Isaiah 16:8

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

⁶We have heard of Moab's pride, his exceeding pride and conceit, his overflowing arrogance. But his boasting is empty. ⁷Therefore let Moab wail; let them wail together for Moab. Mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth, you who are utterly stricken. ⁸For the fields of Heshbon have withered, along with the grapevines of Sibmah. The rulers of the nations have trampled its choicest vines that reached as far as Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and reached the sea.⁹So I weep with Jazer for the vines of Sibmah; I drench Heshbon and Elealeh with my tears. Triumphant shouts have fallen silent over your summer fruit and your harvest. ¹⁰Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards. No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses; I have put an end to the cheering. ¹¹Therefore my heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir-hareseth. ¹²When Moab appears on the high place, when he wearies himself and enters his sanctuary to pray, it will do him no good. ¹³This is the message that the LORD spoke earlier concerning Moab. ¹⁴And now the LORD says, "In three years, as a hired worker counts the years, Moab's splendor will become an object of contempt, with all her many people. And those who are left will be few and feeble."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the fields: Isaiah 15:4, Isaiah 24:7, 2 Samuel 1:21

the vine: Isaiah 16:9, Numbers 32:38

Sibmah: Joshua 13:19

the lords: Isaiah 10:7, Jeremiah 27:6, Jeremiah 27:7

Jazer: Numbers 32:3, Joshua 13:25

stretched out: or, plucked up

Reciprocal: Genesis 21:14 - wandered Numbers 21:25 - in Heshbon Numbers 21:32 - Jaazer Numbers 32:1 - Jazer Joshua 21:39 - Jazer 2 Samuel 24:5 - Jazer Jeremiah 48:2 - Heshbon Jeremiah 48:17 - bemoan Jeremiah 48:32 - vine

Cross-References

Genesis 3:9
So the LORD God called out to the man, "Where are you?"

Genesis 4:10
"What have you done?" replied the LORD. "The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground.

Genesis 16:1
Now Abram's wife Sarai had not borne a child to him, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.

Genesis 16:2
So Sarai said to Abram, "Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her." Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

Genesis 16:4
And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

Genesis 16:5
Then Sarai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me."

Genesis 16:8
"Hagar, servant of Sarai," He said, "where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I am running away from my mistress Sarai," she replied.

1 Samuel 26:19
Now please, may my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the LORD has stirred you up against me, then may He accept an offering. But if men have done it, may they be cursed in the presence of the LORD! For today they have driven me away from sharing in the inheritance of the LORD, saying, 'Go, serve other gods.'

Ecclesiastes 10:4
If the ruler's temper flares against you, do not abandon your post, for calmness lays great offenses to rest.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For the fields of Heshbon languish,.... Through drought; or because of the forage of the enemy, and their treading upon them; or because there were no men left to till and manure them. Of Heshbon

:-. It seems to have been a place famous for fields and pastures, and to have been a very fruitful and well watered place; hence we read of the fish pools in Heshbon, Song of Solomon 7:4 though Aben Ezra and Kimchi think the word signifies vines, as they suppose it does in Deuteronomy 32:32:

[and] the vine of Sibmah; called Shebam and Shibmah, in

Numbers 32:3 thought to be the Seba of Ptolemy e; and seems to have been famous for vines and vineyards:

the lords of the Heathen have broken down the principal plants thereof; that is, the Chaldeans and their army, and commanders and principal officers of it, dealing with them as the Turks do with vines, wherever they meet with them, destroy them; though Jarchi and Kimchi interpret all this figuratively, both here and in the above clauses, of the inhabitants of these places, the multitude of the common people, and their princes, some being killed, and others carried captive; to which sense the Targum,

"because the armies of Heshbon are spoiled, the multitude of Sebama are killed, the kings of the people have killed their rulers:''

they are come [even] unto Jazer; meaning either the Chaldean army, or the Moabites, who had fled hither; or rather this is to be understood of the vines of Sibmah, expressing the excellency and large spread of them, which reached even to Jazer; which, as Jerom says f, was fifteen miles from Heshbon, called Jaazer, Numbers 21:32:

they wandered [through] the wilderness; the wilderness of Moab, Deuteronomy 2:8 not the lords of the Heathen, nor the Moabites, but the vines and their branches, which crept along, and winded to and fro, as men wander about:

her branches are stretched out; that is, the branches of the vine Sibmah:

they are gone over the sea; the Dead Sea, called the sea of Jazer,

Jeremiah 48:32 or rather a lake near that city.

e Geograph. l. 5. c. 19. f De locis Hebraicis, fol. 92. G.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For the fields of Heshbon - (See the note at Isaiah 15:4.)

Languish - They are parched up with drought. The ‘fields’ here evidently mean “vineyards,” for so the parallelism demands. So in Deuteronomy 32:32 :

Their vine is of the vine of Sodom,

And of the fields of Gomorrah.

And the vine of Sibmah - Sibmah, or Shibmah, was a city of Reuben Numbers 32:38; Joshua 13:19. Jeremiah, in the parallel place Jeremiah 48:32 speaks of the vine of Sibmah also. He also says that the enemies of Moab had taken Sibmah, and that the vine and wine had been destroyed Jeremiah 48:33. There was no more certain mode of producing desolation in a land where grapes were extensively cultivated than to cut down the vines. The Turks constantly practice that in regard to their enemies, and the result is, that wide desolation comes upon the countries which they invade. At this time it is probable that Sibmah belonged to the Moabites. It is mentioned here as being distinguished for the luxuriant production of the grape. Seetzen still found the vine cultivated in that region. Jerome says, that between Sibmah and Heshbon there was scarcely a distance of five hundred paces, half a Roman mile.

The lords of the heathen - The princes of the pagan nations that had come to invade Moab. The words ‘have broken down’ (הלמוּ hâl^emû) may be taken in either of two senses, either to beat, strike, or break down, as in our version; or “to be” beaten, or smitten with wine - that is, to become intoxicated - like the Greek οἰνοπλὴξ oinoplēx - “smitten with wine.” The former is doubtless the sense here.

The principal plants thereof - The chose vines of it - “her sorek” (שׂרוּקיה s'^erûqehā). (See the notes at Isaiah 5:2.)

They are come - That is, the vines of Sibmah had spread or extended themselves even to Jazer, indicating their great luxuriance and fertility.” Jazer was a city at the foot of the mountains of Gilead which was given to Gad, and afterward to the Levites Joshua 21:39. Jerome says it was about fifteen miles from Heshbon. Seetzen found the ruins of a city called Szar, and another place called Szir, from which a small stream (Nahar Szir) flows into the Jordan (Gesenius). That the shoots of the vine of Sibmah reached unto Jazer and the desert, is a beautiful poetic expression for the extensive spread and luxuriance of the vine in that region.

They wandered - The vines “wandered” in the desert. They found no twig or tree to which they could attach themselves, and they spread around in wild luxuriancy.

Through the wilderness - The wilderness or desert of Arabia, which encompassed Moab.

Her branches are stretched out - Are extended far, or are very luxuriant.

They are gone over the sea - Called in the parallel place in Jeremiah 48:32, ‘the Sea of Jazer;’ probably some lake that had that name near the city of Jazer. It may “possibly” mean the Dead Sea, but that name is not elsewhere given to the Dead Sea in the Scriptures. It has been objected by some to this statement that modern travelers have not found any such place as the ‘Sea of Jazer;’ or any lake in the vicinity of Jazer. But we may observe -

(1) that Seetzen found a stream flowing into the Jordan near Jazer; and

(2) that it is possible that a pond or lake may have once there existed which may have been since, in the course of ages, filled with sand.

It is known, for example, that in the vicinity of Suez the ancient narrow gulf there, and the large inland sea made by the Bitter lakes, have been choked up by the sand of the desert. Seetzen also says that he saw some pools near the source of the stream called Nahar Szir (“river Szir”). Prof. Stuart. “Bib. Rep.” vol. vii. p. 158. The whole description of the vines of Sibmah is poetic; designed, not to be literally understood, but to denote their remarkable luxuriance and fertility. A similar description of a “vine” - though there used to denote the Jewish people - occurs in Psalms 80:8-11 :

Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt;

Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it;

Thou preparedst room before it,

And didst cause it to take deep root,

And it filled the land.

The hills were covered with the shadow of it,

And the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.

She sent out her boughs unto the sea,

And her branches unto the river.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 16:8. Languish - "Are put to shame"] Here the text of Jeremiah leaves us much at a loss, in a place that seems to be greatly corrupted. The Septuagint join the two last words of this verse with the beginning of the following. Their rendering is: και ουκ εντραπησῃ, τα πεδια Εσεβων. For אך ach they must have read al; otherwise, how came they by the negative, which seems not to belong to this place? Neither is it easy to make sense of the rest without a small alteration, by reading, instead of εντραπησῃ τα, εντραπησεται. In a word, the Arabic version taken from the Septuagint, plainly authorizes this reading of the Septuagint, and without the negative; and it is fully confirmed by MSS. Pachom. and I. D. II., which have both of them εντραπησεται πεδια Εσεβων, without the negative; which makes an excellent sense, and, I think, gives us the true reading of the Hebrew text; אך נכלמו שדמות חשבון ak nichlemu shadmoth cheshbon. They frequently render the verb נכלם nichlam by εντρεπομαι. And נכלמו nichlemu answers perfectly well to אמלל umlal, the parallel word in the next line. The MSS. vary in expressing the word נכאים nechaim, which gives no tolerable sense in this place; one reads נוכאים nochaim; two others בכאים bechaim; in another the כ caph is upon a rasure of two letters; and the Vulgate instead of it reads מכותם mecotham, plagas suas. - L.

For the men of Kirhares ye shall make a moan. For the fields of Heshbon are put to shame. This is Bp. Lowth's sense of the passage.

Her branches are stretched out - "Her branches extended themselves."] For נטשו nitteshu, a MS. has נגשו niggeshu; which may perhaps be right. Compare Jeremiah 48:32, which has in this part of the sentence the synonymous word נגעו nagau.

The meaning of this verse is, that the wines of Sibmah and Heshbon were greatly celebrated, and in high repute with all the great men and princes of that and the neighbouring countries; who indulged themselves even to intemperance in the use of them. So that their vines were so much in request as not only to be propagated all over the country of Moab to the sea of Sodom, but to have scions of them sent even beyond the sea into foreign countries.

הלמו halemu, knocked down, demolished; that is overpowered, intoxicated. The drunkards of Ephraim are called by the prophet, Isaiah 28:1, הלומי יין halumey yayin, drinkers of wine. See Schultens on Proverbs 23:25. Grotius, speaking of the Mareotic wine, says of it,

Pharios quae fregit noxia reges. CYNEG. 312.