Dear Friends,
Do you like history? I don’t mean history like you got in school where they were not allowed to teach you the key to history so that it made sense. “What do you mean?” you may ask. They were not allowed to teach you that history is all about the sovereign acts of God (called providence) where He “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11) even to the falling of a sparrow (Matthew 10:29-30). And as you see how God has acted in the past as explained in Scripture you have an insight into things to come because God does not change. You can know what is coming even though you cannot know just when it will come and can be prepared for it. These chapters and a number to follow give you that key to history. Enjoy as you learn. God bless you.
Because of Calvary,

John Janney
Grace Bible Fellowship Church

Adult SS Elective: Isaiah 13:1-16:14            
August 28, 2016

1. A Message to the Nations (13:1-23:18)

“‘Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.’ We will bury you!’ The Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, made that statement to a group of Western diplomats on November 18, 1956. But Khrushchev is dead, and the Soviet Union no longer exists….

“Is there a pattern to history? Is anyone in charge? The British historian Edward Gibbon called history ‘little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.’ But the American missionary leader Arthur T. Pierson said that ‘history is His story.’…

“The Prophet Isaiah would stand with Pierson, for these eleven chapters are certainly evidence that God is at work in the nations of the world.” [Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary IV, (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2001), p. 23]

“The power that gathers nations (13:2-5), overthrows kingdoms (13:17-19), breaks kings (14:5f.) and ends empires (14:24f.) is a power of compassion to the church.” [Motyer, p. 136]

1. Babylon (13:1-14:23)

“…The doom of the empire of force.” [Paxton Hood in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 147]

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall…think of it, always.” [Mohandas (Mahatma) K. Gandhi in Don’t Forget to Sing in the Lifeboats compiled by Kathryn and Ross Petras, (New York: Workman Publishing, 2009), p. 186]

“Babylon looms large in this section of Isaiah as both the historical city and empire and as the ancient locus of arrogant self-sufficiency (Gen. 11:1ff.).” [Motyer, p. 136]

“Babylon is symbolic of all evil, pride, oppression, and power that exalts itself against the Lord. This power will be broken (cf. Rev. 18:2-24).” [VanGemeren, p. 484]

“In Scripture….Jerusalem and Babylon are contrasting cities: One is the chosen city of God, the other the wicked city of man. The city of God will last forever, but the rebellious city of man will ultimately be destroyed (Rev. 14:8; 16:19; 17:18).” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary IV, p. 24]

1. God musters His army (13:1-5)

“The Lord sovereignly rules over the nations, who serve him without knowledge of their being the instruments of the establishment of his kingdom..” [VanGemeren, p. 484]

“The poem plunges straight into a battle scene, with the signals and shots of an attack which turns out to be a wholesale divine judgment (4-5). My holy ones (3) are lit. ‘my consecrated ones’, whether they are serving God wittingly or unwittingly. The term is non-moral here, as v 16 makes plain.” [Kidner, p. 642]

“The Lord calls them my not because he approves their arrogance but because, in all their arrogance, he owns them and directs the overflowings of their arrogance to his own ends.” [Motyer, p. 137]

“Note that He is speaking of the Median armies. This is one of the many passages that refer to God’s guidance of the history of other nations beside Judea (comp. Amos i and ix.7; Is. xix.2, 23, 25; Hab. i.5, 6; Ezek. i.9; Is. xiv.22).” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 147]

“Great princes and Armies are but tools in God’s hand, weapons that He is pleased to make use of in doing His work, and it is His wrath that arms them, and gives them success.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 63]

1. God punishes His enemies (13:6-22)

“The awesome forces (4) about to clash melt people’s hearts with terror (6-8), but the reason behind it all is wrath (5) against sinners (9), evil, sins, arrogance and pride (11).” [Motyer, p. 137]

“…God is of power to keep his promises. His power does not flag like that of human beings, and he is at his most able when they are at their most impotent.” [Motyer, p. 138]

“The picture of a woman in labor is not a simile of fruitful pain here but of that which is sudden, inevitable and inescapable; the end result of a process that cannot now be stopped (cf. 1 Thes. 5:2-3).” [Motyer, p. 138]

“…The withdrawal of light, an apt symbol of the oncoming darkness of divine judgment (cf. 5:30)… the exodus plague of darkness (Ex. 10:21ff.)…” [Motyer, p. 138]

“The day is not an indiscriminate outpouring of wrath; each has been tried and judgment pronounced in the light of the evidence.” [Motyer, p. 139]

“The picture of gathering armies with which the poem of the day of the Lord began (2-5) is balanced by this concluding picture of people scattering from the disaster ― and being overtaken by it.” [Motyer, p. 139]

“Like a hunted gazelle and like sheep without a shepherd are complementary similes. The first animal is endangered by the attentions of people, the second is endangered without their attentions. So, finding the Lord is their enemy and losing him as their shepherd, humankind is indeed helpless and helpless, with everything to flee from and nowhere to flee to.” [Motyer, p. 139]

“No protection (14), no escape (15) and now, no mercy. Should any reach home it will be only to see all they held dear destroyed: the children they begat, the homes they built, the wives they loved.” [Motyer, p. 139]

“…We must not think of human beings as puppets with the Lord as their puppet-master. On the contrary, they are being themselves to the full, with their natural acts fulfilling his supernatural purposes. In a very real sense, therefore, what the Bible speaks of as ‘the stretching out of his hand’ (14:26) would be more easily understood if we thought of it as the withdrawing of his hand ― to leave sinners to implement all the inhumane savagery of fallen human nature, bereft of the restraining, humanizing efficacy of common grace. The Creator has so constituted humankind that sin progressively makes people less human and, therefore, less humane.” [Motyer, p. 139]

“The day of the Lord has many interim fulfillments. 14:24-27 will find one such in the overthrow of Assyria. Further on in history, it will be foreshadowed again in the fall of Babylon…. So here, Isaiah shows us divine direction and human motivation at work (17), savagery between people (18), the overthrow of pride (19) and the endless desolation which sin bring (20-22).” [Motyer, p. 140]

“The overthrow of Babylon. The Medes (17), as the major partner in Cyrus’ Medo-Persian kingdom, were destined to conquer Babylon under Cyrus in 539 BC. Their military prowess (17-18), which overthrew the Babylonian Empire, was not needed against the city itself, taken without a struggle. This was, however, the beginning of the end of Babylon. Vs. 19-22 telescope a decline which became irreversible when Seleucus Nicator abandoned the city in the late fourth century BC to build his new capital Seleucia, 40 miles…away. Even so, its desertion was not total until the second century AD.”  [Kidner, p. 642-643]

“Desolation is the result of the judgment, but the situation herein described did not immediately take place. Cyrus left the walls and the city of Babylon itself still standing. Later, in 518 B.C., the walls were destroyed. Then Xerxes ruined the temple of Belus. As Seleucia rose, so Babylon declines, and in Strabo’s time Babylon was a desert… Here then is a complete destruction (cf. Isa. 47:1; Rev. 18:7). Babylon must be wiped off the fact of the earth. She will not sit as an inhabited city, not even a solitary city… Neither will she be inhabited from generation to generation. How truly this prophecy has been fulfilled!… The world city is gone, and only wilderness remains.” [Young I, p. 427]

“Dr. Cyrus Hamlin tells the following story. While he was in Constantinople soon after the Crimean War, a colonel in the Turkish army called to see him, and said: ‘I want to ask you one question. What proof can you give me that the Bible is what you claim it to be ― the word of God?’

“Dr. Hamlin evaded the question, and drew him into conversation, during which he learned that his visitor had traveled a great deal, especially in the East in the region of the Euphrates.

“‘Were you ever in Babylon?’ asked the doctor.

“‘Yes, and that reminds me of a curious experience I had there. I am very fond of sport, and, having heard that the ruins of Babylon abound in game, I determined to go there for a week’s shooting. Knowing that it was not considered safe for a man to be there except in the company of several others, and money being no object to me, I engaged a sheik with his followers to accompany me for a large sum. We reached Babylon and pitched our tents. A little before sundown I took my gun and strolled out to have a look around. The holes and caverns among the mounds which cover the ruins are infested with game, which, however, is rarely seen except at night. I caught sight of one or two animals in the distance, and then turned my steps toward our encampment, intending to begin my sport as soon as the sun had set. What was my surprise to find the men striking the tents! I went to the sheik and protested most strongly. I had engaged him for a week, and was paying him handsomely, and here he was starting off before our contract had scarcely begun. Nothing I could say, however, would induce him to remain. “It isn’t safe,” he said. “No mortal flesh dare stay here after sunset. In the dark, ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and all sorts of things come out of the holes and caravans and whatever is found here is taken off by them and becomes one of themselves.” Finding that I could not persuade him, I said, “Well, as it is, I’m paying you more than I ought to; but, if you’ll stay, I’ll double it.” “No,” he said, “I couldn’t stay for all the money in the world. No Arab has ever seen the sun go down on Babylon. But I want to do what is right by you. We’ll go off to a place about an hour distant and come back at daybreak.” And go they did. And my sport had to be given up.’

“‘As soon as he had finished,’ said Dr. Hamlin, ‘I gook my Bible and read from it the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah: “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there; but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and the dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.”

“‘That’s it exactly,’ said the Turk when I had finished, ‘but that’s history you’ve been reading.’

“‘No,’ answered Dr. Hamlin, ‘it’s prophecy. Come, you’re an educated man. You know that the Old Testament was translated into Greek about three hundred years before Christ.’

“He acknowledged that it was.

“‘And the Hebrew was given at least two hundred years before that?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Well, wasn’t this written when Babylon was in its glory, and isn’t it prophecy?’

“‘I’m not prepared to give you an answer now,’ he replied. ‘I must have time to think it over.’

“‘Very well,’ Dr. Hamlin said. ‘Do so, and come back when you’re ready, and give me your answer.’

“From that day to this he has never seen him, but how unexpected a testimony to the truth of the Bible in regard to the fulfillment of prophecy did that Turkish officer give!” [J. Wilbur Chapman, From Life to Life, (Boston: United Society of Christian Endeavor, 1900), p. 115-118]

1. God delivers His people (14:1-23)

“In this chapter…more weight is added to the burden of Babylon, enough to sink it like a mill-stone.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 65]

1. Earth’s reaction to the end of oppression by the King of Babylon (14:1-8)

“In the midst of a description of the world ‘in flames,’ Isaiah encourages God’s people with a message of comfort… When Babylon comes to its end, the Lord will restore the exiled people to the land. …The nations, too, will join in Israel’s future either as converts (v. 1b) or as servants (v. 2).” [VanGemeren, p. 484]

“Just as Babylon, by providing mini-illustrations of the punitive aspects of the day, gave notice that the day was on its way, so the return foreshadowed some beneficent aspects of the day and provided an ‘earnest’ that the full promise will be kept.” [Motyer, p. 141]

“The starting point…is divine grace, described here in terms of emotion (contrast God’s compassion [1] with the heartlessness of 13:18) and of volition (choose). In this short space two aspects of the Gentiles’ future relation to Israel are sketched, showing them as converts or as servants. With the resident aliens of v 1, integrated into the community, cf. 56:3-8.

“The degrees of service glimpsed in v 2, ranging from friendly help (2a) to bondage (2b), reappear in e.g. 66:18-21 and 60:10-16…” [Kidner, p. 643]

“The simple meaning of this promise seems to be that the…chosen people and the other nations should change places…” [Alexander I, p. 287]

The “centerpiece is the ‘song of the fallen king’ in verses 4b-21. This has been provided with an introduction (3-4a) blending in with the foregoing theme of the restoration of the Lord’s people (1-2) and a conclusion (22-23) taking up the final thought of the song (20b-21) and turning it into a divine affirmation…. Just as 13:2-6 is a poem which uses ‘day of the Lord’ imagery and then associates it with the fall of Babylon (13:17-22) as an ‘interim day’, so here the general idea of a hostile world power is personalized into the imaginative portrayal of the end of the imperial dynasty of Babylon (22-23). The more we think of chapter 13-27 as a study of the principles of world history merging forward into eschatology, the easier it becomes to see that from the start Babylon carries overtones of the ‘city of emptiness’ (24:20) whose fall is the end of all that opposes the Lord’s rule.” [Motyer, p. 142]

“The king of Babylon typifies world power. When the aggression of the oppressor comes to an end, the whole earth is at rest… The nations, likened to trees, rejoice that Babylon no longer cuts down nations and kingdoms like a woodsman.” [VanGemeren, p. 484]

“The broken oppressor is the first theme; his real epitaph is the unspeakable relief the world feels at his passing (7)….

“The fallen morning star is the second theme, i.e. the tyrant’s fatal ambition rather than his oppression.” [Kidner, p. 643]

“The Babylonian monarchy bade fair to be an absolute, universal, and perpetual one, and in these pretensions vied with the Almighty: it is therefore very justly, not only brought down, but insulted over when it is down…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 67]

1. Sheol’s reaction to the arrival of the King of Babylon (14:9-23)

“Sheol or Hades, the unseen abode of the departed. Some of its tenants, once mighty monarchs, are represented by a bold personification as rising from their seats in astonishment at the descent among them of the humbled king of Babylon.” [A. R. Fausset, “The Book of the Prophet Isaiah,” A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown II, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, n.d.), p. 609]

“Who would have thought it? It is what thou thyself didst not expect it would ever come to when thou wast so hard upon us. Thou that didst rank thyself among the immortal gods, art thou come to take thy fate among us poor mortal men?” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 69]

This passage “expresses some central Old Testament truths about the dead. First, the dead are alive ― in Sheol. In the Bible ‘death’ is never ‘termination’ but a change of place and of state with continuity of personal identity. Sheol is the ‘place’ where all the dead live (see Jb. 3:11-19; Ps. 49:9). Secondly, in Sheol there is personal continuity and mutual recognition; the king is recognized s he arrives (10). Those already there rise from their thrones, not because there are thrones in Sheol but to show that they are the same people they were on earth.… Thirdly, Sheol is a place of weakness and loss, not enhancement of earthly powers. The dead are ‘shades’ or ‘shadowy ones’… who describe themselves as having become ‘weak’ (10). In verse 11 Sheol is related to the grave and the decomposing corpse. This hints at the explanation of the weakness: in biblical understanding human beings are embodied souls/besouled bodies, but at death this unity is sundered and the body falls into the ground. How then can the spirit in Sheol be a complete person? The Old Testament awaits Jesus and the illumination of immortality (2 Tim. 1:10) to fulfill its hints of the resurrection of the body. Yet in this as in all else, the Old Testament establishes truth, not error; the dead live on, personality continues with mutual recognition. The dead, as incomplete personalities awaiting fullness, can neither help nor hurt the living ― a perfect answer to spiritism.” [Motyer, p. 143-144]

“This song is often thought to tell of the revolt of Satan (taken with Ezk. 28); but this is a precarious conjecture. The tale of pride and downfall is at most only similar to what is said of Satan in e.g. Lk. 10:18; 1 Tim. 3:6, and in any case, when Scripture speaks directly of his fall, it refers to the break-up of his regime, not his prior fall from grace (cf. Rev. 12:9-12)….

“The idea of storming heaven, however, was certainly connected with Babylon (i.e. Babel; Gn. 11). One of its ironies is the idea that to be like the Most High (14) is to be self-exalted, whereas it is to be self-giving (cf. Phil. 2:5-11). The ugliness as well as the brevity of the false glory is powerfully shown in vs 16-21.

“The expression the depths (‘recesses’) of the pit (15), matching the hoped-for utmost heights (recesses’) of the divine mount (13), gives an early glimpse of the distinctions within Sheol which become clearer in the NT (cf. Lk. 16:26).” [Kidner, p. 643]

“He is a rejected/’detested’…branch, in contrast with the honored branch from Jesse’s root (11:1). The king is a ‘shoot’ of kings but is reckoned fit only for the compost heap.” [Motyer, p. 145]

“This prophecy was minutely fulfilled. On entering the city, the army of Cyrus marched straight to the palace, and meeting the king, who was coming out sword in hand, they slew him, and put all who followed him to the sword; and though Zenophon specially notices the permission given to bury the dead, he takes no notice whatever of the royal corpse.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 156]

2. Assyria (14:24-27)

“Yahweh is angry not only with Babylon, but also with Assyria (cf. 10:5-34)…. The council of the nations will be frustrated, but his council will stand.” [VanGemeren, p. 485]

“This briefly reaffirms 10:5-34… God’s assertion, As I have planned… (24) picks up the very word used of Assyria’s own plans in 10:7a (‘intends’). That the enemy should be broken in his apparent moment of victory, in my land, is characteristic of divine strategy (cf. Acts 4:27-28).” [Kidner, p. 643]

“Assyria invaded Judah during Hezekiah’s reign (701 B.C.), and God destroyed the army as it threatened to capture Jerusalem (37:36). God permitted Assyria to discipline Judah, but He would not allow the enemy to destroy His people.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary IV, p. 25]

3. Philistia (14:28-32)

“Through the Assyrian period, Philistia was one of the great political agitators. In 734 Gath refused to pay tribute and was sacked, and in 720 the Philistine cities were conniving with Egypt against Assyria but Sargon II defeated Egypt at Gaza and conquered Ashkelon and Gath In 711 Ashdod was in some way central to a general west Palestinian revolt which was quelled, and the Ashkelon rebellion of 705 was overtaken in 701 by Sennacherib’s punitive expedition. When Ahaz, the arch-collaborator with Assyria, died in 715 it would seem that Philistia took the opportunity to make overtures to Hezekiah, presumably under cover of a mission of condolence.… To Isaiah this was pernicious. Certainly the times were menacing (verse 31) and certainly the aspiration to independence was enticing and legitimate, but all the security Zion needed was to be found in the Lord who had founded the city.” [Motyer, p. 147]

“The oracle against Philistia is dated by the year in which Ahaz died…. The Philistines hoped for the end of Assyria’s dominance, but Isaiah warns them that they will be put down several times (711, 701, 586 B.C.) until they are finally no more…. The enemy from the north refers to Assyria and Babylonia…. Regardless of the political changes and the message of the emissaries of the nations, God’s people must seek the Lord and his kingdom.” [VanGemeren, p. 485]

“It is the constant message of Isaiah; trust, not intrigue.” [Kidner, p. 643]

4. Moab (15:1-16:14)

“The Babylonian oracle revealed that world history, even in its most threatening and climactic forms, is so organized that the people of God are cared for. The Philistia oracle confirmed this by insisting that the Davidic promises would be kept, and the Moab oracle corrects any impression that the hope expressed in the Davidic promises is exclusivist. Isaiah now says that the promises which will be fulfilled for David in Zion are for all who will take refuge in them.” [Motyer, p, 149]

“The Moabites were the product of Lot’s incestuous union with his daughter (Gen. 19:30-38) and were the avowed enemies of the Jews (Num. 25:31; Deut. 23:3).” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary IV, p. 25]

“Moab had family ties with Israel (Gn. 19:36-37) and particularly with David (cf. Ru. 4:17; 1 Sa. 22:3-4), yet it had nothing in common with Israel’s faith and appears in the OT as an evil influence (cf. e.g. Nu. 25) and inveterate enemy (cf. 2 Ki. 3:4-27).” [Kidner, p. 644]

1. The Plight of Moab (15:1-9)

“When the Assyrians invaded the Moabites turned from boasting to weeping (15:1-4) and fleeing (15:5-9).”  [Wiersbe, With the Word, p. 461]

“At least fourteen different references to lamentation occur in this chapter: weeping, wailing, baldness, sackcloth, crying out, etc.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary IV, p. 25]

1. Moab’s grief (15:1-4)

“Moab’s grief is given religious expression (2). National lamentation spreads through every town (3). From one town to another the cry is taken up (4a); even soldiers turn to weeping.” [Motyer, p, 150]

1. God’s grief over Moab (15:6-9)

“My heart is matched by I will bring (9) identifying the mourner as the Lord. He grieves over the plight of the fugitives (5), the stricken environment (6), the futile efforts to salvage something from the overthrow (7-8) and over what is yet to come (9)…. These verses are a long list of what touches the heart of God, who weeps as he smites. The grief of the judge of all the earth is one of the two striking truths of this oracle. The other is that all this total loss and suffering arises from the single sin of pride (16:6).” [Motyer, p, 150-151]

1. The Plea of Moab (16:1-5)

“From Edom (Sela; cf. 2 Kings 14:7) the Moabites send emissaries requesting asylum (16:1-5). They come with lambs as ‘tribute,’ thus recognizing Judah’s supremacy. The prophet explains why it is important to seek sanctuary in Judah. First oppression will cease from the world. Second, the messianic kingdom will be established, when a king will rule on David’s throne with faithfulness, justice, and righteousness.

“Moab is insincere in her request for sanctuary with God’s people. They desire refuge from the enemy, but not in the Lord and his Messiah. The heart of pride, conceit, and empty boasts has not changed. Therefore, judgment has overtaken them. Still Isaiah laments the fall of Moab (16:6-12). He grieves over the ruined vineyards, fields, and orchards. The songs of joy at harvest time have been changed into songs of mourning.” [VanGemeren, p. 485]

“Moab was advised to ‘dwell in the rock’ (…cf. 2 Ki. 14:7, i.e. the Edomite fortress now known as Petra), like a nesting dove (cf. Je. 48:28). But here God has stirred the nest (2) to make her seek a better refuge as a vassal of Zion. Lambs were the customary tribute from this sheep-raising country (cf. 2 Ki. 3:4)….

“But the pathos of v 2 speaks more eloquently than any tribute money… Vs 3-4a….can still dramatize to us the call to use our mind (counsel), conscience (‘justice’) and resources (shelter) for the losers in life (whom God seems to name here ‘my outcasts’ in the unamended text of 4a… Then the prospect of Zion as a refuge and rallying point (cf. 14:32; 2:3-4) leads in vs 4b-5 to another of Isaiah’s visions of a perfect king to come. Among the four virtues of his regime (5) notice his speed in promoting the right, in contrast to the perversity of 59:7 and the paralysis of Hab. 1:4.” [Kidner, p. 644]

“Counsel is a general request for advice, but decision…means a governmental decision. Figuratively, Moab is like one exposed to the blinding sun of noon, needing the relief of night/’darkness’. …The request is for immediate shelter…and for Zion to refuse all requests for extradition (do not betray/’uncover, expose’).” [Motyer, p, 152]

“…They wanted Judah’s help, but they did not want Judah’s God…. They wanted deliverance on their own terms.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary IV, p. 26]

“So far the reply has taken up and imitated the excited speech of the envoys but now this gives way to a majestic rhythm affirming the Davidic hope. If faith sees the present as ordained by God, it sees the future as secure in his sovereign purposes…. The coming king…will sit enthroned (lit) ‘in the tent of David’, i.e. he will not be a usurper but one with a true lineage, an undoubted claim…. Thus, when the Moabites come in desperate need, there is held out to them, without question, the Messianic best that Zion can offer.” [Motyer, p, 152-153]

1. The Pride of Moab (16:6) Cf. Ezekiel 33:11

“…Here the prophet seems to return from his vision of the future to the facts in the present.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 162]

“In verse 5, four words (love, faithfulness, justice, righteousness) described what the Moabites might have enjoyed. In this verse, four words tell what they chose instead: pride, conceit, pride and insolence.” [Motyer, p, 153]

“Isaiah’s implication is that the way of faith is the way of realism, of facing facts as they are. To reject the way of faith for self-confidence is to retreat into a dream world ― except that its consequences (7-8) are far from dreamlike.” [Motyer, p, 153]

“John Bunyan tells us, in his Holy War, that it was Mr. Carnal-security who drove Emmanuel from the town of Mansoul. He would have stopped there always, and have given Mansoul high holiday, but that Diabolonian, Mr. Carnal-security, whose father was Mr. Self-conceit, and whose mother was Lady Fear-nothing, filled the townspeople with such high notions of their greatness, that the blessed Prince went his way in sorrow and anger. Alas for us when we say, ‘My mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved;’ for we are then in direst peril.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 591]

“Pride is the worst viper in the heart…. It lies lowest of all in the foundation of the whole building of sin. Of all lusts, it is the most secret, deceitful, and unsearchable in its ways of working. It is ready to mix with everything. Nothing is so hateful to God, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, or of so dangerous consequence. There’s not one sin that does so much to let the devil into the hearts of the saints and expose them to his delusions.” [Jonathan Edwards quoted in Chris Larson, “It’s All About Me,” Tabletalk, (October 2010), p. 65]

“Vanity is the quicksand of reason.” [George Sand (pseud. for Amandine Dupin, Fr. novelist) in Treasury of Women’s Quotations compiled by Carolyn Warner, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1992), p. 55]

“The blind cannot see — the proud will not.’ [Russian proverb in A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom, compiled and edited by Reynold Feldman and Cynthia A. Voelke, (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 123]

“…We should not envy a proud person, no more than we would a man upon the gallows…” [The Complete Works of Thomas Manton I, (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), p. 356]

1. The Pain of Moab (16:7-12)

“This is the first of three ‘therefore’ sections (7-8, 9-10, 11-12). The second and third record the Lord’s reactions; the first records the consequences of refusing security in Zion.” [Motyer, p, 153]

1.   Moab’s grief (16:7-8)

“The scene changes again and Moab returns to wailing. Since Zion did not rebuff their appeal (4b-5), their unchanged plight can only mean that they refused what was offered. The entry fee was too high, for they could only enjoy Zion’s security at the price of owning Zion’s king. It they had been asked for money or required to double or treble their tribute of lambs (1) their pride would have been left intact, but to submit to Zion’s king was tantamount to admitting that only he could save them. But, keeping their pride intact, they remained in unrelieved misery.” [Motyer, p, 153]

1. God’s grief over Moab (16:9-12)

“The sadness of a silent land. ― these verses bring before us the picture of a country from which, at the proper seasons, there rises no harvest and no vintage song. ‘Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in its vineyard there shall be no singing, neither shall there be shouting.’ In every age and every land the gladness of the people has found expression in the joy of harvest, and no picture of woe, want and desolation could be so effective as this simple one of the harvest-fields from which arise no song.” [Pulpit Commentary in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 163]

“The conjunction between I weep (9) and I have put an end…(10) indicates that once more the Lord is the subject. …The Lord too grieves over the pride of Moab and its consequences. In 15:5 he wept for Moab, but now he weeps with Moab… He is no onlooker at the world’s sorrow but identifies with the mourners even though it is the weight of his own justly imposed punishment that he feels.” [Motyer, p, 154]

“his sanctuary, that of Chemosh, the god of Moab. Not prevail nor gain any relief by thus praying to a false God.” Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 163]

“Idolatry. 1. ‘God’s many,’ true God ― one. 2. Idolatry not confined to heathens, or worship of wood or stone idols (1 Cor. x.14; Col. iii.5; Phil. iii.9). 3. Whatever, other than God, in enshrined in the heart as the chief object of affection is an idol.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 159]

“Here is a deep-seated agony of God…. Moab may go to her high place but she only wears herself out; she may pray but it is to no avail. Once the Lord has been rejected there is no religious alternative, no matter how great the zeal or how valid is as such the practice.” [Motyer, p, 154]

1. The Penalty for Moab (16:13-14)

“The date of Moab’s doom is given: ‘within three years’…” [VanGemeren, p. 485-486]

“They will see before their very eyes that outside the Lord’s promises there is no salvation and that pride, inhibiting a spirit of trust, really is a killer…. Moab’s payday has been fixed…. Moab’s fall will come in spite of the resources of manpower offering worldly security. The overthrow will be ‘against the odds’, but when the Lord is rejected nothing can save.” [Motyer, p, 154]

“In view of these two chapters, constituting one prophecy, and the facts in regard to the present state of the country of Moab, we may observe that we have here clear and unanswerable evidence of the genuineness and truth of the sacred records…. Mistakes, we all know, are liable to be made by those who attempt to describe the ‘geography’ of places which they have not seen. Yet here is a description of a land and its numerous towns, made nearly three thousand years ago, and in its ‘particulars’ it is sustained by all the travelers in modern times. The ruins of the same towns are still seen; their places, in general, can be designated In the language of Prof. Stuart…, ‘How obviously everything of this kind serves to give confirmation to the authority and credibility of the sacred records! Do skeptics undertake to scoff at the Bible, and aver that it is the work of impostors who lived in later ages? …We may ask…whether impostors of later ages could possibly have so managed, as to preserve all the ‘localities’ in complete order which the Scriptures present?… How happens it, now, that the authors of the Old Testament Scriptures should have possessed such a wonderful tact in geography, as it would seem they did, unless they lived at the time and in the countries of which they have spoken?… After a lapse of three thousand years, every successive traveler who visits Moab, Idumea, or Palestine, does something to confirm the accuracy of Isaiah. Towns, bearing the same name, or the ruins of towns, are located in the same relative position in which he said they were; and the ruins of once splendid cities, broken columns, dilapidated walls, trodden down vineyards, and half-demolished temples, proclaim to the world that those cities are what he said they would be, and that he was under the inspiration of God.” [Albert Barnes, “Isaiah,” Notes on the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1847), p. 305-306]