12 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will send unto him them that pour off, and they shall pour him off; and they shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles in pieces.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
For it shall be that, as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.
And their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are put to shame and confounded, and cover their heads.
Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,
behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith Jehovah, and `I will send' unto Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
Wail, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow `in ashes', ye principal of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are fully come, and ye shall fall like a goodly vessel.
And the destroyer shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape; the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed; as Jehovah hath spoken.
Moab is laid waste, and they are gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, saith the King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts.
On all the housetops of Moab and in the streets thereof there is lamentation every where; for I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein none delighteth, saith Jehovah.
therefore, behold, I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim, unto the children of the east, `to go' against the children of Ammon; and I will give them for a possession, that the children of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 48
Commentary on Jeremiah 48 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 48
Moab is next set to the bar before Jeremiah the prophet, whom God has constituted judge over nations and kingdoms, from his mouth to receive its doom. Isaiah's predictions concerning Moab had had their accomplishment (we had the predictions Isa. 15 and 16 and the like Amos 2:1), and they were fulfilled when the Assyrians, under Salmanassar, invaded and distressed Moab. But this is a prophecy of the desolations of Moab by the Chaldeans, which were accomplished under Nebuzaradan, about five years after he had destroyed Jerusalem. Here is,
Jer 48:1-13
We may observe in these verses,
Jer 48:14-47
The destruction is here further prophesied of very largely and with a great copiousness and variety of expression, and very pathetically and in moving language, designed not only to awaken them by a national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it, but to affect us with the calamitous state of human life, which is liable to such lamentable occurrences, and with the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, when he comes forth to contend with a provoking people. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and meditating on the terror of them, it will be of more use to us to keep this in our eye, and to get our hearts thereby possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to enquire critically into all the lively figures and metaphors here used.