Vers. 1 — 8. — The prophet foresees the calamity of Moab, and the attendant con- fusion and dismay. Yes ; flee, save your lives, if ye can; for your confidences have proved untrustworthy ; there is no hope left.
Ver. 1. — Against Moab ; rather, concerning Moab. Nebo ! Kot, of course, the mountain range referred toinDeut.xxxii.49 andxxxiv. 1 as that from which Moses viewed the land destined for Israel, but a town in the neigh- bourhood, deriving its name, not from the mountain,but from the same old Semitic (and not merely Babylonian) deity. Kiriathaim. "The double city." A place of uncertain situation, Imt probably in the same district as Nebo; mentioned in Gen. xiv. 5, as the abode of the " terrible " aboriginal tribe called the Emim. Is confounded; r.tther, is brought to shame (as ch. xlvi. 24). Misgab ; rather, the fortress. The con- nection shows that some definite fortress is intended, but it is difBoult to say which. Graf thinks of Kir-heres (vers. 31, 36) or Kir-tareseth (another form of the same name; oomp Isa xtI. 7; 2 Kings iii. 25),
generally identified with Kir-Moab, the
chief fortified town of (he Moabites.
Ver. 2. — There shall be no more praise of Moab ; rather, MoaVs glory (or, glorying) ii no more (eomp. ver. 29). In Heshbon they have devised evil, etc. There is a word- play in the Hebrew, which may be repro- duced thus : " In Plot-house they plot evil against it" (so J. P. Smith's Ewald). Against it (literally, her) means "against Moab." Heshbon was at the time an Ammonitish town (it had in days gone by been Amoritish, Numb. xxi. 26) ; see ch. xlix. 3; but was on the border of Moab. Madmen. There seems to be again a word-play, which has been to some extent reproduced thus : " Thou sbalt become still, O Still-house." The name Madmen does not occur again, though an allusion to it has been fancied in Isa. xxv. 10, where the Hebrew for " dunghill " is madmenuh.
Ver. 3. — Horonaim. Tiiis Moaiiite town was probably on the borders of Edom; hence, perhaps, " Sanbnllat the Horonite."
Ver. 4. — Moab is destroyed. The men- tion of Moab in the midst of towns la certainly surprising. We sliould expect Ar-Moab. Her little ones. The received text, as it stands, is untranslatable, and our choice lies between the correction suggested by the vowel-points, and the reading of tije Septuagint and a few of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, " unto Zoar." In favour of the latter, which is adopted by Ewald and Graf, it may be urged tliat Zoar and Horonaim are mentioned together, not only in ver. 34, but also in Isa. xv. 5, which has evidently been imitated in the following verse. It is not quite clear wliat "her little ones " in the first-mentioned correc- tion mean. Some think, the children ; others, the poor ; Hitzig prefers the small towns of Moab. On the site of " Zoar," see Smith's ' Dictionary of the Bible,' but com- pare Canon Tiistram in 'The Laud uf Moab.'
Ver. 5. — For in the going up of Luhith, etc. The verse is subsiantially taken from Isaiah (xv. 5), Ijut with variations peuuliar to tills chapter. The most peculiar of these is that in the first verse-half, which ia literally, weeping goeth uf (not, shcUl go up)
228
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. xlviil 1—47.
%t)i(h weeping, which is explained by Dr. Payne Smith to mean "one set of weeping fngitives pressing close upon another." To the present commen tator (as also to Delitzsch — see his note on Isn. xv. 5) there seems no reasonable doubt that b'ki, the word ren- dered "weeping," should rather he bo, " upon it," so that the passage will run, as in Isaiah, "for the going up of Luhith with weeping doth one go up it" Hitzij; (whom for once we find agreeing with Delitzsch) remarks that tiie miswriting b'ki for bo may be easily accounted for by the fact tliat ki, " for," is the word which follows next. We have no right to ascribe to Jeremiah such an artificial and un-Hebraic an expression as that of the received text. Small as the matter may be in itself, it is not unimpor- tant as suggesting to the Old Testament student a caution against the too unre- served adoption of the canon Lectioni faeili- ori prattat ardua. In the going down of Horonaim. An interesting variation from Isaiah. The older poet, less attentive to minutiffi, had said vaguely, " in the road to Horonaim ; " by a slight change of expres- sion, the younger and more reflective writer produces a striking antithesis between the ascent to the hill-town, and the descent to the hollow in wliich Horonaim ("double cavern") appears to have been situated. It is possible, however, that Jeremiah has preserved the original reading, and that "the road " in Isaiah, l.c., is due to the careless- ness of a scribe. The enemies have heard a cry of destruction. But why this reference to the enemies? The rendering, however, is ungrammatical. The text is, literally, the enemies of the cry of destruction have they heard. The prophecy in Isaiah omits " the enemies of," and has a ilifferent verb for " have they heard." Can the inserted words be an intrusion from the margin ? The later scribes were accustomed to insert glosses in the margin on occasions where we ■hould have tliought them entirely un- necessary for the purpose of explanation. But then why " the enemies of"? It is an insoluble enigma.
Ver. 6. — Flee, save youi lives ; literally, your souls. The prophet's human feeling prompts him to this counsel ; bnt he knows full well that a life of aliject misery is the utmost that can be hoped for. And be like the heath in the wilderness ; literally, and (your souU) shaU be like destitute ones in the wilderness. Imagine the case of one who has been robbed of everything, and left alone in the desert; not less miserable is that of the Hoabite fugitives. The word rendered "the heath" (lord'er) is either miswritten for 'ar'ar, \\liiih occurs in the sense of "destitute" in ch. xvii. 6 (see note), or alfo a rare plural form of the snme
word. The sense remains the same. It it
tempting to see an allnainn to one of the towns called Aroer (as in Isa xvii. 2). Bnt the only Aroer the prophet coiiM be think- ing of is that on the Arni)n (Deut. ii. 36), which could not be described aa "in the wilderness."