XLVIII.
(1) Against Moab thus saith the Lord of hosts... — Better, with a different punctuation, Concerning Moab (this being the title of the section), Thus saith the Lord of hosts. In the long prophecy that follows Jeremiah in part follows in the wake of “the burden of Moab” in Isaiah 15, 16, entering even more fully into geographical details. (See Notes there.) The relations between Moab and Israel had for a long period been more or less uneasy. The former had been tributary to the latter under Ahab, but on his death Mesha revolted, and a war ensued, which ended in the defeat of the Moabites by the allied forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom (2 Kings 3). They repeated their attack, however (2 Kings 13:20), and appear to have occupied the territory of the Trans-jordanic tribes on their deportation by Tiglath-pileser. Of the three places named, Nebo, memorable as the summit of Pisgah, from which Moses looked upon the land of promise, and forming part of the range of the mountains of Abarim (Deuteronomy 32:49; Deuteronomy 34:1), has been identified conjecturally with Djebel-el-Attarus, or Djebel-el-Jel’ad. Hitzig derives the name from the Sanscrit Nabho (= the cloud-heaven). Kiriathaim (= the double city) is named in Genesis 14:5 and Numbers 32:37, in the latter passage in conjunction with Elealeh, Heshbon, and Nebo. Jerome places it at a distance of ten miles west of Medaba, as one of the cities rebuilt by the Reubenites, but it has not been identified. Misgab, the “high fort” or “citadel” of Isaiah 25:12, has shared the same fate, but has been referred by some writers to Kir-Moab, or Kir-heres, as the chief fortified city of the country (see Jeremiah 48:31; Jeremiah 48:36; Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 16:7). The article which is prefixed to it in the Hebrew has led Fürst (Lexicon) to take it in a wider sense, as meaning the plateau or highland country of Moab generally.