Isaiah 15, Against Moab

After prophesying against Babylon and the Philistines, Isaiah turns to Moab (to the southeast of Israel)

Isaiah 15:1- 4, Ar, Kir, Dibon...

A prophecy against Moab:

Ar in Moab is ruined,

    destroyed in a night!

Kir in Moab is ruined,

    destroyed in a night!

Dibon goes up to its temple,

    to its high places to weep;

    Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba.

Every head is shaved

    and every beard cut off.

In the streets they wear sackcloth;

    on the roofs and in the public squares

they all wail,

    prostrate with weeping.

Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,

    their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz.

Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out,

    and their hearts are faint.

After prophesying against Babylon and the Philistines, Isaiah turns to Moab (southeast of Israel.) Various Moabite towns are listed in the upcoming devastation, in a quick volley. Ar is on the border of Moab  (see Deuteronomy 2:18) and, says Motyer (p. 89), Kir-Hareseth was in central Moab, thus displaying the success of the invasion.  Isaiah, says Grogan (p. 113), "is fond of crowding a number of place names into a small compass."

Isaiah 15:5-6, Fugitives, refugees, drought

My heart cries out over Moab;

    her fugitives flee as far as Zoar,

    as far as Eglath Shelishiyah.

They go up the hill to Luhith,

    weeping as they go;

on the road to Horonaim

    they lament their destruction.

The waters of Nimrim are dried up

    and the grass is withered;

the vegetation is gone

    and nothing green is left.

Isaiah's heart cries out for Moab, as he watches, in his mind, the fugitives fleeing their homes. Jeremiah wept for Judah in Jeremiah 9:1; here Isaiah weeps for a foreign country, vividly describing the distress of her refugees. (Motyer says that it is God, in place of Isaiah, who weeps in this passage.)

The destruction of Moab includes environmental damage -- drought and withered vegetation.

Isaiah 15:7-9, Wealth turned to wailing

So the wealth they have acquired and stored up

    they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars.

Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab;

    their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim,

    their lamentation as far as Beer Elim.

The waters of Dimon are full of blood,

    but I will bring still more upon Dimon—

a lion upon the fugitives of Moab

    and upon those who remain in the land.

The wealth of Moab is destroyed; the people cry loudly as their rivers fill with blood. And even worse is to come. The enemy leaps upon the land like a lion.

The place names in this passage move in a southwest direction (says Motyer), indication the direction of the invasion, coming from northeast (from Assyria?)

The prophecy against Moab continues into the next chapter.