Isaiah Part XVI – Michael Bunker Commentary

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CHAPTER 15

It is a common, prideful human tendency to conceive that when we study of the awesome and frightening wrath of God upon nations and upon individuals – that God will somehow spare our friends and family, just because of their relationship to us.  Even while the Bible teaches us to be intimately concerned with and attentive to our own salvation and position, we are more than willing to abuse God’s grace by systematically extending it to those who show no signs of having received the truth, or who continue to reject it after having heard it.  It is extremely prideful and very dangerous to consider yourself “saved” while you live in harlotry with the world, and while you abuse every method of grace extended to you, and while you put off entering totally in the Kingdom of God because it is not now convenient for you to do so.  It compounds that dangerous error to erroneously attribute salvation to friends and loved ones because you believe that since God’s special love is extended towards you, that God is compelled also to love what you love.  It is nothing less than assuming “Messiah-ship” for yourself to extend salvation and God’s grace to the objects of your own worldly love, merely because you believe God has to save the things that you idolize.

Those who are related to us are not particularly God’s elect.  Remember that we are not saved by our blood, or by our soft demeanor towards the things of God, nor by our inclination towards religious affections, nor by our intellectual approval of some of the tenets of Christianity:

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11-13).

There are not a lot of things more offensive to a Holy God than to trample on His blood, and to attempt to violently misuse His sovereign purpose and will by assuming that God’s salvation is directed through us towards the targets of our own human affections.

The Moabites were very closely related to the Israelites and even to Jesus Christ the Savior sent to the world.  You will remember that Moab was descended from Lot who was the nephew of Abraham.  David, whose kingly line would eventually yield Jesus Christ, the Son of David, was born of Jesse, the grandson of Ruth the Moabitess.  It would seem that the close kinship relationship between the Moabites and the Israelites would have tended towards civil discourse and peace between the nations, but it was not so.  The Moabites went after other gods, and refused to honorably deal with the Jews.  Regardless of their kinship with the elect of God, God promises in this 15^th Chapter of Isaiah to utterly destroy Moab and all her cities.

The Moabites had built great, walled cities, and huge temples in the high places of those cities.  They were a people supremely infused with religious affections, and very confident that they had nothing to fear from a wrathful God.  Particularly, the Moabites were possessed with a feeling of security and confidence in their strongly defended cities.  Cities, in this context, have the prophetic signification of worldliness and syncretism. 

Verses 1-2 - The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off; Isaiah relates the “burden of Moab”, or the prophetic burden of prophesying the destruction of these enemies of God.  It might do you well to translate this for you own sake as, “the burden of the religious relative or friend”.  The term Ar of Moab has two meanings.  Ar was actually a city in Moab, but it also means “city” in the original language.  It is representative of the city of Ar, and prophetically representative of cities in general.  In the night, the city of Moab is laid waste - despite its religious nature.  Despite its strong fortifications, the strong city will be destroyed.  Despite its blood relationship with the elect of God, and all of the mechanisms it has employed to escape such a fearful fate, the city will be destroyed.  Moab is going to be destroyed, despite the fact that it is a nation that has lived in close proximity to the truth, and has been witness to God’s interactions with His true children through time.  Moab has heard the truth, and regardless of the fact that she “knows” the truth, she has rejected it.  Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence.  The time of her visitation is come.  She is now brought to silence.  Through all the years of witnessing the truth, the people of the city could have done as their grandmother Ruth did, for Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, the child of God:

“…Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16).

But Moab would not follow after the godly model of Ruth.  Your religious friends and relatives say to you in their hearts, “I love you, but will not go with thee… I will not follow after thee.  Wither thou goest, I cannot go, and where thou lodgest I will not lodge: they people are not my people, and thy God is not my God”.  They love their city and not the truth, so in the night, they will be laid waste.  It is at night when they are in their most protected place, locked up in the walls of their cities, believing that they are at peace and can enter slumber; so in the night they will be destroyed.

because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; Kir was another great city of the Moabites.  Literally, “Kir” means “fortress”.  It is a place of great defense.  They will not leave, like Ruth, to follow Naomi wherever she goes.  They will have trust in their religious fortresses, and will be laid waste in the night.  They will be brought to silence.

He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep; Bajith and Dibon are two more great cities in Moab.  Bajith signifies “a house” and Dibon was well known as a high place of worship.  The houses and temples and high places of worship will be visited with destruction.

Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off; Moab will howl over the destruction of all of her strong places.  The cities of Nebo (meaning prophesyings, or place of prophecy), and Medeba (meaning quiet waters) will be utterly destroyed.  It was the practice of the eastern peoples to shave their heads and beards when they mourn.  Moab shall mourn and be in great distress for the loss of their country.  The nation will howl and mourn for the great losses of all that they believed to be strong.

Verses 3-4 - In their streets they shall gird themselves with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, every one shall howl, weeping abundantly. And Heshbon shall cry, and Elealeh: their voice shall be heard even unto Jahaz: therefore the armed soldiers of Moab shall cry out; his life shall be grievous unto him; The mourning will be so great, that those who are not immediately destroyed will scream and howl from the rooftops and from the streets for their loss.  How sad is it to betray yourself into thinking that you are in a good spiritual state, and that all things are going well for you?  How sad is it that your close kin refused to warn you of your imminent loss, merely because they lied to themselves and convinced themselves that you were safe.  The Bible commands that it is in the best interest of Moab that we warn her and separate completely from her (Ezra 9:1), so that she might see her error and turn from Chemosh who was her God.  Note that it was certainly understandable that Moab had gone after Chemosh (the destroyer).  It was Solomon who in 1^st Kings 11:7 who had built a high place for the worship of Chemosh.  It was understandable that the Moabites had gone after Chemosh. Chemosh (also called Shamash, who was the husband and brother of Ishtar), and many of those who should have followed after God’s true religion, had fallen for the false religion of Chemosh and Ishtar.  Solomon, the son of David, allowed it – and even promoted the worship of Chemosh by building an altar to him.  Do you see the danger here?  The worship of false christianity by friends and close relatives can be allowed by us, merely because we, like Solomon, convince ourselves of a lie!  The Moabites are NOT ok!  They will not be saved unless they flee from false religion and false worship and follow after the true faith.  Heshbon shall cry, and Elealeh!  These are two more cities in Moab.  They saw the destruction coming and mourned, but could not repent.  “Even unto Jahaz” which was a city on the very frontier, as the destruction and mourning sweeps the whole nation away.

therefore the armed soldiers of Moab shall cry out; Not as if they are going to war, or going to defeat an enemy – but they will cry out in fear and in mourning.  All the defenses of the Moabites will be cast down.  All of their defensiveness will be swept away as well.  Even the life of every Moabite will be a burden to him, He will cry and scream, not for mercy, but for death.  This is the burden of Moab.  They do not love God, but they do love their strong cities and their lives and their “stuff”.  They will not cry out for mercy, but they will cry out for their loss.  They cannot come to God on HIS terms, so they deceive themselves into thinking they are alright on their own terms.  What is even sadder… we have deceived them as well.  We have not done what God requires that we do to the Moabites, which is to totally separate from them, so that maybe they will see their folly and return to the true God of scripture.

Verses 5-7 - My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugitives shall flee unto Zoar, an heifer of three years old: for by the mounting up of Luhith with weeping shall they go it up; for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise up a cry of destruction. For the waters of Nimrim shall be desolate: for the hay is withered away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing. Therefore the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have laid up, shall they carry away to the brook of the willows; Isaiah takes the part of one who grieves for the loss of a close relative.  His heart cries out for Moab.  The prophet never takes joy in announcing the destruction of the world, and the judgment of close relatives.

The fugitives shall flee.  Those who are not immediately destroyed will flee from the face of God unto Zoar.  Zoar was a city of Moab that had never been defeated or destroyed; it was the strongest of the strongholds.  Zoar is called “an heifer of three years old”.  A three year old heifer is in the strength of its youth.  It will not be yoked as an ox until it is 5 years old.  Calvin said that a three year old heifer was, “in full vigour, and has not felt the pangs of birth, or toil, or the yoke, but revels in the buoyancy of mirth and wantonness” (Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah 15).  The friend or relative will flee to the errors of their youth; they will remind themselves of their religious affections from the time before persecution and pain and suffering came upon them.  They will cling to the false teachings that made sense to them before the armies of the enemy fell upon them.  They cannot leave the world or the festivals of the world, so they will cling to them in the face of destruction.  Isaiah continues the list of cities that will fall, which are strongholds of the enemy – and shows that the Moabite will not turn to the true God of Abraham for mercy.  The well-watered pastures of Nimrim will dry up, and all the strongholds of false faith will be shattered.  All the grass and hay will fail, and the very land itself will seem to turn against Moab in punishment.  The Moabites will then turn in their flesh to try to save the abundance that they have laid up for themselves, and they will carry it to the willows to hide it.  This is a sad state of affairs, when the people cannot trust in their strong cities or in their fortresses, and they are forced to carry their beloved goods to try to hide them under a wispy tree by a dried up brook for safety.

Verses 8-9 - For the cry is gone round about the borders of Moab; the howling thereof unto Eglaim, and the howling thereof unto Beerelim. For the waters of Dimon shall be full of blood: for I will bring more upon Dimon, lions upon him that escapeth of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land; All of Moab will one day howl for the destruction that suddenly comes upon it.  From one border to the other, the whole stretch of that nation will cry out.  The massacre will be such that the waters, upon which they depended for life, will run with the very blood that was their lives, and those that think that they have escaped will soon find themselves encompassed with lions.  The next chapter of Isaiah continues on in this same prophecy, so if you are being made uncomfortable by this teaching, you still have more of it to come.  But in the next chapter we find that eventually, the small remnant of Moab will be driven to the sanctuary to pray, but even this will not save them.  It is too late for them.  We have seen in earlier chapters that God still has a remnant, even in the apostate churches – and this remnant He intends to save when sudden destruction comes upon the church.  But let us not deceive ourselves.  It is easy to rest upon that promise and then refuse to do what God requires of us.  It is easy for us to say, “My friends, my family, my neighbor, they are God’s elect and God will save them in due time”, but friends, this is a fools salve for a wounded conscience.  In Ezra chapter 9 we read:

“Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, [doing] according to their abominations, [even] of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of [those] lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the LORD my God, And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over [our] head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. Since the days of our fathers [have] we [been] in a great trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, [and] our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as [it is] this day. And now for a little space grace hath been [shewed] from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we [were] bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments, Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness. Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave [it] for an inheritance to your children for ever. And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities [deserve], and hast given us [such] deliverance as this; Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed [us], so that [there should be] no remnant nor escaping? O LORD God of Israel, thou [art] righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as [it is] this day: behold, we [are] before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this” (Ezra, Chapter 9)

The prophet implores the people to obey God, whose punishment upon His people had been mercifully delayed.  He hoped that they will do what God has called upon them to do, just as they were commanded to separate from Moab, and from the other nations round about Israel.  It is interesting to note, that the religious Pharisees and others were condemned in the New Testament for counting as unclean that which God had cleansed.  It was the practice of the religious leaders at the time of Christ to separate from Samaritans and from the Gentiles, even if these people had accepted all the ways of the God of Israel, and had believed and practiced all the right doctrines; even if, like the Samaritan woman, they showed fruit of conversion by seeking crumbs at the feet of Jesus.  Those who followed the God of Israel at the time were rightly called the “God-fearers”, but the Pharisees still considered them unclean.  Jesus teaches us that this philosophy was wrong, and that His intention has always been to save His elect out of every nation, tongue and people.  But those who remain estranged from the true Doctrines of Grace, and who deny them, and who show no fruit of regeneration, and who continue to practice the religions of the Canaanites and the Moabites and continue to keep the festivals of the pagans round about Israel – these are NOT our people.  These are the ones from which we are to separate.

Chapter 16 will show us that there is no escape for the world.  There is no section of scripture which allows for hope for those who refuse the truth.  The world is headed for destruction.  There is no such thing as “loving God” but refusing to hear the truth about Him.  There is no such thing as “knowing God” but rejecting the things that God has unveiled about Himself.  The Bible encourages us not to deceive ourselves into thinking we are saved, when we refuse to obey Him and refuse to do those things that are required of us.  The Bible teaches that we should constantly examine ourselves to see that we are in the faith, and that there is the work of conversion being wrought inside of us.  We should know that it is an act of supreme love for the Moabite for us to separate from him, because the Moabite has a natural connection to the God of Israel and lives in close proximity to the people of God.  The Moabite has seen God’s deliverance in the lives of His children, and the miracles wrought on their behalf.  The only hope for the Moabitess is for her to see that Naomi (the child of God) returns to her own land to serve her own God.  Perchance she will see that all hope of salvation is leaving with Naomi, and she will choose to forsake the land of Moab and the false god Chemosh to follow God to where the children of God dwell.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

 
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