Jeremiah 48:19

O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and espy; ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) O inhabitant of Aroer.—There seems to have been two cities of this name: one which had belonged first to the territory of Sihon, then to Reuben, then to Moab, on the north side of the Arnon (Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 3:12; Deuteronomy 4:48; Joshua 12:2); another in the Ammonite territory belonging to Gad, near Rabbath-Ammon, in the valley of the Jabbok (Numbers 32:34; Joshua 13:25; Judges 11:33). Both are probably comprised under the “cities of Aroer” in Isaiah 17:2. The name exists in the modern Arair. As lying on the frontier, the inhabitants of the Northern Aroer are represented as seeing the fugitives, male and female, from Dibon, and asking what had happened to drive them from their city. Milton’s lines (Par. Lost, L 407) may be quoted as illustrating the topography :

“From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

Of Southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seon’s realm . . .”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

48:14-47. The destruction of Moab is further prophesied, to awaken them by national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and mediating on the terror, it will be of more use to us to keep in view the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, and to have our hearts possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to search into all the figures and expressions here used. Yet it is not perpetual destruction. The chapter ends with a promise of their return out of captivity in the latter days. Even with Moabites God will not contend for ever, nor be always wroth. The Jews refer it to the days of the Messiah; then the captives of the Gentiles, under the yoke of sin and Satan, shall be brought back by Divine grace, which shall make them free indeed.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Aroer - On the Arnon, due south of Dibon. If Dibon falls, the turn of Aroer will come next, and therefore its inhabitants are to be on the look out, asking for news.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. Aroer—on the north bank of the Arnon, a city of Ammon (De 2:36; 3:12). As it was on "the way" of the Moabites who fled into the desert, its inhabitants "ask" what is the occasion of Moab's flight, and so learn the lot that awaits themselves (compare 1Sa 4:13, 16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Aroer was a city in the lot of Gad and Reuben, Numbers 32:34. In David’s time it was in the hand of the Jews, 1 Samuel 30:28, but in Isaiah’s time it belonged to Syria, Isaiah 17:2, and here it is reckoned to the Moabites. The inhabitants of it are called to

stand by the way, and seeing the Moabites fleeing, to ask what news. Others think that Aroer was at this time a city of the Ammonites, and here called unto to see their neighbours the Moabites fleeing before their enemies.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

O inhabitant of Aroer,.... Another city that belonged to Moab, situated on the border of it towards Ammon, near the river Arnon; See Gill on Isaiah 17:2;

stand by the way, and espy; get to the road side where travellers pass, and look out for them:

ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth; whether man or woman you see fleeing, having escaped the army of the Chaldeans:

and say, what is done? by the Chaldeans; ask what cities they have taken; what progress they have made; what is done to their cities, that they flee from them? tell all the particulars of things.

Geneva Study Bible

O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and espy; ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. Aroer] now ‘Ara‘ir, not to be confounded with the Aroer of Numbers 32:34, a Gadite city, or with an Aroer belonging to Judah (1 Samuel 30:28). The Aroer of the text was a few miles S.W. of Dibon. Mesha records on the “Moabite stone” that he “built (i.e. restored) the city and made the road over the Arnon.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The inhabitants of Aroer will come out in eager expectation to meet the fugitives, and ask, What hath happened? (so the question should be rendered). There were several Aroers (one belonged to the Ammonites, Joshua 13:25), but as the enemy is driving the Moabites southward, the Aroer here intended can only be the town by the Arnon, which separated Moab proper first of all from the kingdom of the Amorites (Deuteronomy 4:48; Joshua 12:2), and afterwards from the territory of the Israelites (Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 3:12). The picture drawn in this verse is singularly appropriate to the site of Arnon, "just by the edge of the arterial highway of Moab," and commanding a complete view of the pass of the Arnon (Tristram, 'Land of Moab,' p. 132). There is the same variety of statement as to the Israetitish tribe to which Aroer belonged as in the case of Dibon (see ver. 18). Joshua 13:16 speaks in favour of Reuben; Numbers 32:34 in favour of Gad. Jeremiah 48:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In Jeremiah 48:18-25 is further described the downfall of this strong and glorious power. The inhabitants if Dibon are to come down from their glory and sit in misery; those of Aroer are to ask the fugitives what has happened, that they may learn that the whole table-land on to the Arnon has been taken by the enemy; and they are to howl over the calamity. The idea presented in Jeremiah 48:18 is an imitation of that in Isaiah 47:1, "Come down, O daughter of Babylon, sit in the dust;" but רדי is intensified by the addition of מכּבוד, and וּשׁבי על is changed into וּשׁבי בצּמא (the Kethib ישׁבי has evidently been written by mistake for וּשׁבי, the Qeri). צמא elsewhere means "thirst;" but "sit down in the thirst" would be too strange an expression; hence צמא must here have the meaning of צמא, Isaiah 44:3, "the thirsty arid land:" thus it remains a question whether we should point the word צמא, or take צמא as another form of צמא, as חלב sa ,צמא fo mro is of חלב, Ezekiel 23:19. There is no sufficient reason why Hitzig and Ewald should give the word a meaning foreign to it, from the Arabic or Syriac. Dibon lay about four miles north from the Arnon, at the foot of a mountain, in a very beautiful plain, where, under the name of Dibn, many traces of walls, and a well by the wayside, hewn out of the rock, are still to be found (Seetzen, i. S. 409f.). Hence it must have been well provided with water, even though we should be obliged to understand by "the water of Dimon" (Dibon), which Isaiah mentions (Isaiah 15:9), the river Arnon, which is about three miles off. The command to "sit down in an arid land" thus forms a suitable figure, representing the humiliation and devastation of Dibon. That the city was fortified, is evident from the mention of the fortifications in the last clause. ישׁבת , as in Jeremiah 46:19. Aroer was situated on the north bank of the Arnon (Mojeb), where its ruins still remain, under the old name Arג'ir (Burckhardt, p. 372). It was a frontier town, between the kingdom of Sihon (afterwards the territory of the Israelites) and the possession of the Moabites (Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 3:12; Deuteronomy 4:48; Joshua 12:2; Joshua 13:9, Joshua 13:16). But after the Moabites had regained the northern portion of their original territory, it lay in the midst of the land. The fugitives here represented as passing by are endeavouring, by crossing the Arnon, to escape from the enemy advancing from the north, and subduing the country before them. נס ונמלטה means fugitives of every kind. The co-ordination of the same word or synonymous terms in the masc. and fem. serves to generalize the idea; see on Isaiah 3:1, and Ewald, 172, c. In נמלטה the tone is retracted through the influence of the distinctive accent; the form is participial. The question, "What has happened?" is answered in Jeremiah 48:20. כּי חתּה, "for ( equals certainly) it is broken down." The Kethib הלילי וּזעקי must not be changed. Moab is addressed: with הגּידוּ is introduced the summons, addressed to individuals, to proclaim at the Arnon the calamity that has befallen the country to the north of that river.