Jeremiah 48:20

Moab is confounded; for it is broken down: howl and cry; tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is spoiled,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) Tell ye it in Arnon.—The name, which means a rushing stream, belonged to the chief river of Moab, now the Mugab, which rises in the Arabian mountains and flows into the Dead Sea. It appears in the war-song quoted, in Numbers 21:14, from the “Book of the Wars of the Lord,” and the “high places” on either side its course were crowned with the castles of the lords of Moab (Numbers 21:28). The verse contains the answer to the question that precedes it—“This is what has come to pass, Moab is confounded and spoiled.” For the “plain country” see Note on Jeremiah 48:8.

(20) Make ye him drunken . . .—The image is suggested by the wine-cup of Jehovah’s fury in Jeremiah 25:15, and was familiar in the symbolic language of the prophets (Isaiah 51:17; Job 21:20; Ezekiel 23:32; Revelation 14:10). The words that follow paint the image in its strongest colours. As men looked with scorn on the drunkard wallowing in his shame, so should they look on Moab, that had been so boastful in its pride, when it was brought low.

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

Or, "Moab is ashamed, because she (Dibon) is broken" by her fortifications being battered down.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. Answer of the fleeing Moabites to the Ammonite inquirers (Jer 48:19; Isa 16:2). He enumerates the Moabite cities at length, as it seemed so incredible that all should be so utterly ruined. Many of them were assigned to the Levites, while Israel stood.

in Arnon—the north boundary between Moab and Ammon (Jer 48:19; Nu 21:13).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Arnon was the name of a river, Numbers 21:14 Deu 2:36 Joshua 12:1. It was the border of Moab, whither Balak went to meet Balaam, Numbers 22:36; probably the adjacent country or city might take its name from the river.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Moab is confounded, for it is broken down,.... This is the answer returned, by those that had escaped and were fleeing, to those who inquired of them; who report that the whole country of Moab was in the utmost confusion and consternation; not being able to stand before the enemy, who broke down and destroyed all that was in his way: and therefore calls upon them to

howl and cry; because of the general ruin at the nation, and who must expect themselves to share the same fate; and therefore should prepare themselves and their neighbours for it, as follows:

tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is spoiled; the country of Arnon, so called from a river of that name, on the banks of which Aroer was situated; the inhabitants of which are desired to spread it all over that part of the country, that Moab was utterly ruined by the Chaldean army; the particulars of which follow:

Geneva Study Bible

{m} Moab is confounded; for it is broken down: wail and cry; tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is laid waste,

(m) Thus they who flee will answer.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. broken down] See on Jeremiah 48:1.

in Arnon] rather, by the Arnon, i.e. on its banks.

20–24. The metrical arrangement begun in Jeremiah 48:17 ends in the middle of Jeremiah 48:20. From “tell ye it” onwards to the end of Jeremiah 48:24 is in all probability a later addition. Of the places not already mentioned in the ch. the position of some is quite unknown.

20–28. See introd. summary to the ch.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - The answer of the fugitives begins in the latter part of this verse, and, continues to ver. 24. Confounded ought, as usual, to be brought to shame. The address, howl and cry, which is in the feminine, refers to Moab, which has just before been spoken of in the feminine ("It is broken down," or rather, "she is dismayed," refers to Moab, not to Dibon). In Arnon; i.e. in the region of the Amen; better, beside Arnon (comp. Jeremiah 13:5, "by Euphrates"). Jeremiah 48:20

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.