Jeremiah 48

Jeremiah 48
Chapter 48 is occupied with the crushing blow to fall upon Moab through the king of Babylon. Jeremiah, in the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, twenty-one or twenty-two years before Jerusalem’s destruction, had sent to the kings of Moab, Edom, the Ammonites, Tyre and Sidon, a message from God calling upon them to submit to Nebuchadnezzar. Those nations that would not serve him were to be severely punished (Jeremiah 27:1-111In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2Thus saith the Lord to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, 3And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; 4And command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters; 5I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. 6And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. 7And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. 8And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. 9Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: 10For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish. 11But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord; and they shall till it, and dwell therein. (Jeremiah 27:1‑11)). It is plain that the message was ignored by all of them; need we wonder at it, when Judah’s last king also treated with contempt every word that Jeremiah brought him from God? In these chapters, we are reading of what befell those who refused God’s mercy.
No less than 27 places are named in this chapter (48), and among them are several north of the river Amon which had separated Moab from the tribe of Reuben. When the Reubenites were smitten by Hazael, king of Syria (2 Kings 10:32, 3332In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel; 33From Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan. (2 Kings 10:32‑33)), and later by Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria (1 Chronicles 5:2626And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day. (1 Chronicles 5:26)), the Moabites must have repossessed their land, which had been Moab’s until shortly bore the children of Israel crossed the wilderness from Egypt on their way to Canaan.
“Madmen” (verse 2) is not a term of reproach here, but the name of one of the many small towns in Moab. Chemosh (verse 7) was the principal god of the Moabites and Ammonites. In verse 12 read, “pourers that shall pour him off”, instead of “wanderers that shall cause him to wander”; the reference is to verse 11. The house of Israel’s being ashamed of Bethel relates to Jeroboam’s placing there one of his golden calves, and an idolatrous altar (1 Kings 12:28-3328Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 29And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. 30And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. 31And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. 32And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made. 33So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense. (1 Kings 12:28‑33); see also Genesis 35:1, 71And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. (Genesis 35:1)
7And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el: because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother. (Genesis 35:7)).
Verse 34: “An heifer of three years old” is believed to lie the name of a town, Eglath-shelishijan, rather than a reference to an animal.
The land of Moab was to become a desolation, and this, travelers tell us, is its present condition. (Other Scriptures telling of God’s dealings with Moab are Psalm 83, Isaiah 11:14,14But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. (Isaiah 11:14) Isaiah 15-16, Isaiah 25:10-1210For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. 11And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands. 12And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust. (Isaiah 25:10‑12); Zephaniah 2:8-11,8I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. 9Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them. 10This shall they have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts. 11The Lord will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen. (Zephaniah 2:8‑11) Daniel 11:41,41He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. (Daniel 11:41) Amos 2:11Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime: (Amos 2:1)). As said of the Philistines, all the prophecies concerning Moab are not fulfilled; they await the day to come when the Jews shall be undergoing the fearful experiences of the time of Jacob’s trouble in their land, from which deliverance will come by the Lord’s appearing. Jeremiah, however, except in verse 47, deals only with the time then imminent, when Nebuchadnezzar was to be the instrument of God for Moab’s punishment.