Jeremiah 48:36

Therefore mine heart shall sound for Moab like pipes, and mine heart shall sound like pipes for the men of Kirheres: because the riches that he hath gotten are perished.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(36) Mine heart shall sound for Moab like pipes . . .—The words reproduce Isaiah 16:11. His heart becomes, as it were, musical in its groans and sighs. He cannot look on the panic-stricken and mourning city without sharing in its misery. In the baldness (Jeremiah 7:29; Jeremiah 16:6), the clipped beard, the cuttings (Jeremiah 16:6; Jeremiah 41:5), the sackcloth (Jeremiah 4:8; Jeremiah 6:26; Joel 1:8) we have the wonted signs of mourning for the dead. The “pipe” is chosen rather than the harp, as in Isaiah 16:11, because it had come to be the recognised music for funerals (so in Matthew 9:23).

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

Like pipes - A wind instrument, used at funerals Matthew 9:23.

The riches that he hath gotten - literally, "that which remains over, a superfluity."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

36. (See on [983]Isa 15:7; [984]Isa 16:11).

like pipes—a plaintive instrument, therefore used at funerals and in general mourning.

riches … gotten—literally, the abundance … that which is over and above the necessaries of life. Grotius translates, "They who have been left remaining shall perish"; they who have not been slain by the enemy shall perish by disease and famine.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The prophet means such pipes as they were wont to use at funerals, and other sad occasions, to play doleful lessons upon; see Isaiah 15:5; because of the great change in the state of this poor people, which had got together a great deal of wealth, which is all perished.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore my heart shall sound for Moab like pipes,.... That are sounded on mournful occasions, as at funerals, and the like; see Matthew 9:23. This the prophet said, as Kimchi observes, in the person of the people, the inhabitants of Moab; whose hearts would yearn and sound for the calamities of their country like the doleful sound of minstrels. So the Targum,

"therefore the Moabites shall sound in their hearts like a harp:''

and my heart shall sound like pipes for the men of Kirheres; as for the country of Moab in general, so for this principal city, and the inhabitants of it, in particular; See Gill on Isaiah 16:11;

because the riches that he hath gotten is perished; either Moab or Kirheres; the abundance of goods they had got together were now lost, falling into the hands of the enemy; and which was matter of lamentation. The Targum is,

"for the rest of their substance they had got were spoiled.''

Some understand it of the residue of men that escaped the sword; these perished by famine, or other means; see Isaiah 15:7.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore my heart shall sound for Moab like {u} pipes, and my heart shall sound like pipes for the men of Kirheres: because the riches that he hath gotten have perished.

(u) Their custom was to play on flutes or instruments, heavy and grave tunes at burials and in the time of mourning, as in Mt 9:23.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

36. soundeth for Moab like pipes] Their use was connected with funerals, so that the word is appropriate as expressing mourning. Isaiah’s word is “an harp” (Jeremiah 16:11).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36-42. - The description of Moab's lamentations continued. Verse 36. - Based on Isaiah 16:11; Isaiah 15:7. Like pipes. Isaiah has, "like the harp [or, 'lute']." The pipe, or flute, was specially used at funeral ceremonies (Matthew 9:23; Luke 7:32), and therefore, perhaps, seemed to Jeremiah more appropriate. Because the riches, etc. This is, no doubt, what we should have expected, but this is not what Jeremiah wrote; "because" should rather be therefore. Jeremiah simply transferred a clause (substantially at least) from his original, Isaiah 15:7, but into a context where it stands rather less naturally. The meaning of the words in Isaiah is that, the desolation being so great, the Moabites shall carry away as much of their goods as they can. In this new context, however, we can only explain this unexpected "therefore" by referring to a habit of the Israelitish mind by which that which contributed to a result was regarded as worked purposely for that result. Good instances of this habit are Genesis 18:5; Psalm 45:3; Psalm 51:6; comp. Winer's 'New Testament Grammar' (Clark), pp. 573, 574, especially note 1 on p. 574, though the idiom also occurs in Old Testament passages in which the religious view of life is hardly traceable. Jeremiah 48:36

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Further lamentation over the fall of Moab. - Jeremiah 48:36. "Therefore my heart sounds like pipes for Moab, and my heart sounds like pipes for the men of Kir-heres; therefore the savings which he has made are perished. Jeremiah 48:37. For every head is baldness, and every beard is shorn; on all hands there are cuts, and on loins sackcloth. Jeremiah 48:38. On all the roofs of Moab, and in its streets, it is all mourning; for I have broken Moab like a vessel, in which there is no pleasure, saith Jahveh."

The prophet once more lifts up his lamentation over Moab (Jeremiah 48:36 corresponds to Jeremiah 48:31), and gives reason for it in the picture he draws of the deep affliction of the Moabites. Jeremiah 48:36 is an imitation of Isaiah 16:11; the thought presented in v. 36b accords with that found in Isaiah 15:7. Isaiah says, "My bowels sound (groan) like the harp," whose strings give a tremulous sound when struck with the plectrum. Instead of this, Jeremiah puts the sounding of pipes, the instruments used in dirges (Matthew 9:23). Moab and Kir-heres are mentioned together, as in Jeremiah 48:31. על־כּן, in the second clause, does not stand for כּי על־כּן, "on this account that" (Kimchi, Hitzig, Graf, etc.), but is co-ordinated with the first על־כּן. The idea is not, "Therefore my heart mourns over Moab, because the savings are perished;" but because the sentence of desolation has been passed on the whole of Moab, therefore the heart of the prophet makes lament, and therefore, too, all the property which Moab has acquired is lost. יתרה, as a collective noun, is joined with the plural verb אבדוּ. On the construction יתרת עשׂה, cf. Gesenius, 123, 3, Rem. 1; Ewald, 332, c. The proof of this is given by the deep sorrow and wailing of the whole Moabite nation, Jeremiah 48:37. On all sides are tokens of the deepest sadness, - heads shorn bald, beards cut off, incisions on the hands, sackcloth round the loins.