Moab, Ammon, and the Cushites
8 I have heard the reproach of Moab and the insults of the children of Ammon, with which they have reproached my people and magnified themselves against their border. 9 Therefore, as I live, says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, surely Moab will be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my nation will inherit them. 10 This they will have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of Yahweh of Armies. 11 Yahweh will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the gods of the land. Men will worship him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations. 12 You Cushites also, you will be killed by my sword.
The charge against the eastern neighbors is words rather than armies, and the sentence recalls what happened to the cities in their own valley.
I have heard the reproach of Moab and the insults of Ammon. The offense is speech — taunting God's people and magnifying themselves against their border — and God says he heard it. That is the whole indictment, and verse 10 repeats it: this they will have for their pride.
The sentence draws on geography they knew. Moab will be as Sodom, Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles and salt pits Genesis 19:24–25 — and the ruined cities lay in the same rift valley as the nations now being sentenced. Both peoples traced their descent to Lot, who had lived in Sodom and left it Genesis 19:36–38. The comparison is a family matter.
Verse 11 lifts higher than the oracle needs. Yahweh will famish all the gods of the land, and men will worship him, everyone from his own place, all the shores of the nations. Verse 12 is a single line against the Cushites — the southern extreme, as Assyria in verse 13 is the northern.
settled What this mark means