The sun had risen with a ruddy light, as is frequently the case after a storm (compare Matthew 16:3), nearly over the Israelite camp, and the pits, deep but with small mouths, gleaming redly through the haze which would lie along the newly moistened valley, seemed to the Moabites like pools of blood. The preceding year, they and their allies had mutually destroyed each other 2 Chronicles 20:23. It seemed to them, from their knowledge of the jealousies between Judah, Israel, and Edom, not unlikely that a similar calamity had now befallen their foes.
Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 3:23
2 Kings 3:23
23 And they said, This is blood: the kings are surely slain,d and they have smitten one another: now therefore, Moab, to the spoil.