Isaiah 15:1 - Meaning and Application

Moab was a small country, but it was rich and fruitful. It lay across the Jordan from Reuben’s tribal land and beside the Dead Sea. Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, once stayed there during a famine in Canaan. Here Isaiah foretells that this land will be badly shaken and laid waste, though not completely destroyed at this stage.

Later, another prophecy speaks of Moab’s full ruin (Jeremiah 48), which Babylon’s king Nebuchadnezzar carried out. But this prophecy was to happen within three years (Isaiah 16:14), so it was likely fulfilled by the Assyrian army. That army ravaged those regions for years and enriched itself with plunder. It may have been Shalmaneser’s army, around the time Samaria fell in Hezekiah’s fourth year, or Sennacherib’s army, which invaded Judah ten years later.

We should not think Isaiah personally went to Moab to preach this message. He spoke it to his own people for several reasons. First, it showed that although God’s judgment begins with his own house, it does not stop there. God rules over the whole world, and the worshipers of false gods are also answerable to him.

Second, it proved that God cared for Israel and guarded them. It also showed that God was against their enemies, and the Moabites had often been among those enemies. Third, when this prophecy soon came true, within three years, it would confirm that Isaiah truly spoke from God and that his other prophecies were trustworthy. It would also strengthen the faithful to rely on those words.

The first thing foretold is that Moab’s main cities would be taken by surprise in the night. This likely happened because the people lived in ease and luxury, like the people of Laish, and felt safe. So there would be great grief, because in the night Ar of Moab was laid waste, and Kir of Moab, the two chief cities of the kingdom, was ruined. Once those cities were seized, the whole country was exposed, and all its wealth became easy spoil for the enemy.

Great and terrible changes can happen very quickly. Two cities were lost in one night, even though night is usually a time of quiet. So we should lie down each night as people who do not know what the night may bring. Also, the country supports the cities, and the cities protect the country, so neither can say to the other, “I do not need you.”

Next, the Moabites, overwhelmed with fear, would turn to their idols for help and pour out their tears before them. Moab, especially its king, would go up to Bajith, that is, the house or temple of Chemosh, and the people of Dibon would go up to the high places where they worshiped their idols, there to make their complaints. In distress, a people should turn to God. How much more should we then call on the Lord our God in trouble, instead of shedding useless tears before false gods?

Then Isaiah describes a widespread outpouring of grief across the whole land. Moab would become, as it were, a valley of tears. The people would mourn the loss of Nebo and Medeba, two important cities that were likely plundered and burned. They would cut off their hair and beards as signs of grief, as people commonly did in those days. When they went out, they would not care about looking fine. Instead, they would wear sackcloth in the streets, perhaps because the enemy had stripped them and taken their clothes.

When they came home, they would not attend to business. They would go up to their flat roofs and weep loudly, even howl, as they cried to their gods. Those who do not cry to the true God with their hearts only howl on their beds (Hosea 7:14; Amos 8:3). The margin reads, “They shall come down with weeping,” meaning they would come down from their roofs and high places as mournfully as they went up.

Prayer to the true God brings relief to the soul, as Hannah found (1 Samuel 1:18), but prayers to false gods do not. Several places are named here as full of lamentation. It is some comfort to have others suffering with us, but for a tender heart, shared grief can also make the pain feel greater.

Their military strength would also fail. Even though the Moabites were trained soldiers and well armed, they would cry out in fear, and each man would feel his life to be a burden. A military life usually means facing danger, yet God can quickly frighten the bravest men and strip a nation of the help it counted on most. He can make those who love life most ready to be weary of it.

This disaster would also spread sorrow beyond Moab’s borders. The prophet himself felt it deeply. “My heart will cry out for Moab.” Even though they were enemies of Israel, they were still fellow human beings, of the same kind as we are. That should move us to sorrow when we see them in such trouble, especially since we do not know how soon we may drink from the same cup of suffering. Ministers of God should have tender hearts. They should not long for the day of ruin, but be like their Master, who wept over Jerusalem even as he gave it up to judgment, and like God, who does not delight in the death of sinners.

The neighboring cities would also echo Moab’s cries. The fugitives, trying to save themselves, would carry the alarm to Zoar, the city where Lot once fled for shelter from the fire of Sodom and which was spared for his sake. Their crying would be as loud as a three-year-old heifer lowing for her calf (1 Samuel 6:12). They would go up the slope of Luhith, step by weary step and in tears, and they would cry along the road to Horonaim, the way that leads to the two Beth-horons, the upper and the lower (Joshua 16:3, 16:5).

The cry will be heard there, even at that great distance. It will be a cry of destruction, like people shouting, “Fire, fire! We are all lost.” Sorrow spreads from one person to another, and so does fear. That is natural and right, because trouble keeps spreading, and once it starts, who can tell where it will end?