Jeremiah 48:8

48:1-13. The Chaldeans are to destroy the Moabites. We should be thankful that we are required to seek the salvation of men's lives, and the salvation of their souls, not to shed their blood; but we shall be the more without excuse if we do this pleasant work deceitfully. The cities shall be laid in ruins, and the country shall be wasted. There will be great sorrow. There will be great hurry. If any could give wings to sinners, still they could not fly out of the reach of Divine indignation. There are many who persist in unrepented iniquity, yet long enjoy outward prosperity. They had been long corrupt and unreformed, secure and sensual in prosperity. They have no changes of their peace and prosperity, therefore their hearts and lives are unchanged, Ps 55:19.

And the spoiler shall come upon every city,.... That is, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and his army. The Targum is, the spoilers, who came against and took every city of Moab, and wasted them. Josephus (n) makes particular mention of Nebuchadnezzar subduing the Ammonites and Moabites: and no city shall escape; the spoiler, and destruction by him: the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoken; not only the cities, and the inhabitants of them; but the inhabitants of the valleys and plains, as the Targum paraphrases it, should be destroyed; and also the corn that grew upon them, and the flocks and herds that grazed there, exactly as the Lord had foretold. (n) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 9. sect. 7.

Verse 8. - The valley... the plain. The latter (Hebrew, mishor ) is the upland region which extends from the Jordan eastward of Jericho into the Arabian desert; in Numbers 21:20 it is called the "field" ( i.e. "open country") of Moab. The former means that part of the Jordan valley which borders on this upland "plain" towards the west. Jeremiah 48:8

(8) The valley also shall perish . . . —The cities of “the plain” are enumerated in Jeremiah 48:21-24 . They belonged to the Arabah, the sunken valley of the Jordan, the “plains of Moab” of Numbers 22:1 ; Deuteronomy 3:10 ; Deuteronomy 4:43 . The “valley” here is not connected with anything that helps us to identify it, but it may have been that of the Arnon, or the words may be used generically for “every valley” and “every plain.”

Moab will not be saved from destruction by any trust on their works or on their treasures. The lxx, Vulgate, and Syriac render מעשׂיך by fortresses, hence Ewald would read מעוניך instead; but there is no ground for the change, since the peculiar rendering alluded to has evidently originated from מעשׂה having been confounded with מעוז. Others, as Dahler, refer the word to idols; but these are always designated as מעשׂי יד. Graf translates "property," and points to 1 Samuel 25:2 ; Exodus 23:16 ; but this meaning also has really nothing to support it, for מעשׂה in these passages denotes only agriculture and its produce, and the combination of the word with אוצרות in this passage does not require such a rendering. We abide by the common meaning of "doings" or "works," not evil deeds specially (Hitzig), but "all that Moab undertakes." Neither their efforts to maintain and increase their power, nor their wealth, will avail them in any way. They shall be overcome. Moab is addressed as a country or kingdom. לכד, to seize, capture; of a land, to take, conquer. Chemosh, with his priests and princes, shall go into exile. כּמישׁ is perhaps a mere error of the copyist for כּמושׁ, Chemosh, the chief deity of the Moabites and Ammonites, worshipped as a king and the war-god of his people: see on Numbers 21:29 . As in the last-named passage the Moabites are called the people of Chemosh, so here, not merely the priests, but also the princes of Moab, are called his priests and his princes.

The Kethib יחד is not to be changed, although Jeremiah elsewhere always uses יחדּו, which is substituted in the Qeri; cf. Jeremiah 49:3 . In confirmation of this, it is added, in Jeremiah 48:8 , that all the cities of Moab, without exception, shall be laid waste, and the whole country, valley and plain, shall be brought to ruin. המּישׁור, "the level," is the table-land stretching from the Arnon to Heshbon, and north-eastwards as far as Rabbath-Ammon, and which originally belonged to the Moabites, hence called "the fields of Moab" in Numbers 21:40 ; but it was taken from them by the Amorites, and after the conquest of the latter was taken possession of by the Israelites ( Deuteronomy 3:10 ; Deuteronomy 4:43 ; Joshua 13:9 ), but at that time had been taken back once more by the Moabites. העמק is the valley of the Jordan, commonly called הערבה, as in Joshua 13:27 and Joshua 13:19 ; here it is that portion of the valley towards the west which bounds the table-land. אשׁר can only be taken in a causal signification, "because," as in Jeremiah 16:13 , or in a relative meaning, quod, or "as."

The Lord God hath sworn by His holiness - They had sinned to profane His "Holy Name" (see the note at Amos 2:7 ). God swears by that holiness which they had profaned in themselves on whom it was called, and which they had caused to be profaned by others. He pledges His own holiness, that He will avenge their unholiness. : "In swearing "by His holiness," God sware by Himself. For He is the supreme uncreated justice and Holiness. This justice each, in his degree, should imitate and maintain on earth, and these had sacrilegiously violated and overthrown." Days shall come (literally, are among) upon you - God's Day and eternity are ever coming. He reminds them of their continual approach. He says not only that they will certainly come, but they are ever coming. They are holding on their steady course. Each day which passes, they advance a day closer upon the sinner. People put out of their minds what "will come;" they "put far the evil day." Therefore, God so often in His notices of woe to come, (1 Samuel 2:31; Isaiah 39:6; Jeremiah 7:32; Jeremiah 9:25; Jeremiah 17:14; Jeremiah 19:6; Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 23:7; Jeremiah 30:3; Jeremiah 31:27-31, Jeremiah 31:38; Jeremiah 33:14; Jeremiah 48:12; Jeremiah 49:2; Jeremiah 51:47, Jeremiah 51:52. (Ges.); Amos 8:11), brings to mind, that those "days are" ever "coming" ; they are not a thing which shall be only; in God's purpose, they already "are;" and with one uniform steady noiseless tread "are coming upon" the sinner.