Jeremiah 48:4 - Exposition

Moab is destroyed. The mention of Moab in the midst of towns is certainly surprising. We should expect Ar-Moab. Her little ones . The received text, as it stands, is untranslatable, and our choice lies between the correction suggested by the vowel points, and the reading of the Septuagint and a few of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, "unto Zoar." In favour of the latter, which is adopted by Ewald and Graf, it may he urged that Zoar and Horenaim are mentioned together, not only in Jeremiah 48:34 , but also in Isaiah 15:5 , which has evidently been imitated in the following verse. It is not quite clear what "her little ones" in the first mentioned correction mean. Some think, the children; others, the poor; Hitzig prefers the small towns of Moab. On the site of "Zoar," see Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' but compare Canon Tristram in 'The Land of Moab.'