Isaiah 16:14 - Exposition

But now . "Now"—an addition has been made to the prophecy. Isaiah is authorized to announce that in three years' time, counted as strictly as possible, the judgment pronounced shall fall on Moab; her "glory" shall be turned into shame, her "multitude" shall be cut off, and only a "remnant" shall be left, weak, small, and powerless. As the years of an hireling . Counted with the utmost exactness. A hireling would not consent to serve a day longer than his contract bound him, nor would his master consent that he should serve a day short of it. With all that great multitude. We have no means of accurately estimating the population of Moab. The entire area of the region which the Moabites inhabited seems to have been not more than fifteen hundred square miles. The greater part of it was, however, exceedingly fertile; and we are, perhaps, justified in allowing it a population of two hundred to the square mile, which is about that of Germany. This would give three hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom the adult males would be seventy-five thousand. Feeble ; literally, not powerful ; i.e. very much the contrary, very weak. Moab seems to have offered a very slight resistance to Asshur-bani-pal.