Isaiah 15: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a message of doom about Moab. Its towns are destroyed overnight, and the people shave their heads, wear rough cloth, and weep in the streets and on the rooftops. Refugees carry what they own to Zoar, to Luhith and to Horonaim, the water sources dry up or run with blood, and the speaker says he will bring still more on those who escape.

Claim by Claim

1. 15:1
   • This is a pronouncement of doom concerning Moab.
   • Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night.
   • Ar of Moab is brought to ruin and silence.
   • Kir of Moab is laid waste in a night.
   • Kir of Moab is brought to ruin and silence.
2. 15:2
   • There is a going up to weep at the high places.
   • The one going up is named as Dibon, and the place gone up to is called the house, which may be a temple or a place name Bajith.
   • Moab howls over Nebo.
   • Moab howls over Medeba.
   • Every head among them is shaved bald.
   • Every beard is cut off.
3. 15:3
   • In its streets they put on sackcloth.
   • On the rooftops everyone howls.
   • In the open squares everyone howls.
   • They go down weeping.
4. 15:4
   • Heshbon cries out.
   • Elealeh cries out.
   • Their voice is heard as far as Jahaz.
   • Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out.
   • Moab's soul trembles within him.
5. 15:5
   • The speaker's heart cries out for Moab.
   • Moab's fugitives flee as far as Zoar.
   • The fugitives are described as reaching Eglath-shelishiyah, a phrase that may be a place name or may mean a three-year-old heifer.
   • They go up the ascent of Luhith weeping.
   • On the road to Horonaim they raise a cry over the destruction.
6. 15:6
   • The waters of Nimrim become desolate.
   • The hay is dried up.
   • The grass is finished.
   • There is no green thing.
7. 15:7
   • Therefore they carry away the surplus they have made.
   • They carry away what they have stored up.
   • They carry these things over the brook of the willows.
8. 15:8
   • The outcry has gone around the border of Moab.
   • Moab's wailing reaches Eglaim.
   • Moab's wailing reaches Beer-elim.
9. 15:9
   • The waters of Dimon are full of blood.
   • The speaker says he will bring yet more upon Dimon.
   • A lion is appointed against those of Moab who escape.
   • A lion is appointed against the remnant of the land.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

15:1

Moab was a small kingdom on the high plateau east of the Dead Sea, in what is now western Jordan. Israelite tradition traced the Moabites to Lot, Abraham's nephew, so they counted as distant kin (but they were also long-standing rivals, and this chapter is one of a series of oracles Isaiah delivers about the nations surrounding Judah. "Burden" in the King James is a technical term for a prophetic pronouncement, from a Hebrew word meaning something lifted) either a heavy load or a voice raised to speak. Ar and Kir were two of Moab's principal cities; Kir (later called Kir-hareseth) was its fortress capital.

15:2

The King James "Bajith" is simply the Hebrew word for "house," here meaning a temple, which is why the rendering says "the temple." The "high places" were open-air worship sites, typically on hilltops or raised platforms, with an altar and a standing stone (the normal form of local worship throughout the region. Dibon, Nebo and Medeba were towns on the Moabite plateau; Dibon was a royal city, and Nebo stood near the mountain of the same name. Shaving the head bald and cutting off the beard were public mourning rites across the ancient Near East. A full beard was a mark of adult male dignity, so cutting it was a deliberate act of self-disfigurement) Israelite law actually forbade these particular practices to its own people.

15:3

Sackcloth was coarse dark cloth woven from goat hair, the material of grain sacks, worn next to the skin as a sign of grief or distress. Roofs in this region were flat and reached by an outside stair; they were used for sleeping, drying crops and, as here, for public lamenting where everyone could see and hear.

15:4

Heshbon and Elealeh were northern Moabite towns about a mile and a half apart; Jahaz lay some distance to the south or east, so the point is that the cry carries across the whole territory. The King James "his life shall be grievous unto him" translates an idiom about the inner self trembling or recoiling, the soldiers are the ones who should be steady, and they are not.

15:5

Zoar sat at the southern end of the Dead Sea, so the refugees are fleeing the length of the country. "Eglath-shelishiyah" is genuinely uncertain: the Hebrew can be read as a place name meaning "the third Eglath" or, as the King James took it, as the phrase "a heifer three years old", a young cow at full strength, used elsewhere as an image for a nation bellowing in distress. Luhith and Horonaim were on the ascent and road leading south out of Moab toward Edom.

15:6

Nimrim was a stream valley whose name suggests running water; its drying up means the pasture and irrigated land are gone. In a country that depended on a few reliable watercourses, this is not scenery but the loss of the food supply.

15:7

The Brook of the Willows is most likely the deep ravine on Moab's southern border, the Zered, marking the frontier with Edom. Carrying their savings and stored goods across it means the survivors are leaving the country altogether, taking what they can lift.

15:8

Eglaim and Beer-elim are otherwise little known, but the pairing works as a merism: the cry has reached one end of Moab and the other.

15:9

"Dimon" is probably the town Dibon named in verse 2, spelled here so that it echoes the Hebrew word *dam*, "blood", a grim pun that the English cannot carry. Lions still lived in the thickets along the Jordan and its side valleys in this period, so a lion hunting down those who got away is both a literal hazard of flight and an image of a disaster that finds even the escapees. "Remnant" is the standard term for the survivors left after a catastrophe.