Isaiah
Isaiah 16
1Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. 2For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon. 3Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive! 4Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortionist is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land. 5A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.
6We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing. 7Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken. 8For the fields of Heshbon languish with the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have broken down its choice branches, which reached even to Jazer, which wandered into the wilderness. Its shoots were spread abroad. They passed over the sea. 9Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen. 10Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop. 11Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres. 12It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail.
13This is the word that Yahweh spoke concerning Moab in time past. 14But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble.”
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4 commentators · 37 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry2
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
God has made it to appear that he delights not in the ruin of sinners by telling them what they may do to prevent the ruin; so he does here to Moab. I. He advises them to be just to the house of David, and to pay the tribute they had formerly covenanted to…
Here we have, I. The sins with which Moab is charged, Isa 16:6. The prophet seems to check himself for going about to give good counsel to the Moabites, concluding they would not take the advice he gave them. He told them their duty (whether they would hear…
John Gill14
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land,.... Or tribute, as the Targum rightly interprets it. The Moabites, being conquered by David, paid tribute to him, 2 Samuel 8:2 and when the kingdom was divided in Rehoboam's time, the tribute was paid to the kings of…
For it shall be,.... Or, "otherwise it shall be" (z); if ye do not pay this tribute: that as a wandering bird cast out of the nest: or, "as a wandering bird, the nest sent out": that is, as a bird that has forsaken its nest, and wanders about, and its young…
Take counsel, execute judgment,.... This refers either to what goes before, that they would take the counsel given, and do that which was just and right, by paying tribute to the king of Judah; or to what follows, that they would enter into a consultation…
Keil & Delitzsch8
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
The advice does not remain without effect, but they embrace it eagerly."And the daughters of Moab will be like birds fluttering about, a scared nest, at the fords of the Arnon." "The daughters of Moab," like "the daughters of Judah," for example, in Psa…
There they show themselves, on the spot to which their land once reached before it passed into the possession of Israel - there, on its farthest boundary in the direction towards Judah, which was seated above; and taking heart, address the following petitions…
But if Moab does this, and the law of the history of Israel, which is that "a remnant shall return," is thus reflected in the history of Moab; Isa 16:6 cannot possibly contain the answer which Moab receives from Zion, as the more modern commentators assume…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown13
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
cast out of . . . nest--rather, "as a brood cast out" (in apposition with "a wandering bird," or rather, wandering birds), namely, a brood just fledged and expelled from the nest in which they were hatched [HORSLEY]. Compare Isa 10:14; Deu 32:11. daughters of…
GESENIUS, MAURER, &c., regard these verses as an address of the fugitive Moabites to the Jews for protection; they translate Isa 16:4, "Let mine outcasts of Moab dwell with thee, Judah"; the protection will be refused by the Jews, for the pride of Moab (Isa…
Rather, "Let the outcasts of Moab dwell with thee" (Judah) [HORSLEY]. for the extortioner, &c.--The Assyrian oppressor probably. is at an end--By the time that Moab begs Judah for shelter, Judah shall be in a condition to afford it, for the Assyrian oppressor…
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