Jeremiah 48
Goodbye for now, Moab
Moab is toast
1This is what the LORD of everyone and the God of Israel has to say about the nation of Moab:Oh Nebo. You’re toast.
Kiriathaim town, too,
Captured and put to shame.
Your city walls
Were an embarrassing failure.
Enemies in Heshbon [1] planned your death.
They said, “Let’s end that nation!”
Madman [2] town, you’re a goner, too.
The sword will run you through
And shut you up, dead as silence.
3Can you hear it?
They’re screaming in Horonaim, [3]
“We’re decimated! Massive destruction!”
4Children sob for their nation,
“Moab is gone. All gone.”
5They climb the hill to Luhith, [4]
Still sobbing bitterly.
They walk down into Horonaim,
They hear horrifying cries of shock and anguish.
6Run for your life or lose it.
Storm away like a wild desert donkey.
7You thought money and city walls would save you.
You’ll be a disappointed captive.
Your god Chemosh [5] will take a trip,
A journey into exile
With his priests and associates.
8The invaders will come to every town.
No town can avoid it.
Everyone in the valleys will die,
And everyone on the plains,
Just as the LORD said.
Moab: Ghost towns, salted fields
9Moab will fall.
No doubt about it.
Invaders will salt your fields. [6]
Moab will be a nation of ghost towns.
All the locals will disappear.
Curses on anyone showing mercy instead of the tip of the sword.
11Moab has had it easy from the beginning.
Life has been as smooth as wine.
No one has emptied their wine jugs.
No one has forced them into exile.
Life in Moab remains as delightful as ever.
12Well, the LORD says that's about to change.
I'm sending people to break their jars.
13Moab will become as ashamed of Chemosh
As Israel was of golden calf god [7] in Bethel.
14How can you say, “We are great warriors,
brave men in battle”?
15You're dead,
All you strong young men, slaughtered.
Moab is dead, too,
Every town decimated.
So says the King,
The LORD of everyone.
16Moab is about to die.
It’s going to happen soon.
Invaders take Moab’s glory
17Cry for Moab, neighboring nations.
Say, “Invaders broke the king’s scepter,
Then erased his kingdom.
Glory’s gone.”
Sit in the dirt, Dibon [8] daughter.
Moab’s killer has come.
And your walled cities are gone.
19Stand by the roadside, people of Aroer, [9]
And watch the fleeing men and women.
Ask them, “What’s going on?”
20Moab is broken.
Its honor is gone.
Scream the news by the Arnon River,
Moab is dead.
Moab’s Judgment Day
21It’s Judgment Day for the plateau towns:
Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath,
23Kiriathaim, Beth-gamul, and Beth-meon,
24Kerioth, Bozrah, and every Moab town near and far.
25They cut off Moab’s horn, [10]
They broke Moab’s arm.
The LORD says so.
26Moab thought a lot of itself—
More than it thought of the LORD.
Now, just for fun,
Your enemy is going to get you drunk,
Then laugh at you when you fall in your vomit.
27You made Israel into a laughingstock.
Why did you treat them that way?
Did you catch them red-handed, stealing something?
28People of Moab, get out of town.
Go live in the rocks.
Make your home in the cliffs and caves
like doves nesting among the stones.
Snooty Moab
29Everyone knows how proud Moab is.
Proud, arrogant, and snooty to the bone.
I’m the LORD. Their brags are just words.
Their good deeds are for show.
31I've mourned for Moab.
I cry out loud.
I weep for the people of Kir-heres.
32I cry more for the people of Sibmah,
Than I did for those in Jazer. [11]
Your influence spread to the Dead Sea,
And north to Jazer.
But the killers come at summer harvest.
33Invaders pick Moab bare of happiness and joy.
No one stomps wine in Moab anymore, [12]
Squealing for joy as they dance on the grapes.
I stopped the stomp.
34Hear them crying everywhere.
From Heshbon to Elealeh as far as Jahaz.
From Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah. [13]
Now Nimrim Stream has run dry.
35Now, about those sacrifices on hilltops.
I’ll put a stop to it.
No more offerings for Moab’s gods.
36My heart moans for Moab
like a soulful flute at a funeral.
My heart mourns for Kir-heres.
All that wealth of theirs! Gone!
Shaved heads and beards
37Everyone is mourning.
Every head is shaved.
Every beard is cut off.
All the hands are sliced with cuts.
Every outfit is a feed sack.
Others fill the city square with wailing.
I broke Moab like a clay jar.
No one wants it anymore.
39Look at how broken Moab is.
Listen to the people scream and cry.
They turn their backs, ashamed to face anyone.
They are the bullseye of bad jokes and insults.
People are horrified at the sight of them.
40Here's what the LORD says:
I'm gonna swoop down on Moab
Like an eagle on a prey,
Wings spread wide.
41Invaders will breach the walls
And take the towns.
Moab’s brave warriors
will curl in fear
like women in labor.
42Moab thought it was better than the LORD.
Now it can’t think at all.
The nation is destroyed and dead.
43Look down the road, Moab.
All you’ll find there
Are terror, pits, and traps.
44When you run from terror
You’ll fall in the pits.
And you’ll be caught in their trap.
I'm bringing all of this to Moab
on the day I punish them.
Refugees watch the fires
45In the shadow of Heshbon
Refugees stop to catch their breath
And watch their city burn,
As flames shoot from Sihon’s [14] palace.
Moab’s head is scalped.
It won’t rebel again.
Chemosh’s people are lost.
Their sons and daughters are captives
Headed far from home.
47But one day I’ll bring Moab home.
I’ll give them back
what they've lost in this world.
I am the LORD,
This is my judgment of Moab.
This is what I’ll do.
Footnotes
Heshbon was the capital of Moab’s next door neighbor to the north, Ammon.
Location of Madman town is uncertain. One suggestion has been a ruin called Khirbet Dimneh, about 35 miles (56 km) south of Heshbon. Scholars have low confidence in that site, though. We might somewhat respectfully suggest Washington DC, but it’s on the wrong continent. Otherwise, a strong contender for its descriptive name connection.
Location is unknown, but it’s mentioned on a record known as the Moabite Stone, from the 800’s BC, a couple centuries before Jeremiah.
Location of Luhith is unknown.
Chemosh was Moab’s national god, and possibly the Ammonites as well. About four centuries before Jeremiah, King Solomon married into the religion and even built a sanctuary to Chemosh on the Mount of Olives. That legitimized this idolatry for the rest of Israel’s history. Idolatry, the prophets said, would be why God would allow invaders to wipe the Jewish nations off the political map of the world. Babylonians from what is now Iraq did that in 586 BC. Chemosh’ name shows up in a Canaanite inscription chiseled into a stone record known as the Mesha Stele or the Moabites Stone, from the 800’s BC. It’s on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Throwing salt on farmland and pastures kills plants. But invaders did it as part of a scorched earth approach to dealing with especially troublesome enemies. Soldiers would turn the land infertile as a way of making it difficult for people to return to their former way of living. It was one final act of humiliation toward a defeated nation. Also, it was partly a symbolic act, a bit like taking a victory lap.
The text refers only to Bethel but implies the shame Israel earned for setting up a worship center there, built around a golden calf (1 Kings 12:29). After Israel split in two, the northern tribes didn’t want their people worshipping in Jerusalem, located among the southern tribes. So they created Bethel as their main worship center. It became home to one of two golden calf idols. The other was in the city of Dan, in the far northern part of the northern tribes, known as Israel. The southern tribes were known as Judah. Judah’s people continued to worship in Jerusalem at the Temple.
Dibon was Moab’s capital city.
Aroer was a town on Moab’s southern border, by the Arnon River.
Horns became a symbol of power because bulls with horns were strong and terrifying creatures. You don’t mess with a bull.
Jazer was a town along Ammon’s northern border, in what is now the country of Jordan. It was in a region known as the Transjordan. The word means “across Jordan,” referring to the Jordan River. So, it’s east of the Jordan River, in what is now mainly the country of Jordan.
Stomping wine was and still is a joyful celebration of the harvest. It’s a metaphor about happiness.
A name like “Eglath-shelishiyah” deserves a footnote. The word may translate to “the third heifer” or “the three-year-old heifer” or “the third Eglath.” Most scholars seem to teach that this was the third town of three named Eglath. Location is unknown.
King Sihon was Moab’s ruler in the time of Moses (Numbers 21: 21-30). These lyrics read like they are intended to show that Balaam’s prophecy against Moab centuries earlier was about to take place. Sihon ruled Moab when it was north of the Arnon River. His capital was Heshbon.
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