Isaiah 15:5
My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath-shelishiyah. With weeping they ascend the slope of Luhith; they lament their destruction on the road to Horonaim.
Sermons
The Burden of SoulsF. B. Meyer, B. A.Isaiah 15:5
The Prophet's Distress Concerning MoabF. B. Meyer, B. A.Isaiah 15:5
Ar and Kir of MoabIsaiah 15:1-9
God Works in the Night TimeJ. Parker, D. D.Isaiah 15:1-9
National DistressW. Clarkson Isaiah 15:1-9
Oracle Concerning MoabE. Johnson Isaiah 15:1-9
The Moabite StoneProf. S. R. Driver, D. D.Isaiah 15:1-9
The Prophet's Pity for MoabF. Delitzsch.Isaiah 15:1-9














The particular trouble causing such extreme grief was the destruction of the two chief cities of Moab, Ar and Kit. To destroy the capital of a kingdom is to strike the nation at its very heart. Conquerors can dictate peace when the chief city lies at their mercy. Illustrate from the recent German siege of Paris. This chapter vigorously pictures the distress throughout the land when Ar was taken, the rush of people to the border districts, the alarm of those whose property was imperiled, the wail of those who had lost their friends in the strife. Howling, weeping, plucking off the hair, covering with sackcloth, and other signs of despairing grief, were found everywhere; and the cries were all the more bitter because for so many generations Moab had dwelt secure. Here one kind of national distress brings before us that general subject, and sets upon considering -

II. ITS BEARING ON THE POOR. They are always the first to suffer from political or international conditions which affect manufacture, trade, or agriculture. Living upon daily wage, and, when thrifty, only able to provide in limited degrees for depressed times, the poor are most dependent on the preservation of peace, security, order, and mutual confidence. Demagogues urge the poor to a disturbance of social relations, with the promise of material advantage. In the interests of the poor themselves we plead that war, disturbance, revolutionary change, never even temporarily serve their interest. So grievous is the effect of political convulsions on the poor, that no class of the community should more intensely demand the knitting of laud to land by commerce and brotherhood, and the correction of social and political evils by processes which do not disturb the sense of national security. Of the poor the words may well be used, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

II. ITS BEARING ON THE RICH. They are always the aim of attack in lawless times, whether the evil come through aggressive enemies outside the nation, or through turbulent people inside the nation. The one wants "booty," and the other wants excuse for robbery. The rich need national security

(1) for the retention of what they have;

(2) for the increase of what they have;

(3) and for the enjoyment of what they have.

National distress becomes especially afflictive to the rich, because by training and association they are unfitted for self-help when their riches are taken away.

III. ITS MISSION AS SENT BY GOD. It is often that which we find illustrated in the case of Moab. National distress, circumstances that unite the whole land in a common grief, and in a common sense of helplessness, is the Divine corrective of the evils which attend prolonged peace, security, and luxury. Those evils may be traced:

1. In the sphere of men's thought. The material is exaggerated, the unseen and spiritual are at disadvantage, and cannot hold their due place and proportion.

2. In the sphere of social life. In prolonged times of peace and prosperity, the separations between classes of society are grievously widened, and there grows up a painful contrast between the few who are unduly rich and the many who are miserably poor. National distress brings rich and poor together, in mutual dependence and service.

3. In the spheres of religion. Like the voyager, men can easily dismiss the thought of God when, for long times together, seas are calm and heavens are clear; but when the skies are black, and the wild waves shake the frail ship, and fear whitens every face, the soul begins to cry for a sight of God and a touch of his protecting hand. We are with God as our little children are with their mothers. They run about and play, taking little heed of her, until the head aches, and the pulse is high, and pain wearies; and then there is nobody in all the world will do but their mother. National distress brings nations back to the thought and love of God. The atheist, the agnostic, and the secularist have their chance when the sun shines; nobody wants such vain helpers when the tempests rage. Then nobody will do but the God of our fathers.

IV. ITS SHAME, IF CAUSED BY MAN'S WILFULNESS OR MAN'S NEGLECT. And these are too often the immediate causes of national distress. War is almost always the issue of somebody's willfulness or masterfulness. Nobody would need to go to war if they did not hanker after something to which they had no right, or were not compelled to resist these envious, masterful folk. And such distresses as come by prevailing disease are usually traceable to men's neglectings of social and family and household duty. God makes even man's errors and sins serve his purpose, but he never ceases to declare woe unto him by whom the offence cometh. - R.T.

My heart shall cry out for Moab.
Too often have God's servants spoken with dry eyes and hard voices of the doom of the ungodly; and have only made them more obdurate and determined. We never need so much brokenness of spirit as when we utter God's judgments against sin. In his autobiography, Finney says, "Here I must introduce the name of a man whom I shall have occasion to mention frequently, Mr. Abel Clary, He was the son of a very excellent man, and an elder of the Church where I was converted. He had been licensed to preach; but his spirit of prayer was such, he was so burdened with the souls of men, that he was not able to preach much, his whole time and strength being given to prayer. The burden of his soul would frequently be so great that he was unable to stand, and he would writhe and groan in agony. I was well acquainted with him, and knew something of the wonderful spirit of prayer that was upon him The pastor told me afterwards that he found that in the six weeks I was in that church five hundred souls had been converted."

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

(see also Isaiah 16:9): — These are the men who prevail with men. In the early part of the sixteenth century there was a great religious awakening in Ulster, which began under a minister named Glendinning. He was of very meagre natural gifts, but would spend many days and nights alone with God, and seems to have been greatly burdened with the souls of men and their state before God. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, under his pleading, multitudes of hearers were brought into great anxiety and terror of conscience. They looked on themselves as altogether lost. They were stricken into a swoon by the vower of God's Word. A dozen in one day were carried out of doors as dead. These were not women, but some of the boldest spirits of the neighbourhood "some who had formerly not feared with their swords to put the whole market town into a fray." This revival changed the whole character of northern Ireland. Would that God might lay on our hearts a similar burden for our Churches and our land!

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.).

People
Isaiah, Zoar
Places
Ar, Beer-elim, Brook of the Willows, Dibon, Eglaim, Elealeh, Heshbon, Horonaim, Jahaz, Kir, Luhith, Medeba, Moab, Nebo, Nimrim, Zoar
Topics
Ascent, Cries, Crieth, Cry, Crying, Destruction, Distress, Eglath, Eglath-sheli-shijah, Eglath-shelishiyah, Eg'lath-shelish'iyah, Eglath-shelishi-yah, Fled, Flee, Flight, Fugitives, Heart, Heifer, Horonaim, Horona'im, Lament, Luhith, Moab, Mounting, Nobles, Raise, Reach, Road, Ruin, Shelishiyah, Slope, Surely, Third, Wake, Weeping, Zoar, Zo'ar
Outline
1. The lamentable state of Moab

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 15:5

     5319   fugitives
     5505   roads
     5567   suffering, emotional
     5899   lament

Library
The Sea of Sodom
The bounds of Judea, on both sides, are the sea; the western bound is the Mediterranean,--the eastern, the Dead sea, or the sea of Sodom. This the Jewish writers every where call, which you may not so properly interpret here, "the salt sea," as "the bituminous sea." In which sense word for word, "Sodom's salt," but properly "Sodom's bitumen," doth very frequently occur among them. The use of it was in the holy incense. They mingled 'bitumen,' 'the amber of Jordan,' and [an herb known to few], with
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Tiglath-Pileser iii. And the Organisation of the Assyrian Empire from 745 to 722 B. C.
TIGLATH-PILESER III. AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE FROM 745 to 722 B.C. FAILURE OF URARTU AND RE-CONQUEST Of SYRIA--EGYPT AGAIN UNITED UNDER ETHIOPIAN AUSPICES--PIONKHI--THE DOWNFALL OF DAMASCUS, OF BABYLON, AND OF ISRAEL. Assyria and its neighbours at the accession of Tiglath-pileser III.: progress of the Aramaeans in the basin of the Middle Tigris--Urartu and its expansion into the north of Syria--Damascus and Israel--Vengeance of Israel on Damascus--Jeroboam II.--Civilisation
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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