2 Kings 3:4, 5 And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep master, and rendered to the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams… The general causes of this rebellion are considered on 2 Kings 1:1. The victories recorded on the Moabite Stone as achieved by the favor of Chemosh belong probably to the earlier stages of the revolt. They can hardly have followed the crushing destruction of vers. 24, 25. Prior, also, to the expedition of this chapter, must be placed the attempt to overwhelm Jehoshaphat by the combined forces of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, etc. (2 Chronicles 20.), which seems to be the invasion described in Psalm 83. The language alike of the history and of the psalm in the description of that invasion - which, like the present struggle, ended in supernatural defeat - shows how dangerous an enemy an independent kingdom of Moab would have been to Judah, and how necessary it was, in the interests of the covenant nation, that this rival power should, on its first upspringing, he effectually broken. Jehoram's action was overruled to bring about this effectual humbling of Moab, though, for his own humiliation, Moab does not seem ever to have been brought again under the yoke of Israel; Great as were the severities of the war, they were not greater than Moab, as a conquering power, meted out to others (see Moabite Stone), and would still have meted out had she been victor. - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. |
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