2 Kings 3:27

27. Took his eldest son His own son; not, as some have said, the son of the king of Edom. Amos 2:1, has no reference to this occasion.

Mesha’s eldest son, and heir of the throne, must have been the dearest idol of his heart, and his sacrifice shown the utter despair to which he was driven. The rabbies say, that in his despair the king of Moab asked his servants how Israel could work such miracles, and was told that it was owing to Abraham’s sacrifice of his only son at the command of God. He accordingly hastened to offer up his firstborn son, hoping to receive like favours of Heaven.

Offered him… upon the wall In sight of his own people and of all the hosts of the besiegers. The offering was doubtless made to the Moabitish god Chemosh, not to the God of Israel. Mesha supposed that his misfortunes were owing to the vengeance of his gods, whom he had in some way offended, and by this costly sacrifice he sought to propitiate them. Human sacrifices were common among many of the ancient heathen nations. The story of Iphigenia sufficiently shows the existence of the practice among the Greeks. It prevailed also among the Carthaginians, the Phenicians, and most of the nations in and around Palestine. Causing children to pass through fire to Molech (2 Kings 23:10; Deuteronomy 18:10) is an allusion to this abominable custom. Diodorus Siculus relates, that “when Agathocles was going to besiege Carthage the people, seeing the extremities to which they were reduced, ascribed their misfortunes to the anger of their god, in that they had latterly spared to offer him children nobly born, and had fraudulently put him off with the children of slaves and foreigners. To make an atonement for this crime two hundred children of the best families in Carthage were at once offered in sacrifice, and no less than three hundred of the citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves.” Philo, in a fragment preserved by Eusebius, says: “It was a custom among the ancients, on occasions of great distress, for the rulers of a city or nation, instead of leaving the entire population to destruction, to sacrifice the beloved of their children as a ransom to the vengeful deities.”

There was great indignation against Israel That is, according to some interpreters, there was great wrath on the part of the besieged Moabites against Israel for having driven them to such a terrible extremity. But why should Moabitish indignation against Israel cause the latter to abandon the siege? Keil, on the contrary, understands that this indignation was the wrath of God against Israel, first for having driven Mesha to such an extremity as to occasion his offering a human sacrifice, and then for abandoning the siege and leaving the city un-subdued. But this absurdly assumes that God was angry with Israel partly for doing the very thing he had, by his prophet, commanded them to do; (see note on 2 Kings 3:19;) and surely Israel could not justly be held responsible for the immolation of Mesha’s son. Then, further, the text clearly makes Israel’s abandoning of the siege the consequence, not the cause, of the indignation. It is better, therefore, to take the word here rendered against, ( על ,) in the sense of over. The meaning then would be: Great indignation an intense feeling of horror at the sight of the terribly loathsome spectacle on the wall of Kir-haraseth came over Israel; that is, pervaded the whole Israelitish army.

Departed from him From the king of Moab. They were so deeply disgusted with the king’s horrible sacrifice that they felt no longer willing to stay and complete the subjugation of his capital, but turned away in utter loathing and contempt. Whether they were justifiable in thus abandoning the siege, the sacred writer does not say.