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
15th 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 1st 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
DISAGREE? Discuss or Debate this: Forum
Read more like this: Bunker
Mentality Archives
Proceed back to the Homepage...
Back to the top!
