Jeremiah 48:14 - Meaning and Application

The destruction of Moab is now described at length, with great richness of language and strong feeling. The purpose is not only to warn them to repent and change course, either as a nation or as individuals, so they might avoid or endure the coming trouble. It is also meant to move us with a sense of how fragile human life is, and how terrible God’s anger can be when he rises to judge a stubborn people.

When we read these warnings and think about their terror, it is more helpful to let them fill us with a holy respect for God and his wrath than to focus only on the figures and images. The main point is plain enough. God is a serious judge, and his anger is fearsome when he deals with those who keep provoking him.

This destruction is surprising and sudden. Moab felt secure and believed itself strong for war, able to stand against even the most powerful enemy (Jeremiah 48:14). Yet disaster is near, and nothing can hold it back. The enemy comes quickly, and the judgment moves fast toward its full result (Jeremiah 48:16).

The enemy will come like an eagle, swift and strong, swooping down on its prey (Jeremiah 48:40). He will spread the wings of his army over Moab and surround the land so no one can escape. Moab’s strong places are taken by surprise (Jeremiah 48:41), so all its strength does no good. Even its mighty men lose heart, because they do not have time to steady themselves with brave thoughts. It takes unusual courage not to give in to sudden fear.

This is also an utter destruction. Moab is spoiled, completely ruined, confused, and brought down (Jeremiah 48:15, Jeremiah 48:20). Its cities are burned or seized, so the people must leave them behind (Jeremiah 48:15). Several cities are named to show how wide the judgment is, and then the list ends with “and the like.” There was no need to name more, because the judgment falls on all the cities of Moab, near and far (Jeremiah 48:21-24).

When sin is widespread, we have reason to expect calamity to be widespread too. The kingdom loses its honor and power. The horn of Moab, its strength and rule, is cut off, and its arm is broken, so it can neither strike nor defend itself (Jeremiah 48:25). If the young men are the strength and beauty of a kingdom, then Moab’s chosen young men have gone down to slaughter (Jeremiah 48:15). They went out to battle expecting victory, but God says they went down to be slain. Those whom God fights against are sure to fall. In the end, Moab will be destroyed so completely that it will no longer be a people (Jeremiah 48:42).

This destruction is also deeply sad. It is a cause for mourning, and it turns joy into grief. The prophet himself weeps as he speaks of it. Out of compassion for other people and concern for human life, he will howl for Moab, and his heart will mourn for them (Jeremiah 48:31). He will weep for the vine of Sibmah (Jeremiah 48:32), and his heart will sound like pipes for Moab, full of sorrowful music (Jeremiah 48:36). Even though this ruin proves him a true prophet, he cannot think of it without pain.

The ruin of sinners gives God no pleasure, so it should not give us pleasure either. Even those who warn others of judgment should feel its weight. Many of these lines are much like Isaiah’s prophecy against Moab (Isaiah 15:1-9, Isaiah 16:1-14). Though these messages were given at different times, they came from the same Spirit. God’s prophets should speak in the same faithful voice as those who came before them, even if they sometimes use old words with fresh feeling and a new purpose.

The Moabites themselves will also mourn bitterly. Those who once sat in glory, surrounded by wealth, joy, and every kind of pleasure, will sit in thirst, in a dry land where there is no water and no comfort (Jeremiah 48:18). It is right that they should learn hardship when the destroyer comes and strips them of everything. Those in the far parts of the land, safest from immediate danger, will keep asking what is happening. They will ask every survivor, “What has happened?” (Jeremiah 48:19). When they hear that all is lost and the invader has won, they will cry out in deep anguish (Jeremiah 48:20).

They will give themselves over to loneliness and sorrow as they mourn the ruin of their country. They will leave the cities that once rang with joy and dwell among the rocks, where their sadness fits their condition. They will no longer be birds of singing, but birds of mourning, like the dove (Jeremiah 48:28). Let those who give themselves to pleasure remember that God can quickly change their song.

Their grief will become so extreme that they will shave their heads and cut themselves (Jeremiah 48:37), signs of desperate sorrow that can lead people to destroy themselves. Job tore his robe and shaved his head, but he did not cut himself. When passion rises too high, wisdom and grace must put limits on it and keep it from such cruel acts.

The sorrow will be widespread too. There will be a general lament on all the roofs of Moab, where they once worshiped their idols, even though those false gods can give no help (Jeremiah 48:38). There will also be mourning in all the streets, where they used to meet one another, because grief and fear will spread from person to person. They will see that everything is lost. God says, “I have broken Moab like a vessel that gives me no pleasure, one that will not be noticed or repaired.”

What Moab had most enjoyed was its pleasant fruit and its rich wine. Its joy came from the things that pleased the senses. Take away those things, destroy the gardens and vineyards, and the music stops (Hosea 2:11-12). There is great weeping when the plants are carried away to other lands to be planted elsewhere. The destroyer has fallen on the summer fruit and the harvest of grapes, and that is why the cry of Heshbon rises as far as Elealeh (Jeremiah 48:32, Jeremiah 48:34). If you take away the joy of the fruitful fields, you take away the joy of the whole land of Moab (Jeremiah 48:33).

If the wine failed from the winepresses, which had once been trampled with joyful shouts, all their gladness would be cut off. Take away the shouting, and there will be no shouting left. People who make comfort and pleasure their chief joy, and rely on them as their greatest happiness, place themselves under a harsh kind of grief, because these things can be taken away in a moment. But those who rejoice in God can still do so even when the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vine.

The Moabites lost not only their wine, but also their water. Even the waters of Nimrim would become desolate (Jeremiah 48:34), and so their grief would grow loud and wild. Their cries would be heard everywhere, like the lowing of a three-year-old heifer. These phrases come from Isaiah 15:5, Isaiah 15:6.

All their neighbors are called to mourn with them and share in their ruin (Jeremiah 48:17). Let those around them comfort them in their sorrow, and let them see that nearby nations pity them. Let even those far away, who only know their name and reputation, take notice of their fall and say, “How the strong staff is broken, the rod that made enemies fear, and the beautiful rod that friends admired!” Let the nations pay attention and learn from this. No one should become proud or trust in strength or beauty, because neither can protect anyone from God’s judgment.

It is also a shameful destruction, one that will expose them to contempt. Moab is made drunk (Jeremiah 48:26), and a drunk person is made low and shameful. He will wallow in his own vomit and become a disgusting sight, and he will rightly be mocked. Let the Moabites be drunk with the cup of God’s wrath until they stagger and fall, lose their senses, and make themselves ridiculous by the wildness of their passions and their plans. Again it says, “Moab shall be a derision and a dismaying to all about him” (Jeremiah 48:39). People will laugh at the fall of the pomp and power he once bragged about. Those who are proud are preparing shame for themselves.

It is also the destruction of what they valued most, not only their summer fruit and their vintage, but their wealth too (Jeremiah 48:36). The riches they had gained have perished, even though they thought they had stored them safely and expected to enjoy them for a long time. They are gone. Money hidden in a chest can perish just as easily as summer fruit left in the open field. Riches pass away easily, like dust slipping through our fingers even when we grip them tightly.

But this was not even the worst part. These people loved their false religion, foolish as it was, and would not let it go. So what seemed to them a blessing was really a warning (Jeremiah 48:35). God would put an end to the one who offered sacrifices in the high places, because those high places would be destroyed. The fields used for offerings would be laid waste, and the priests who burned incense to their gods would be slain or carried away into captivity (Jeremiah 48:7). Only the true religion, and the worship and service of the true God, can stand us in a time of trouble.

This destruction is also just and right, because they had brought it on themselves by sin. The sin they were most openly guilty of, and the one God now judged them for, was pride. It is mentioned six times in Jeremiah 48:29. Everyone had heard of the pride of Moab. Their neighbors noticed it, and it stood against them as Israel’s pride had done before. They were very proud, and kept growing worse. Their loftiness, arrogance, pride, and haughtiness are all named because they showed their pride in many ways, and it was deeply offensive to both God and people. They had already been humbled by earlier troubles, yet they remained unhumbled. In fact, they became even more arrogant, which clearly marked them for the complete destruction that pride always leads toward.

Two examples show Moab’s pride. First, they acted arrogantly toward God. They would be brought down in shame (Jeremiah 48:26), because they had lifted themselves up against the Lord. Again it says they would be destroyed as a people for that same reason (Jeremiah 48:42). The Moabites put Chemosh before the Lord and thought they could stand against the God of Israel. Second, they acted scornfully toward Israel, especially in Israel’s recent troubles. So Moab would fall into the same troubles, into the same hands, and become a mockery, because Israel had been a mockery to them (Jeremiah 48:26, Jeremiah 48:27).

Most of the Moabites, when they heard about the suffering and ruin of their neighbors the Jews, did not mourn. They rejoiced and skipped with joy. Many people feel secret pleasure when someone they dislike falls, even if they hide it because it is shameful. But the Moabites openly announced their joy. They showed their hatred for Israel and laughed at Israel’s distress, which was cruel and godless. It was an insult to people, who were of the same human nature, and also an insult to God, whose name Israel bore. Those who laugh at others in trouble will justly and surely come to trouble themselves, and then others will laugh at them. Those who rejoice over disasters, especially the disasters of God’s church, will not go unpunished for long.

Besides that, they had also shown malice toward God’s people and had dealt treacherously with them (Jeremiah 48:30). They mocked the ruin of Judah and Jerusalem, and when they laughed, they said it was only for sport and amusement. But God says, “I know his wrath.” He knows it comes from the old hatred he has long held against the descendants of Abraham and the worshipers of the true God. God knows that he thinks these troubles will end in the total destruction of the Jewish nation. He now tells the Chaldeans what bad people the Jews are, trying to stir them against them, but it will not turn out as he expects. His lies will not succeed. The nation whose fall they celebrate will rise again. Some read this as, “I know his rage,” meaning his very fierce anger. And God also knows his lies. Do they not speak falsely about God’s people? He sees all the fury and all the falsehood of the church’s enemies, no matter what excuses they use to hide them (Isaiah 37:28).

The ruin would come piece by piece, until at last it was complete. Those who escaped one trouble would fall into another. “Fear, and the pit, and the snare” would be on them, as Jeremiah 48:43 says. Fear would drive them into the pit, and then the snare would hold them there, so they could neither avoid destruction nor get out of it.

What was said of sinners in general in Isaiah 24:17-18 is here applied especially to the sinners of Moab in Jeremiah 48:44. If they fled from one danger, they would fall into another. This was the time of their judgment, when God came to settle accounts with them. He would be known by the judgments he carried out, for he is the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts (Jeremiah 48:15). He is not only King by right, with authority to judge, but also the Lord of hosts, able to do everything he has decided.

Jeremiah 48:45 explains this picture more fully. Those who escaped from the villages because of the enemy’s forces would think they were safe under the protection of Heshbon, a fortified city. People sometimes do the same thing in war, running to a strong city for safety. But here they would be disappointed. When they fled from one danger, they would fall into another. Heshbon, which they thought would protect them, would destroy them, just as Moses had warned long before in Numbers 21:28. A fire had gone out from Heshbon, and a flame from the city of Sihon, and it would spread to those who came from every part of Moab. It would strike the heads of the loud, boastful men, the rulers and leading men who made such a show of themselves.

Jeremiah then gives the final sorrowful summary in Jeremiah 48:46. “Woe to you, O Moab! You are undone.” The people who worshiped Chemosh, Moab’s false god, would perish and disappear. Their sons and daughters, the hope of the next generation, would go into captivity after the Jews, whose suffering they had once mocked and celebrated.

Yet this was not a destruction that would last forever. The chapter ends with a short promise that their captivity would one day be reversed. God, who brought them into exile, would bring them back from exile (Jeremiah 48:47). This shows how gently God dealt even with the Moabites, and how much more tenderly he deals with his own people. Even toward Moab, he would not stay angry forever.

When Israel returned, Moab also returned, and the prophecy may have been meant partly to encourage God’s people that even Moabites would one day share in that restoration. It also points ahead to gospel times. The Jews themselves understood it as looking to the days of the Messiah. Then the captivity of the Gentiles, their bondage to sin and Satan, would be brought back by God’s grace, which would make them truly free. This long prophecy about Moab ends on a comforting note: “Thus far is the judgment of Moab.”