sea. The Moabites, flying kern their invaders, seek a refuge in the territories of Edom and Judah, weeping and wailing as they go.