2 Kings 3:27

Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) Then.—And.

His eldest son—i.e., the despairing king of Moab took his own son and heir.

Offered him for a burnt offering.—To Chemosh, without doubt, by way of appeasing that wrath of the god which seemed bent on his destruction. (Comp. the words of Mesha’s inscription: “Chemosh was angry with his ląnd.” Note, 2Kings 1:1.) There is a reference to such hideous sacrifices in Micah 6:7, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions?” In dark times of national calamity the Hebrews were prone, like their neighbours, to seek help in the same dreadful rites. (Comp. the case of Manasseh, 2Chronicles 33:6; see also Psalm 106:37-39.) From the cuneiform records we learn that the sacrifice of children was also a Babylonian practice. (Amos 2:1 refers to a totally different event from that recorded in the text.)

Upon the wall.—Of Kir-haraseth. This was done that the besiegers might see, and dread the consequences, believing, as they would be likely to do, that the Divine wrath was now appeased.

And there was great indignation against Israel.—Or, And great wrath fell upon Israel. This phrase always denotes a visitation of Divine wrath. (Comp. 2Chronicles 19:10; 2Chronicles 24:18.) The manifestation of wrath in the present case was apparently a successful sortie of the Moabite garrison, whose faith in this terrible expedient of their king inspired them with new courage, while the besiegers were proportionally disheartened. The result was that “they (i.e., the allied forces) departed from him (raised the siege), and returned to the land” (of Israel). Why did Divine wrath fall upon Israel rather than upon Moab? upon the involuntary cause rather than the voluntary agents in this shocking rite? If the wrath of Jehovah be meant, we cannot tell. But, as the present writer understands the words of the text, they rather indicate that the object of the dreadful expiation was attained, and that the wrath of Chemosh fell upon the Hebrew alliance. It is certain that belief in the supremacy of Jehovah did not hinder ancient Israel from admitting the real existence and potency of foreign deities. (See Note on 1Chronicles 16:25-26; 1Chronicles 17:21; and comp. Numbers 21:29; Judges 11:24.) This peculiar conception is a token of the antiquity of the record before us. In the second half of Isaiah the foreign gods are called non. entities.

After the events described in this verse we may suppose that Mesha’s successes continued, as described on the stone of Dibon. (See Note on 2Kings 1:1.)

Benson Commentary

2 Kings 3:27. He took his eldest son — and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the walls — “Not only the Holy Scriptures, but several heathen writers assure us, that in case of great extremity, it was customary among various people to sacrifice to their gods whatever was most dear to them.” Eusebius and Luctantius mention several nations who used these sacrifices. And “Cesar, in his war with the Gauls, tells us that when they were afflicted with grievous diseases, or in time of war or great danger, they either offered men for sacrifices, or vowed that they would offer them; because they imagined that their gods could never be appeased unless one man’s life was given for another’s. In conformity with this horrid custom, and to appease, no doubt, as he thought, the anger of his idol Chemosh, the king of Moab made this costly sacrifice of his eldest son; a deed which, it is plain from the text, was held in the greatest abhorrence by the Israelites.” — Dodd. For so, it seems, we are to understand the following words, which should be rendered, not, There was great indignation against Israel, but, There was great trouble, or repentance upon (in or among) Israel: that is, they were extremely grieved on account of this barbarous sacrifice, and wished they had not pushed on a war so far, which ended in such a horrid action. They departed from him, and returned to their own land — They resolved to prosecute the war no further; but raised the siege, by common consent, and returned home, for fear any such thing should be done again.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:20-27 It is a blessing to be favoured with the company of those who have power with God, and can prevail by their prayers. A kingdom may be upheld and prosper, in consequence of the fervent prayers of those who are dear to God. May we place our highest regard upon such as are most precious in his account. When sinners are saying Peace, peace, destruction comes upon them: despair will follow their mad presumption. In Satan's service and at his suggestion, such horrid deeds have been done, as cause the natural feelings of the heart to shudder; like the king of Moab's sacrificing his son. It is well not to urge the worst of men to extremities; we should rather leave them to the judgment of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the marginal reference. Mesha, when his sally failed, took, as a last resource, his first born son, and offered him as a burnt-offering to appease the manifest anger of his god Chemosh, and obtain his aid against his enemies. This act was thoroughly in accordance with Moabitish notions.

And there was great indignation against Israel - Either the Israelites were indignant with themselves, or the men of Judah and the Edomites were indignant at the Israelites for having caused the pollution of this sacrifice, and the siege was relinquished.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering, &c.—By this deed of horror, to which the allied army drove the king of Moab, a divine judgment came upon Israel; that is, the besiegers feared the anger of God, which they had incurred by giving occasion to the human sacrifice forbidden in the law (Le 18:21; 20:3), and hastily raised the siege.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

His eldest son; either, first, The king of Edom’s son; whom in this eruption he took, and then sacrificed. Compare Amos 2:1. But, first, That place speaks of the king, not of the king’s son; and of the burning of his bones, not of the offering of a living man for a burnt-offering. Secondly, This would not have made the besiegers to raise their siege, but to have followed it more warmly to revenge so barbarous an action. Thirdly, The following clause,

that should have reigned in his stead, agrees not so well to the Edomites, whose king was only Jehoshaphat’s viceroy, and therefore his son had no right to succeed him; as it doth to the Moabites, whose king was revolted from Israel, and intended to keep that kingdom to himself and children. Or rather, secondly, his own son; whom he sacrificed, partly to obtain the favour of his god, according to the manner of the Phoenicians and other people in grievous and public calamities; whereof we have manifest testimonies, both in Scripture, as Psalm 106:37 Ezekiel 20:31, and in heathen authors, as Porphyrius, Plutarch, and others; and partly to oblige the Israelites to quit the siege out of compassion, or as despairing to conquer (at least without greater loss of men than it was worth) him who was resolved to defend himself and city to the utmost extremity.

Offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall, that the besiegers might see it, and be moved by it.

Great indignation against Israel, or, great trouble or repentance upon Israel; i.e. the Israelitish king and people (who was the first cause of the war, and had brought the rest into confederacy with him) were greatly afflicted and grieved for this barbarous action, and resolved to prosecute the war no further, and so withdrew their forces, as also did their allies, and returned to their several homes; which they were the more willing to do, because the kingdom and country of Moab were so ruinated, both as to their men, and cities or villages, and lands, that they were all secure of any great annoyance from him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then he took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead,.... Not the eldest son of the king of Edom, whom the king of Moab had in his hands before, which made the king of Edom the more willing to join in this expedition for the recovery of his son, as Joseph Kimchi thinks; or whom he took now in his sally out upon him, as Moses Kimchi and Ben Gersom, proceeding upon a mistaken sense of Amos 2:1 for the king of Edom could have no son that had a right, or was designed to succeed him, since he was but a deputy king himself; and besides, the sacrificing of him was not the way to cause the kings to raise the siege, but rather to provoke them to press it the more closely: it was the king of Moab that took his son and heir to the crown,

and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall; that it might be seen by the camp of Israel, and move their compassion; or rather this was done as a religious action, to appease the deity by an human sacrifice so dear and precious, to give success, and cause the enemy to break up the siege; and was either offered to the true God, the God of Israel, in imitation of Abraham, as some Jewish writers fancy (n), or to his idol Chemosh, the sun; and Jarchi observes, out of an exposition of theirs, that "vau" is wanting in the word for wall, and so may be interpreted of the sun, towards which this burnt offering was offered; and it is observed, from various Heathen authors, that it was usual with the Heathens, when in calamity and distress, to offer up to their gods what was most dear and valuable to them; and particularly the Phoenicians (o), and from them the Carthaginians had this custom, who at one time offered up two hundred sons of their nobility, to appease their gods (p):

and there was great indignation against Israel; not of the king of Edom against them, for not rescuing his son, or because they were the means of this disaster which befell him; but of the king of Moab, who was quite desperate, and determined to hold out the siege to the utmost extremity: and they departed, and returned to their own land; the three kings, the one to Edom, the other to Israel, and the third to Judah; when they saw the Moabites would sell their lives so dear, and hold out to the last man, they thought fit to break up the siege; and perhaps were greatly affected with the barbarous shocking sight they had seen, and might fear, should they stay, something else of the like kind would be done.

(n) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 39. 2. Pesikta in Abarbinel in loc. (o) Vid. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 1. c. 10. p. 40. l. 4. c. 16. p. 156. Porphyr. de Abstinentia, l. 2. sect. 56. Vid. Aelian. Var. Hist. l. 12. c. 28. (p) Diodor. Sicul. Bibliothec. l. 20. p. 756.

Geneva Study Bible

Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and {r} offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

(r) Some refer it to the king of Edom's son, whom they say he had taken in that skirmish: but rather it seemed to be his own son, whom he offered to his gods to pacify them: which barbarous cruelty moved the Israelites hearts of pity to depart.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. his eldest son] i.e. his own eldest son, not as has been explained by some, the eldest son of the Edomite king. His thought was to offer such a sacrifice as would be most acceptable. Hence he gave what was most precious to him. And the offering was made to his own god, Chemosh (see Numbers 21:29). Among the heathen human sacrifice was not uncommon, and some have thought that from the sight of such offerings Abraham was brought to contemplate the sacrifice of Isaac as required of him to prove that he was not less devoted to Jehovah’s service than the heathen people to their idolatry.

upon the wall] This was no doubt done to shew to the Israelites that every means had been taken by him to secure the aid of the local divinity against his assailants. Such a sacrifice they might think could hardly fail of obtaining the help sought by it.

And there was great indignation [R.V. wrath] against Israel] The word rendered ‘wrath’ or ‘indignation’ is nearly always used of the wrath of God against offenders. But it appears difficult to take it in that sense here. God’s promise through Elisha was that Israel should conquer, and they were bidden to smite every fenced city and every choice city. Therefore unless we conceive that underlying God’s message there was conceived some point beyond which they were not to go, and that the forcing of the king to offer his son was of this character, it is hard to see how they could be held to blame and worthy of God’s wrath. They were in no position to know what the king intended, nor, when they saw him on the wall, to prevent his sacrifice. It seems better therefore to take ‘wrath’ in this place to signify ‘wrath of men’. The word is found in Ecclesiastes 5:17, ‘All his days he eateth in darkness, and is sore vexed and hath sickness and wrath’ (R.V.). This can be either of what the man feels himself, or of what others feel towards him. Taking the latter sense, the meaning here would be that in the minds of the men of Judah and Edom there rose indignation that they had been brought to partake in an expedition which led to such a dreadful sacrifice. If we apply the word to the feelings of the Israelites themselves, we get the sense that they were grieved and angry at so terrible a result, and so hastened to leave the dreadful scene. The margin of R.V., ‘There came great wrath upon Israel’, alludes to the anger of God, but it seems, as the preposition is ‘against’, to be better to understand that the allies were grieved at having shared in so disastrous a warfare. Josephus says the kings pitied the need which the Moabite monarch had felt when he offered up his child, and so withdrew.

and they departed from him] i.e. from the king of Moab. This seems to shew that it was the horrible act of the king which made them ready to be gone at once. It was not the land which they left. Had no such sacrifice as is here described taken place they would have prosecuted the siege according to the prophet’s word. But now they withdrew in horror.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - Then he took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead - the throne of Moab being hereditary, and primogeniture the established law (cf. Moabite Stone, lines 2 and 3, "My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father") - and offered him for a burnt offering. Human sacrifice was widely practiced by the idolatrous nations who bordered on Palestine, and by none more than by the Moabites. A former King of Moab, when in a sore strait, had asked, "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" (Micah 6:7); and there is reason to believe that a chief element in the worship of Chemosh was the sacrifice of young children by their unnatural parents. The practice rested on the idea that God was best pleased when men offered to him what was dearest and most precious to them; but it was in glaring contradiction to the character of God as revealed by his prophets, and it did violence to the best and holiest instincts of human nature. The Law condemned it in the strongest terms as a profanation of the Divine Name (Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:1-5), and neither Jeroboam nor Ahab ventured to introduce it when they established their idolatrous systems. The King of Mesh, undoubtedly, offered the sacrifice to his god Chemosh (see Moabite Stone, lines 3, 4, 8, 12, etc.), hoping to propitiate him, and by his aid to escape from the peril in which he found himself placed. HIS motive for offering the sacrifice upon the wall is not so clear. It was evidently done to attract the notice of the besiegers, but with what further object is uncertain. Ewald thinks the king's intention was to" confound the enemy by the spectacle of the frightful deed to which they had forced him," and thus to "effect a change in their purposes" ('History of Israel,' vol. 4. p. 90); but perhaps it is as likely that he hoped to work upon their fears, and induce them to retire under the notion that, if they did not, Chemosh would do them some terrible injury. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed. It seems necessary to connect these clauses, and to regard them as assigning cause and effect. The deed done aroused an indignation against Israel, which led to the siege being raised. But an indignation on whose part? Keil thinks, on God's. But could God be angry with Israel for an act of the King of Moab, which they had no ground for anticipating, and which they could not possibly have pro-vented? especially when the Israelites had done nothing to cause the act, except by carrying out God's own command to them through his prophet, to "smite every fenced city and every choice city" (ver. 19). The indignation, therefore, must have been human. But who felt it? Probably the Moabites. The terrible act of their king, to which they considered that Israel had driven him, stirred up such a feeling of fury among the residue of the Moabite nation, that the confederates quailed before it, and came to the conclusion that they had best give up the siege and retire. They therefore departed from him - i.e. the King of Mesh - and returned to their own land; severally to Edom, Judea, and Samaria.



2 Kings 3:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

But when this attempt failed, in his desperation he took his first-born son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice upon the wall, i.e., in the sight of the besiegers, not to the God of Israel (Joseph. Ephr. Syr., etc.), but to his own god Camos (see at 1 Kings 11:7), to procure help from him by appeasing his wrath; just as the heathen constantly sought to appease the wrath of their gods by human sacrifices on the occasion of great calamities (vid., Euseb. praepar. ev. iv. 16, and E. v. Lasaulx, die Shnopfer der Griechen und Rmer, pp. 8ff.). - "And there was (came) great wrath upon Israel, and they departed from him (the king of Moab) and returned into their land." As על קצף היה is used of the divine wrath or judgment, which a man brings upon himself by sinning, in every other case in which the phrase occurs, we cannot understand it here as signifying the "human indignation," or ill-will, which broke out among the besieged (Budd., Schulz, and others). The meaning is: this act of abomination, to which the king of the Moabites had been impelled by the extremity of his distress, brought a severe judgment from God upon Israel. The besiegers, that is to say, felt the wrath of God, which they had brought upon themselves by occasioning human sacrifice, which is strictly forbidden in the law (Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:3), either inwardly in their conscience or in some outwardly visible signs, so that they gave up the further prosecution of the siege and the conquest of the city, without having attained the object of the expedition, namely, to renew the subjugation of Moab under the power of Israel.