Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 15. Synopsis of the Chapter
He describes the devastation and lamentation of Moab.
1. The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, it is put to silence: because in the night the wall of Moab is destroyed, it is put to silence. 2. The house is gone up, and Dibon, to the high places to weep over Nabo, and over Medaba, Moab hath howled: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard shall be shaven. 3. In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, all shall howl and come down weeping. 4. Hesebon shall cry out, and Eleale, their voice is heard even to Jasa: upon this the well appointed men of Moab shall howl, his soul shall howl to itself. 5. My heart shall cry out for Moab, his bars shall run even to Segor, a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith he shall go up weeping: and in the way of Horonaim they shall lift up the cry of destruction. 6. For the waters of Nemrim shall be most desolate: because the grass is withered, the spring is failed, all the greenness is perished. 7. According to the greatness of the work, so shall be the visitation: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows. 8. For the cry is gone round about the border of Moab: the howling thereof unto Gallim, and the howling thereof to the well of Elim. 9. For the waters of Dibon are full of blood: for I will lay more upon Dibon, upon them that have escaped of Moab a lion, and upon the remnants of the land.
1. THE BURDEN OF MOAB.—The Chaldean: The burden of the cup of malediction, to be given to Moab to drink. Moab is a part of Arabia Petraea, so called from Moab, the son of Lot, who dwelt in it with his descendants. For when Lot fled from Sodom, which was consumed by fire from heaven and turned into the Dead Sea, his younger daughter made her father drunk, and going in to him in his drunkenness conceived from him a son, whom she called Moab, that is, from the father, as if she said: From my father I have begotten this son, who therefore is to me both son and brother. Moab lies next to the Dead Sea, and is bounded by it toward the west, toward the east by the Euphrates, toward the north by the torrent Arnon, toward the south by the desert of Cadesbarne and Idumea. In Moab the metropolis was Ar; the more famous cities were Dibon, Nabo, Medaba, Hesebon, Eleale, Luith, Oronaim. In this Arabia Petraea is the great city of Mecca, three days’ journey from the Red Sea, in which is the famous temple of Mahomet, a hundred paces long and eighty wide, supported by four hundred columns; its walls are covered everywhere with gold, and since they receive the light of up to three thousand hanging lamps ever burning, they dazzle the eyes of beholders with wonderful brilliance, as Adrichomius, page 78, reports from Bochard, Bredenbach, Ludovicus Romanus and others.
Moab was fertile, being near the most fertile Pentapolis, and productive both of crops and still more of flocks, says St. Jerome. Hence the inhabitants, given to luxury and lust, worshipped with their banquets and wantonness Chamos, or Bacchus, as I said on Jeremias 48:7. Again, the Moabites were enemies of the people of God, namely the Jews, and often harassed them; hence God here threatens them with destruction, either through Sennacherib, as St. Jerome and Cyril will have it, or rather through Nabuchodonosor, says the same St. Jerome, and Cyril, St. Thomas, Haymo and Dionysius. For that Moab was laid waste by Sennacherib is not clear from sacred Scripture, Josephus, or other historians; but that it was done by Nabuchodonosor is certain, Jeremias 48, where Jeremias threatens the Moabites with ruin in almost the same words that Isaias uses here. Hence Isaias seems to treat of the same destruction as Jeremias, namely that inflicted by the Chaldeans; for the defeat by Sennacherib, if there was any, long preceded the times of Jeremias, so that it could not have been foretold by him.
What is said in this chapter is obscure to us, both because the cities named in it perished long ago and we do not know precisely where they were situated, and because Scripture does not describe the manner of the devastation of Moab. Mystically, St. Bernard, in his treatise On the Eleven Burdens, sermon 3, goes on thus: “The burden of Moab is added, which is interpreted ‘from the father.’ It expresses that natural necessity which a father transmits to his son by generation; such is the unavoidable necessity of eating, drinking and sleeping, and the rest that belong to the necessary care of the body. What a burden this is, dearest brethren, by which we are compelled, after the splendour of the sun, to return to the care of this flesh as to a foul corpse, and after spiritual food to provide for the burdens of the belly! What a burden is this, that exacts from us a daily tribute of wretched servitude, and compels us, having filled the belly daily, to refill it emptied on the morrow! What shall I say?”
IN THE NIGHT AR IS LAID WASTE.—Fittingly was Moab laid waste in the night, who was born in the night of an incestuous union, to be wrapped in darkness and silence, says St. Jerome. Hence this reproach, that they were children of the night, other nations used to cast at the Moabites. Ar was the metropolis of Moab. Hence it was called, in the Moabite tongue, Ar, that is, the city, namely the first city of the kingdom, by antonomasia; afterwards it was called Areopolis, as if to say Ar polis, that is, Ar the city, and not because it was the city of Ares, that is, of Mars, as many think.
IN THE NIGHT THE WALL IS DESTROYED,—as if to say: Moab was put to silence when the city of Ar was taken, which was the wall and bulwark of the whole province. Cyril teaches from the historians that when the Chaldeans came, the walls of Ar fell by an earthquake, and so the city was easily taken by them.
For “wall” the Hebrew is kir, which Vatablus and others take as the name of a city of Moab, equally laid waste as Ar; and this is very probable, as will appear in the next chapter, verse 7. Hence also the more correct Bibles write Murus with a capital M.
2. THE HOUSE IS GONE UP,—that is, as St. Jerome says, the royal house and family, and likewise the whole city of Dibon, went up to the high places, that is, to the shrines which were on the lofty mountains, where they worshipped Chamos their god, to lament there, to call upon Chamos, and to take refuge in him as in a place safe from the Chaldeans.
Secondly, Pagninus and Vatablus translate: Ar, or Kir the city (that is, the inhabitants of the city), went up to Baith, that is, to the house itself, that is, to the temple of Chamos, to entreat their idol.
Thirdly, Forerius and Sanchez think that Baith or Beth, that is, house, is the proper name of a city, and perhaps shortened from Bethgamul, or Bethmaon, or Bethoron, which were cities of Moab.
BALDNESS,—for in mourning the ancients shaved their heads and cut off their beards. Jeremias says the same of Moab, chapter 48, verse 37.
4. THE WELL APPOINTED MEN OF MOAB SHALL HOWL.—For “well appointed” the Hebrew is challutse, that is, girded with arms, ready and equipped. The Moabites, who were ready to defend their country, broken in spirit, will lay down their arms and howl. So Vatablus.
HIS SOUL SHALL HOWL TO ITSELF.—“His” means “their”; or “his” means each Moabite’s; “to itself” means that he will howl in his own bosom. Moreover “soul” signifies that this howling will not be feigned or composed, like that of hired mourners, but earnest, flowing from the inmost heart and grief.
5. MY HEART SHALL CRY OUT FOR MOAB.—It is the voice of Isaias sympathizing with Moab, though an enemy of Israel. As if to say: Though the Moabites are our enemies, yet I truly grieve, and from grief I wail and cry out at so great a calamity and misery of theirs, because HIS BARS (that is, his strong men, who by their strength protected Moab, as bars protect the gates of a city) SHALL RUN EVEN TO SEGOR,—that is, they will flee to the borders of the kingdom. Segor, I say, which is a heifer of three years old, that is, as the Hebrew and Greek have it, three years old, or of three years, that is, a strong people, vigorous and abounding in resources, like a heifer of three years; for at that age heifers and bullocks are sleekest, fattest and most robust, and likewise most wanton. See what I said on Jeremias 48:34.
Hence, if a certain nation were marked by the name of heifer or cow, although to our manners it may seem lowly and not to be borne, yet to the ancients, who regarded in pastoral matters nothing as in itself unseemly or intolerable to honest ears, it did not appear so.
Secondly, Sanchez thinks that Segor and Moab are called a heifer of three years because after three years it will receive a heavy defeat, as is said in chapter 16, verse 14, of which I speak there.
FOR BY THE ASCENT OF LUITH HE SHALL GO UP WEEPING.—Luith seems to have been a city on the road from Moab to Babylon, situated on a hill; wherefore the Moabites, being led away captive, went up thither weeping, and thence came to Oronaim, which was the boundary of Moab toward Babylon; there, therefore, bidding farewell as it were for the last time to their country, they raised cries and wailings out of the inmost contrition and grief of the soul.
6. FOR THE WATERS OF NEMRIM SHALL BE MOST DESOLATE,—as if to say: The whole city and region of Nemrim is deserted, because by hostile devastation all greenness has been consumed and withered.
With a like trope, in chapter 8, he signified the kingdom of Juda by the waters of Siloe. Secondly, and more aptly, as if to say: The waters of Nemrim shall in this devastation be abandoned by the inhabitants, nor will they be shut in by banks, and therefore the salt waters of the adjacent Dead Sea will flow into them and infect them, so that they become bitter and most foul, as Jeremias says, chapter 48, verse 34.
FOR (that is, as Vatablus and the Septuagint translate, “whence”) THE GRASS IS WITHERED, THE SPRING IS FAILED, etc.—For the cause why the grass withers is that the waters fail, not the contrary. So the Hebrew ki, that is, “for,” often signifies not a cause but concomitance, event, effect, and that which has followed.
7. ACCORDING TO THE GREATNESS OF THE WORK, SO SHALL BE THE VISITATION.—That is, the Moabites are severely punished for their great demerits of evil works. For “visitation” here, as often elsewhere, is the same as punishment.
THEY SHALL LEAD THEM TO THE TORRENT OF THE WILLOWS,—that is, the Chaldeans shall lead the captive Moabites to Babylon; for the torrent of the willows, says St. Jerome, is either a valley of Arabia, through which one goes from Moab into Assyria and Babylonia, or the Euphrates, beside which Babylon lies; for willows abound there, as is their custom. Hence Psalm 136 says: “Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: on the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments.”
The Septuagint translates: I will bring Arabians upon the valley of the Moabites. For the Arabians, neighbours of the Moabites, seem to have helped the Chaldeans in the devastation of Moab. Hence others translate: the Arabians, namely robbers and plunderers, will carry to the river what has been kept of theirs, and will seize and carry off their remaining wealth.
9. FOR I WILL LAY MORE UPON DIBON.—Some read Dibon, others Dimon; but Dibon and Dimon are the same, for the letters b and m, both being labials and therefore close in sound, are easily interchanged. Now by “additions,” first, Vatablus and Forerius understand new streams, as if to say: Then the blood of the slain Moabites will flow down in very many new streams into the river of Dibon.
Secondly, St. Jerome explains thus: I will shut off from the inhabitants of Dibon every approach to escape and safety.
Thirdly, the Chaldean understands by “additions” the army of the Chaldeans.
Fourthly and more plainly, Haymo understands “additions” of plagues, as if to say: I will add plague to plague, namely that upon “them that have escaped of Moab, and upon the remnants of the land,” that is, upon the fugitive remnants of the Moabites, I will bring “a lion,” that is, lions, either lions properly so called, or rather lions, that is, Babylonian soldiers fierce as lions, whom Nabuchodonosor posted in the ways to intercept, capture or kill all the fugitive Moabites. It is a proverb, which Jeremias explains in other words and threatens the Moabites with, saying, chapter 48, verse 44: “He that shall flee from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that shall get out of the pit shall be taken in the snare”; and like it is that saying of Isaias: “Out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow up the flying serpent,” of which I spoke on chapter 14, verse 29. As if to say: He who escapes one calamity will fall into another, and a greater; for this is what the lion, the snare, the basilisk, and the like signify. For the lion is a terrible symbol of dreadful and horrible savagery and slaughter; hence the Egyptians in their hieroglyphs painted a lion when they wished to signify a man of horrible and terrible aspect, says Pierius; indeed, if anyone dreamed that he had a lion’s head, the interpreters of dreams declared that he would be terrifying to his enemies. Hence, 1 Paralipomenon 12:8, of the most warlike soldiers of David it is said: “Their faces like the face of a lion.”