Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Throne Established in Loving Kindness
Isaiah 16:1-14
1 Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. · WEB
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 Isaiah 16:1.
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 Isaiah 16:2.
A nest broken up and the birds circling. The fords are the border crossing, and the women are at it.
Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don't betray the fugitive! Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer Isaiah 16:3–4.
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 Isaiah 16:5.
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 Isaiah 16:6.
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.
You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth Isaiah 16:7. 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 Isaiah 16:9.
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 Isaiah 16:11.
Within three years... the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt Isaiah 16:14. The oracle closes with a deadline, counted the way a hired man counts a contract — precisely, because he is waiting for it to end.
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