Isaiah 15:6

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

⁶The waters of Nimrim are dried up; the grass is withered, the foliage is gone, and the vegetation has vanished.⁷So they carry their wealth and belongings over the Brook of the Willows. ⁸For their outcry echoes to the border of Moab. Their wailing reaches Eglaim; it is heard in Beer-elim. ⁹The waters of Dimon are full of blood, but I will bring more upon Dimon-a lion on the fugitives of Moab, and on the remnant of the land.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Nimrim: Numbers 32:3, Numbers 32:36, Nimrah, Beth-nimrah, Joshua 13:27, Beth-nimrah

desolate: Heb. desolations

the grass: Isaiah 16:9, Isaiah 16:10, Joel 1:10-12, Habakkuk 3:17, Habakkuk 3:18, Revelation 8:7

Reciprocal: Isaiah 16:4 - oppressors Jeremiah 25:12 - perpetual Jeremiah 48:34 - Nimrim

Cross-References

Genesis 15:3
Abram continued, "Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir."

Genesis 15:6
Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:14
But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions.

Genesis 15:20
Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

Psalms 106:31
It was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.

Romans 4:9
Is this blessing only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited as righteousness.

Romans 4:11
And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

2 Corinthians 5:19
that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Hebrews 11:8
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For the waters of Nimrim shall be desolate,.... Or dried up, through a great drought that should come upon the land at this time; or being defiled with the blood of the slain, as Jarchi: it may denote the well watered pastures about Nimrim, that should become the forage of the enemy, and be trodden under foot by its army, or be forsaken by the proprietors of them. Josephus m speaks of fountains of hot water springing up in the country of Peraea, where Nimrim was, of a different taste, some bitter, and others sweet; which, Dr. Lightfoot n suggests, might be these waters of Nimrim; and, according to the Jerusalem Talmud o, Bethnimrah was in that part of the country which was called the valley, and so was very fruitful with springs of water. The word is in the plural number, and may design more places of the same name; and we read of Nimrah and Bethnimrah,

Numbers 32:3. Jerom p calls it Nemra, and says it was a large village in his time; it seems to have its name from panthers or leopards, of which there might be many in these parts:

for the hay is withered away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing; by which it seems that the desolation spoken of was not merely through the forage and trampling of the enemy's army, but by a drought.

m De Bello Jud. l. 7. c. 6. sect. 3. Ed. Hudson. n Ut supra (See his Works, vol. 2.) p. 50. o T. Hieros. Sheviith, fol. 38. 4. p De locis Hebraicis, fol. 93. I.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For the waters of Nimrim - It is supposed by some that the prophet here states the cause why the Moabites would flee to the cities of the south, to wit, that the “waters” of the northern cities would fail, and the country become desolate, and that they would seek support in the south. But it is more probable that he is simply continuing the description of the desolation that would come upon Moab. Nimrah, or Beth Nimra, meaning a “house of limpid waters,” was a city of Reuben east of the Dead Sea (Numbers 32:3; compare Jeremiah 48:34). It was, doubtless, a city celebrated for its pure fountains and springs of water. Here Seetzen’s chart shows a brook flowing into the Jordan called “Nahr Nimrim, or Wady Shoaib.” ‘On the east of the Jordan over against Jericho, there is now a stream called Nimlim - doubtless the ancient Nimrim. This flows into the Jordan, and as it flows along gives fertility to that part of the country of Moab.’ (Eli Smith.) It is possible that the waters failed by a common practice in times of war when an enemy destroyed the fountains of a country by diverting their waters, or by casting into them stones, trees, etc. This destructive measure of war occurs, with reference to Moab, in 2 Kings 3:25, when the Israelites, during an incursion into Moab, felled the fruit trees, cast stones into the plowed grounds, and “closed the fountains, or wells.”

For the hay is withered away - The waters are dried up, and the land yields nothing to support life.