A Throne Established in Loving Kindness
1 Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. 2 For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon. 3 Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive! 4 Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortionist is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land. 5 A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness. 6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing. 7 Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken. 8 For the fields of Heshbon languish with the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have broken down its choice branches, which reached even to Jazer, which wandered into the wilderness. Its shoots were spread abroad. They passed over the sea. 9 Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen. 10 Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop. 11 Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres. 12 It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail. 13 This is the word that Yahweh spoke concerning Moab in time past. 14 But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble.”
Refugees are told to ask Jerusalem for shelter, and Jerusalem is told what sheltering means.
Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
Moab is advised to send tribute — the lambs it had paid Israel in better days 2 Kings 3:4 — and to send it to Jerusalem. The advice is to ask the neighbor they had spent centuries fighting.
For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.
A nest broken up and the birds circling. The fords are the border crossing, and the women are at it.
3 Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive! 4 Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortionist is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land.
Six imperatives addressed to Judah, and they are the clearest instruction in the prophets on what to do with people arriving at a border. Shade at midday is what a traveler needs and costs the giver nothing. Not betraying a fugitive means specifically not handing them back.
And the phrase my outcasts is God's, used of Moabites. The refugees from a hostile nation are described by the God of Israel as his.
A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.
The reason given for taking them in. A throne is coming that is defined by these qualities, and a kingdom that expects it should behave like it now. The verse belongs with the descriptions of the shoot from Jesse, and it is placed inside an immigration instruction.
We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing.
The charge, and it is the only one. Moab is not accused of cruelty or idolatry here — only of arrogance, and the verse says his boasting was empty.
Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken.
The loss is measured in a delicacy, which is how ordinary people actually experience a ruined economy.
Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen.
The first person is God's, and he is weeping over Moab's vineyards. I have made the shouting stop Isaiah 16:10 — the harvest song has ended, and the one who ended it is grieving that it has.
Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.
But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble.”
The oracle closes with a deadline, counted the way a hired man counts a contract — precisely, because he is waiting for it to end.
settled What this mark means