CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2 Kings 3:23. This is blood—For the rancour between the kings of Israel and Judah was well known; hence the Moabites supposed they had slaughtered each other in some quarrel on their march. Thus deluded by the sight of the water—reddened by the sun’s rays, or with the colour of the earth into which they had dug (2 Kings 3:16), the Moabites hastened. unprepared, into the hands of their foes.
2 Kings 3:25. קּיר הֲרָשֶׂת—Called Kir Moab (Isaiah 15:1). It was the capital city, and fortified—now called Kerak.
2 Kings 3:27. Eldest son, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall—In the sight of the assailing armies; and this spectacle of horror roused in the allies of Israel such revulsion, because that their support of Israel had driven the king of Moab to this dreadful act, that they fell back from the siege, and left Israel to its own fortunes.—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 3:21-27
THE DANGER OF TRUSTING TO APPEARANCES
I. Appearances may deceive those who fancy themselves well prepared for all contingencies (2 Kings 3:21). Moab was aware of the approach of the invading army, and made the most careful and elaborate preparation to withstand it. All who were capable of bearing arms were marched to the frontier, and the brave little nation, keenly watching every movement of the enemy, seemed determined to make a stout and desperate defence. It is important to prepare for the conflict of life; to be armed with the whole armour of God, and ever on our guard against the attack of our spiritual foes. But when we are best prepared we are liable to be misled by false appearances. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
II. Appearances may surprise the most cautious into committing a fatal blunder (2 Kings 3:22-24). The shining of the early morning sun upon the water that filled the red earth-pits newly dug in the valley was mistaken for blood, and the Moabite leader, without taking any pains to verify his impression, jumped to the conclusion that the invading army had qurelled, and what he saw shining in the sunlight was the blood of the slain. The word of command was given to advance, with the expectation that there was now nothing to do but to gather the spoil; but, too late to remedy it, the mistake of the Moabites was seen, and the compact little army that was strong and formidable when entrenched in its defences was speedily smitten and put to flight when it came into unexpected contact with the refreshed and well-armed Israelites. A false glitter did all the mischief. Alas! how many have been thus lured on to their destruction—the lover of strong drink, who has “looked upon the wine when it is red,” until he has been fascinated with its mocking sheen and whelmed in its intoxicating vortex; the insatiate seeker of pleasure, who has been captivated by beauteous forms and pleasant sounds, and lost in giddy mazes; the grasping money-getter, for whom the glare of wealth has had an irresistible charm that has robbed him of the love of home, of kindred, and of honour. Enchanted with the glamour of false appearances, the generous have become penurious—the modest, bold—the careful, recklessly extravagant—the virtuous, base.
III. Trusting to appearances is often followed by the most ruinous consequences (2 Kings 3:25-27). In this case we see an army utterly routed—a fruitful country made barren and desolate—and the only heir-apparent to a throne cruelly immolated by a distracted father. Many a promising nation has been brought to naught by yielding to the unholy lust of power, following the ignis fatuus of military glory, or craving for the crimsoned reputation of a tyrannical ascendency. The Sclavonians have a legend that a certain river was infested with a water-demon who had the power of assuming the shape of a cluster of red flowers waving and spreading themselves out in graceful and attractive forms on the surface of the water; but if the passer-by was tempted to put forth his hand to pluck one of the fragile blossoms, he was at once seized by invisible hands, dragged beneath the surface, and suffocated in the treacherous stream. It is perilous to trust to false appearances: it may lead to irreparable disaster. Many who have plucked the flower of pleasure have found it to contain a fatal sting.
LESSONS:—
1. Appearances have a great influence over us.
2. Are often false and fictitious.
3. Entice many into hopeless ruin.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Kings 3:22-25. They rise soon enough to beguile themselves. The beams of the rising sun, glistening upon those vaporous and unexpected waters, carried in the eyes of some Moabites a semblance of blood. A few eyes were enough to fill all ears with a false noise: the deceived sense miscarries the imagination. Civil broils give just advantage to a common enemy; therefore must the camps be spoiled, because the kings have smitten each other. Those who shall be deceived are given over to credulity: the Moabites do not examine either the conceit or the report, but fly in confusedly upon the camp of Israel, whom they find, too late, to have no enemies but themselves. As if death would not have hastened enough to them, they come to fetch it, they come to challenge it: it seizeth upon them unavoidably. They are smitten, their cities razed, their lands marred, their wells stopped, their trees felled, as if God meant to waste them but once.—Bp. Hall.
2 Kings 3:22-23. Optical illusions. I. May deceive the most wary. II. May lead to very serious mistakes. III. Should be carefully tested.
—The Divine aid by which the army of Israel was not only saved from destruction, but even obtained a complete victory over their enemies, consisted here not in a miracle of God surpassing the known laws of nature, but only in this, that God the Lord, as he had announced before by His prophet, introduced the laws of nature working to the determinate end in the predetermined way. As the suddenly appearing mass of waters was affected in a natural way by a violent rain in the distance, so also the illusion that was so fatal to the Moabites is explained in a natural way, indicated even in the text. From the red earth of the pits the water collected in them had assumed a red colour, which was considerably increased by the rays of the rising sun falling upon it, so that, seen from a distance, it must have appeared like blood. But the Moabites might be the less disposed to think of an optical illusion, as by their familiar acquaintance with the region they knew that the Wady had at that time no water, and they had seen or learned nothing of the rain which had fallen far from them in the Edomite mountains.—Keil.
2 Kings 3:23. The self-destruction of the allied armies of Moab, Ammon, and Edom (2 Chronicles 20:22-25) was still fresh in the minds of the Moabites; and knowing the enmity and jealousy existing between Judah and Israel, and confident that the Edomites were no fast friends of either party, they very naturally imagined, from the sight of what appeared so much blood, that the different kings had fallen out among themselves, and destroyed each other. They supposed it only remained for them to go, as did Jehoshaphat on that former occasion, and gather up the precious jewels and other spoil from among the dead bodies.
2 Kings 3:25. The terrible havoc of war. I. Sacrifices precious lives. II. Ruthlessly destroys the work of years. III. Exhausts the resources of a nation. IV. Checks national growth.
2 Kings 3:26-27. No onsets are so furious as the last assaults of the desperate. The king of Moab, now hopeless of recovery, would be glad to shut up with a pleasing revenge. With seven hundred resolute followers, he rushes into the battle towards the king of Edom, as if he would bid death welcome might he but carry with him that despited neighbour, and now, mad with repulse, he returns; and, whether as angry with his destiny, or as barbarously affecting to win his cruel gods with so dear a sacrifice, he offers them, with his own hands, the blood of his eldest son in the sight of Israel, and sends him up in the smoke to those hellish deities. Oh, prodigious act, whether of rage or of devotion! What a hand had Satan over his miserable vassals! What marvel is it to see men sacrifice their souls in an unfelt oblation to these plausible tempters, when their own flesh and blood have not been spared! There is no tyrant like to the prince of darkness.—Bp. Hall.
2 Kings 3:26. Bravery. I. Called forth by the stress of circumstances. II. Challenges admiration irrespective of the cause it champions. III. Often unavailing.
2 Kings 3:27. The offering was doubtless made to the Moabitish god Chemosh, not to the God of Israel. Mesha supposed that his misfortunes were owing to the vengeance of his gods, whom he had in some way offended, and by this costly sacrifice he sought to propitiate them. Human sacrifices were common among many of the ancient heathen nations. The story of Iphigenia sufficiently shows the existence of the practice among the Greeks. It prevailed, also, among the Carthaginians and Phœnicians, and most of the nations in and around Palestine. Causing children to pass through the fire to Molech (chap. 2 Kings 13:10; Deuteronomy 18:10) is an allusion to this abominable custom. Diodorus Siculus relates that when Agathocles was going to besiege Carthage, the people, seeing the extremities to which they were reduced, ascribed their misfortune to the anger of their god, in that they had latterly spared to offer him children nobly born, and had fraudulently put him off with the children of slaves and foreigners. To make an atonement for this crime, two hundred children of the best families in Carthage were at once offered in sacrifice, and no less than three hundred of the citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves. Philo, in a fragment preserved by Eusebius, says: “It was a custom among the ancients, on occasions of great distress, for the rulers of a city or nation, instead of leaving the entire population to destruction, to sacrifice the beloved of their children as a ransom to the vengeful deities.—Whedon.
—Various accounts of the origin of human sacrifice have been given, but all are necessarily conjectural. It seems to us that the practice grew out of the notion that whatever was most costly and precious must needs be most acceptable as an offering to the gods; and it being established that the life of an animal was an acceptable offering, perverse ingenuity reasoned that the life of the human creature—the noblest of creatures—and his life-blood the most precious on earth, must be still more acceptable to heaven, still more valuable in the sight of the gods. This being the case, it further followed that the more illustrious, the more pure or exalted the person whose life was offered, the more proper still was the offering, and the more cogent its force in gratifying, soothing, or rendering propitious the stern powers that ruled the destinies of man. As to the precise object, it appears to us that in all, or nearly all, the cases fully known, these offerings were propitiatory at least, if not expiatory.—Kitto.
—The inhuman cruelty of heathenism. I. Immolates the choicest human victims. II. Is prompted by despair. III. Rouses the indignation of the righteous. IV. Is specially offensive to God.
—The departure of the Israelitish army in consequence of the human sacrifice of the king of Moab is a very remarkable sign of the difference between the fundamental opinions of the Israelites and of the heathen. Whereas, amongst almost all heathen peoples, sacrifice culminates in human sacrifice, and this is considered the most holy and most effective, in the Mosaic system, on the other hand, it is regarded as the greatest and most detestable abomination in the sight of God. It is forbidden, not merely from considerations of humanity, but also because, as the law declares with special emphasis, the sanctuary of the Lord is thereby defiled and His Holy Name profaned (Leviticus 20:1-5; Leviticus 18:21). Human sacrifice stands in the most glaring contradiction to the revelation of God as the Holy One, in which character He was known in Israel alone; hence it was to be punished, without respite, by death. From the preceding narrative we see how deep roots the detestation of human sacrifice had struck in the conscience of the people. Neither the cultus founded by Jeroboam, nor that of Baal which Ahab had imported, with all its barbarism, had been able even to weaken this detestation. It was still so strong that a victorious army allowed itself to be led thereby to withdraw again from a land it had already subdued.—Lange.