Isaiah 16: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter continues Isaiah's message about Moab. Refugees from Moab plead with Judah for shelter, and the passage speaks of a throne set up in steady love in the tent of David, held by a judge who seeks justice. The rest is mourning: Moab's pride is called empty, its vineyards and harvest shouting are gone, and the speaker weeps for the ruined towns. The chapter ends with a word the LORD speaks now: within three years, counted like a hired worker counts them, Moab's splendor will be scorned and only a few weak people will be left.

Claim by Claim

1. 16:1
   • A command is given to send a lamb to the ruler of the land.
   • The lamb is to be sent from Sela.
   • The sending goes by way of the wilderness.
   • The destination is the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
2. 16:2
   • The daughters of Moab will be at the fords of the Arnon.
   • They will be like a fleeing bird driven out of its nest.
3. 16:3
   • A command is given to bring counsel.
   • A command is given to render a decision.
   • A command is given to make your shade like night in the middle of noon.
   • A command is given to hide the banished ones.
   • A command is given not to betray the one who flees.
4. 16:4
   • A request is made that the speaker's outcasts be allowed to live with the one addressed.
   • The one addressed is Moab.
   • Moab is told to be a hiding place for them from the face of the destroyer.
   • The extortioner has come to an end.
   • The destruction has ceased.
   • The tramplers have vanished from the land.
5. 16:5
   • A throne will be established in steadfast love.
   • One will sit on that throne in faithfulness.
   • The throne is in the tent of David.
   • The one who sits on it judges.
   • The one who sits on it seeks justice.
   • The one who sits on it is swift to do righteousness.
6. 16:6
   • The speakers have heard of the pride of Moab.
   • Moab is exceedingly proud.
   • Moab's haughtiness, pride, and overflowing arrogance are reported.
   • Moab's boasting is not so.
7. 16:7
   • Therefore Moab will wail for Moab.
   • All of Moab will wail.
   • The hearers will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.
   • They are utterly stricken.
8. 16:8
   • The fields of Heshbon have withered.
   • The vine of Sibmah has withered.
   • The lords of the nations have beaten down its choice branches.
   • Its branches reached as far as Jazer.
   • Its branches strayed into the wilderness.
   • Its shoots spread out.
   • Its shoots passed over the sea.
9. 16:9
   • The speaker will weep for the vine of Sibmah with the weeping of Jazer.
   • The speaker will drench Heshbon and Elealeh with his tears.
   • A shout has fallen upon the summer fruit and the harvest.
   • It is left unresolved whether that shout is the vintage cheer that has ceased or a battle cry that has fallen on the crops.
10. 16:10
    • Gladness and rejoicing are taken away from the fruitful field.
    • There is no singing in the vineyards.
    • There is no shouting in the vineyards.
    • The treader treads out no wine in the winepresses.
    • The speaker has made the vintage shout cease.
11. 16:11
    • The speaker's inward parts moan like a harp for Moab.
    • The speaker's inner being moans for Kir-heres.
12. 16:12
    • Moab will be seen wearying himself on the high place.
    • Moab will come to his sanctuary to pray.
    • Moab will not prevail.
13. 16:13
    • This is the word the LORD spoke concerning Moab in time past.
14. 16:14
    • Now the LORD has spoken again.
    • The LORD says the appointed span is three years.
    • The three years are counted as the years of a hired worker.
    • Within that time the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt.
    • The contempt will come upon all of Moab's great multitude.
    • The remnant left will be very few.
    • The remnant left will not be mighty.

Words Worth Explaining

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

16:1

Sending lambs was how a smaller kingdom paid tribute to a larger one; 2 Kings 3:4 records Moab paying Israel's king in lambs and wool. Sela means "rock" in Hebrew and is the name of a fortress town south-east of the Dead Sea, sometimes identified with the site later called Petra. "The mountain of the daughter of Zion" is Mount Zion in Jerusalem: "daughter of Zion" is a standard Hebrew way of personifying a city and its people as a woman.

16:2

The Arnon was the river running into the Dead Sea that marked Moab's northern border; its fords were the shallow places where a river could be waded, so the natural crossing points for people fleeing. "Daughters of Moab" can mean the women of Moab, and can also be the ordinary Hebrew phrase for the outlying towns and villages of a country.

16:3

Verses 3 and 4 are quoted speech, but the Hebrew does not say who is speaking to whom, and translators divide over it. It can be read as Moabite refugees begging Judah for asylum, or as a plea addressed to Moab to shelter others. The rendering keeps the words as a request; the addressee stays open. Deep shade at midday is an image of protection: in that climate the noon sun was dangerous, and shade was safety.

16:4

The Hebrew of the second half is not clearly past or future, so it may be a statement that the oppression is now over, or a "when the oppressor is finished..." clause running on into verse 5. Both readings are current. In verse 3 the King James "bewray" simply means betray or give away; it is not related to "betray" but means the same thing here.

16:5

"The tent of David" (King James "tabernacle of David") means the royal household and dynasty descended from King David, not a literal tent. Calling a dynasty a house or a tent was ordinary Hebrew usage. In the ancient world a king was above all a judge, so "judging" and "seeking justice" describe the normal work of a ruler rather than a court appearance.

16:7

Kir-hareseth was Moab's chief fortress city, high on a hill east of the Dead Sea. The Hebrew word the King James renders "foundations" is spelled the same as the word for pressed raisin cakes, a prized product of Moab's vineyards; translators are split, so the verse may be mourning the ruined walls of the city or its lost produce.

16:8

Heshbon, Sibmah and Jazer were towns on the tableland north of Moab, a region famous for its vineyards. The picture is of a vine so vigorous its runners reached in every direction; "crossed the sea" most likely means the Dead Sea, or possibly refers to the trade in its wine shipped abroad. "Rulers of the nations" are foreign conquerors, who both destroyed the vines and drank their wine.

16:9

Elealeh was another town of the same wine-growing district, near Heshbon. The "shouting" is the traditional cry raised by workers treading grapes and gathering fruit, a noise loud enough that its absence marks a ruined harvest.

16:10

A winepress was a shallow rock-cut basin where grapes were crushed underfoot, the juice draining into a lower vat. Treading was done in company to a rhythmic shout, so "no shouting" means the presses stand idle.

16:11

Hebrew locates strong emotion in the inner organs, where English says the heart; the King James "bowels" carries no crude sense here. The harp image is of strings set vibrating: the speaker's insides throb the way a plucked string does. Kir-heres is a variant spelling of Kir-hareseth in verse 7, the same city.

16:12

A "high place" was an open-air shrine, usually on a hilltop or raised platform, with an altar and standing stones; these were the ordinary local worship sites throughout the region, Moabite and Israelite alike. "Wearing himself out" describes the exhausting round of climbing, sacrificing and pleading.

16:13

This verse and the next form a dated postscript, marking off everything above as an older message and adding a new one. "Back then" (King James "since that time") means the earlier oracle was already in circulation when this note was attached.

16:14

A hired worker was engaged for a fixed term and counted the days exactly, since his wages depended on it. "As the years of a hired worker" therefore means three years precisely, not three years roughly.