12 So truly, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send to him men who will have him turned over till there is no more wine in his vessels, and his wine-skins will be completely broken.
They will be ruled by you with a rod of iron; they will be broken like a potter's vessel.
For the daughters of Moab will be like wandering birds, like a place from which the young birds have gone in flight, at the ways across the Arnon.
Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.
Then let the potter's bottle be broken before the eyes of the men who have gone with you,
See, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and make them come against this land, and against its people, and against all these nations on every side; and I will give them up to complete destruction, and make them a cause of fear and surprise and a waste place for ever.
Give cries of grief, you keepers of sheep; give cries for help, rolling yourselves in the dust, you chiefs of the flock: for the days of your destruction have fully come, and I will send you in all directions, and your fall will be like that of the males of the flock.
And the attacker will come against every town, not one will be safe; and the valley will be made waste, and destruction will come to the lowland, as the Lord has said.
He who makes Moab waste has gone up against her; and the best of her young men have gone down to their death, says the King, whose name is the Lord of armies.
On all the house-tops of Moab and in its streets there is weeping everywhere; for Moab has been broken like a vessel in which there is no pleasure, says the Lord.
For this cause, I will let the side of Moab be uncovered, and his towns on every side, the glory of the land, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon and as far as Kiriathaim. To the children of the east I have given her for a heritage, as well as the children of Ammon, so that there may be no memory of her among the nations:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 48
Commentary on Jeremiah 48 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 48
Moab is next set to the bar before Jeremiah the prophet, whom God has constituted judge over nations and kingdoms, from his mouth to receive its doom. Isaiah's predictions concerning Moab had had their accomplishment (we had the predictions Isa. 15 and 16 and the like Amos 2:1), and they were fulfilled when the Assyrians, under Salmanassar, invaded and distressed Moab. But this is a prophecy of the desolations of Moab by the Chaldeans, which were accomplished under Nebuzaradan, about five years after he had destroyed Jerusalem. Here is,
Jer 48:1-13
We may observe in these verses,
Jer 48:14-47
The destruction is here further prophesied of very largely and with a great copiousness and variety of expression, and very pathetically and in moving language, designed not only to awaken them by a national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it, but to affect us with the calamitous state of human life, which is liable to such lamentable occurrences, and with the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, when he comes forth to contend with a provoking people. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and meditating on the terror of them, it will be of more use to us to keep this in our eye, and to get our hearts thereby possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to enquire critically into all the lively figures and metaphors here used.