Isaiah 16:9

Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer . . .—The prophet, in his sympathy with the sufferings of Moab (see Isaiah 15:5), declares that he will weep with tears as genuine as those of Jazer itself over the desolation of its vineyards.

The shouting for thy summer fruits . . .—Better, as in the margin, on thy summer-fruits, and on thy harvest a shout is fallen, i.e., not the song of the vintage gatherers and the reapers, but the cry of the enemy as they trample on the fields and vineyards. The force of the contrast is emphasised, as in Jeremiah 48:33 (“a cheer which is no cheer,” Cheyne), by the use of the same word (hedad) as that which in the next verse is employed for the song of those that tread the grapes. (Comp. Jeremiah 25:30.) Possibly the word for “harvest” is used generically as including the vintage.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:6-14 Those who will not be counselled, cannot be helped. More souls are ruined by pride than by any other sin whatever. Also, the very proud are commonly very passionate. With lies many seek to gain the gratification of pride and passion, but they shall not compass proud and angry projects. Moab was famous for fields and vineyards; but they shall be laid waste by the invading army. God can soon turn laughter into mourning, and joy into heaviness. In God let us always rejoice with holy triumph; in earthly things let us always rejoice with holy trembling. The prophet looks with concern on the desolations of such a pleasant country; it causes inward grief. The false gods of Moab are unable to help; and the God of Israel, the only true God, can and will make good what he has spoken. Let Moab know her ruin is very near, and prepare. The most awful declarations of Divine wrath, discover the way of escape to those who take warning. There is no escape, but by submission to the Son of David, and devoting ourselves to him. And, at length, when the appointed time comes, all the glory, prosperity, and multitude of the wicked shall perish.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore, I will bewail - So great is the desolation that I, the prophet, will lament it, though it belongs to another nation than mine own. The expression indicates that the calamity will be great (see the note at Isaiah 15:5).

With the weeping of Jazer - That is, I will pour out the same lamentation for the vine of Sibmah which I do for Jazer; implying that it would be deep and bitter sorrow (see Jeremiah 48:32).

I will water thee with my tears - Indicating the grievous calamities that were coming upon those places, on account of the pride of the nation. They were to Isaiah foreign nations, but he had a heart that could feel for their calamities.

For the shouting for thy summer fruits - The shouting attending the ingathering of the harvest (note, Isaiah 9:3). The word used here (הידד hēydâd), denotes, properly, a joyful acclamation, a shout of joy or rejoicing, such as was manifested by the vintager and presser of grapes Jeremiah 25:30; Jeremiah 48:33; or such as was made by the warrior Jeremiah 51:14. Here it means, that in the time when they would expect the usual shout of the harvest, it should not be heard, but instead, thereof, there should be the triumph of the warrior. Literally, 'upon thy summer fruits, and upon thy harvests has the shouting fallen;' that is, the shout of the warrior has fallen upon that harvest instead of the rejoicing of the farmer. So Jeremiah evidently understands it Jeremiah 48:32 : 'The spoiler is fallen upon thy summer fruits, and upon thy vintage.' Lowth proposes here a correction of the Hebrew text, but without necessity or authority.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. I—will bewail for its desolation, though I belong to another nation (see on [711]Isa 15:5).

with … weeping of Jazer—as Jazer weeps.

shouting for … fallen—rather, "Upon thy summer fruits and upon thy luxuriant vines the shouting (the battle shout, instead of the joyous shout of the grape-gatherers, usual at the vintage) is fallen" (Isa 16:10; Jer 25:30; 51:14). In the parallel passage (Jer 48:32) the words substantially express the same sense. "The spoiler is fallen upon thy summer fruits."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: so the sense is, I will bewail Sibmah as I did bewail Jazer, which, they say, was destroyed before Sibmah: or,

the weeping of Jazer might be a proverbial expression; for it is used also Jeremiah 48:32, like that of the mourning of Hadadrimmon, Zechariah 12:11, though the reason of it be now unknown, as it is in many other proverbs. The words are by others rendered, and that more agreeably to the Hebrew text, I will bewail with weeping (which is a usual Hebraism for I will bitterly bewail)

Jazer, and (which particle is oft understood) the vine of Sibmah. But our translation seems to be justified by the parallel place, Jeremiah 48:32, where it is, O vine of Sibmah, I will weep for thee with the weeping of Jazer. The shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen; those joyful shouts and acclamations, which were customary in the time of harvest and vintage, Isaiah 9:3 Jeremiah 25:30, shall cease, because thy land shall be wasted, and thy people destroyed. Or, as it is in the margin, the shout or alarm is fallen upon thy summer fruits and thy harvest, instead of that joyful shout which was then used, to which he here alludes; which seems to be the truer translation, not only because this Hebrew word is elsewhere used concerning the shout of an enemy falling upon a people, as Jeremiah 25:30 51:14, but especially by considering the parallel place, Jeremiah 48:32, where, for the shout is fallen, it is, the spoiler is fallen upon, &c. If it be objected, that the next verse speaks of the ceasing of their joyful shouts, and that this Hebrew word is there used for vintage shouting, which at first made me incline to the former interpretation, that seems to be fully answered from Jeremiah 48:33, which speaks likewise of the ceasing of their joy and joyful shouts, but withal adds, in the close of the verse, what may end this controversy, their shouting shall be no shouting; they shall indeed have a shouting, but not such a one as they used to have, a joyful shouting of their own people, but an insulting shout of their enemies.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah,.... That is, bewail the one, as he had done the other, both places with the fruits about them being destroyed by the enemy; or "therefore with weeping I will bewail" (most vehemently lament, an usual Hebraism) "Jazer", and "the vine of Sibmah": the prophet here represents the Moabites weeping for their vines more especially, they being a people addicted to drunkenness, in which their father was begotten; hence Bacchus is said to be the founder of many of their cities, see Jeremiah 48:32. The Targum is,

"as I have brought armies against Jazer, so will I bring slayers against Sibmah;''

I will water thee with my tears: shed abundance of them, see Psalm 6:6,

O Heshbon, and Elealeh; perhaps alluding to the fishponds, in the former, Sol 7:4 of these places; see Gill on Isaiah 15:4,

for the shouting for thy summer fruits, and for thy harvest, is fallen; is ceased, so as not to be heard; namely, the singing and shouting which used to be made by labourers, while they were gathering the summer fruits, or reaping the harvest, with which they amused and diverted themselves, and their fellow labourers, and so their time and their work went on more pleasantly; or else that great joy and shouting they expressed when all was ended, something of which nature is still among us at this day; but now in Moab it was at an end, because the enemy had destroyed both their summer fruits and harvest; though Jarchi and Kimchi interpret this shouting of the enemy, of the spoilers and plunderers, upon their summer fruits and harvest, when they destroyed them; and so the Targum,

"upon thy harvest, and upon thy vintage, spoilers have fallen;''

so Noldius (g) renders the words, "for upon thy summer fruits, and upon thy harvest, the shouting shall fall"; that is, the shouting of the enemy, spoiling their fruits and their harvest; and this seems to be the true sense, since it agrees with Jeremiah 48:32 and the ceasing of the other kind of shouting is observed in the next verse Isaiah 16:10.

(g) Ebr Concord. Part p. 253.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore I will {k} bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy {l} harvest is fallen.

(k) He shows that their plague was so great that it would have moved any man to lament with them, as in Ps 141:5.

(l) The enemies are come upon you, and shout for joy when they carry your conveniences from you as in Jer 48:33.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. (Jeremiah 48:32) with the weeping of Jazer] i.e. in sympathy with the weeping of J. I will water thee] lit. drench thee.

for the shouting … fallen] Render with R.V.: for upon thy summer-fruits (or rather “fruit-gathering”) and upon thy harvest the battle shout is fallen. The word for “shout” (hêdâd) is used both of the joyous shout of the wine-treaders (Jeremiah 25:30) and of the wild war-cry of soldiers in a charge (Jeremiah 51:14). It has the former sense in Isaiah 16:10, but the latter here. “Harvest” is used for “vintage” (qâçîr for bâçîr) as in ch. Isaiah 18:5 (see the note).

9–11. The poet gives vent to his sympathy for Moab. These verses are amongst the most beautiful in the poem.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Therefore I will bewail (comp. Isaiah 15:5, and see the Homiletics on that verse). With the weeping of Jazer. "With tears as genuine as Jazer's own" (Kay). O Heshbon and Elealeh (on the close connection of these two cities, see the comment on Isaiah 15:4). For the shouting, etc.; rather, for on thy summer fruits and on thy harvest a shouting is fallen. The "shouting" intended is that of the invading enemy, which replaces the ordinary joy-song of the vintagers (see ver. 10). Isaiah 16:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The beauties of nature and fruitfulness of the land, which come into the possession of any nation, are gifts from the riches of divine goodness, remnants of the paradisaical commencement of the history of man, and types of its paradisaical close; and for this very reason they are not matters of indifference to the spirit of prophecy. And for the same reason, it is not unworthy of a prophet, who predicts the renovation of nature and the perfecting of it into the beauty of paradise, to weep over such a devastation as that of the Moabitish vineyards which was now passing before his mind (cf., Isaiah 32:12-13). "Therefore I bemoan the vines of Sibmah with the weeping of Jazer; I flood thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh, that Hdad hath fallen upon thy fruit-harvest and upon thy vintage." A tetrastich, the Hebrew equivalent, in measure and movement, of a sapphic strophe. The circumstantiality of the vision is here swallowed up again by the sympathy of the prophet; and the prophecy, which is throughout as truly human as it is divine, becomes soft and flowing like an elegy. The prophet mingles his tears with the tears of Jazer. Just as the latter weeps for the devastated vines of Sibmah, so does he also weep. The form אריּוך, transposed from ארוּיך equals ארוּך (cf., Ewald, 253, a, where it is explained as being a rare "voluntative" formation), corresponds to the elegiac tone of the whole strophe. Heshbon and Elealeh, those closely connected cities, with their luxuriant fields (shedemoth, Isaiah 16:8), are now lying in ruins; and the prophet waters them with tears, because hedad has fallen upon the fruit-harvest and vintage of both the sister cities. In other instances the term kâtzı̄r is applied to the wheat-harvest; but here it is used in the same sense as bâtzı̄r, to which it is preferred on account of Isaiah's favourite alliteration, viz., with kaytz (compare, for example, the alliteration of mistor with sēther in Isaiah 4:6). That it does not refer to the wheat-harvest here, but to the vintage, which was nearly coincident with the fruit-harvest (which is called kaytz, as in Isaiah 28:4), is evident from the figure suggested in the word hēdâd, which was the shout raised by the pressers of the grapes, to give the time for moving their feet when treading out the wine (Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 25:30). A hēdâd of this kind had fallen upon the rich floors of Heshbon-Elealeh, inasmuch as they had been trodden down by enemies - a Hedad, and yet no Hedad, as Jeremiah gives it in a beautiful oxymoron (Jeremiah 48:33), i.e., no joyous shout of actual grape-treaders.