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Context No. 672 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 48:33-47: in context

33Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab. I have caused wine to cease from the wine presses. No one will tread with shouting. The shouting will be no shouting. 34From the cry of Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz they have uttered their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for the waters of Nimrim will also become desolate. 35Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab,” says the LORD, “him who offers in the high place, and him who burns incense to his gods. 36Therefore my heart sounds for Moab like flutes, and my heart sounds like flutes for the men of Kir Heres. Therefore the abundance that he has gotten has perished. 37For every head is bald, and every beard clipped. There are cuttings on all the hands, and sackcloth on the waist. 38On all the housetops of Moab, and in its streets, there is lamentation everywhere; for I have broken Moab like a vessel in which no one delights,” says the LORD. 39“How it is broken down! How they wail! How Moab has turned the back with shame! So will Moab become a derision and a terror to all who are around him.” 40For the LORD says: “Behold, he will fly as an eagle, and will spread out his wings against Moab. 41Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized. The heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs. 42Moab will be destroyed from being a people, because he has magnified himself against the LORD. 43Terror, the pit, and the snare are on you, inhabitant of Moab,” says the LORD. 44“He who flees from the terror will fall into the pit; and he who gets up out of the pit will be taken in the snare, for I will bring on him, even on Moab, the year of their visitation,” says the LORD. 45“Those who fled stand without strength under the shadow of Heshbon; for a fire has gone out of Heshbon, and a flame from the middle of Sihon, and has devoured the corner of Moab, and the crown of the head of the tumultuous ones. 46Woe to you, O Moab! The people of Chemosh are undone; for your sons are taken away captive, and your daughters into captivity. 47“Yet I will reverse the captivity of Moab in the latter days,” says the LORD. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.

Jeremiah's book gathers a run of oracles against the surrounding nations, and chapter 48 is the long one against Moab, Israel's neighbor across the Dead Sea. The judgment is total. Gladness is stripped from the orchards, the wine stops in the presses because no one is left to tread it with a shout, and mourning spreads over every rooftop, shaved heads and sackcloth and gashed hands. Moab is broken, the prophet says, like a jar no one wants. The reason is named plainly: Moab magnified himself against the LORD.

Two things in the oracle are easy to miss under the wreckage. The first is that the prophet grieves. My heart moans for Moab like a flute, he says, for the enemy whose fall he is announcing. The second is the last line. After the terror and the pit and the snare, after Chemosh their god is undone and their children are carried off, God adds: yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the latter days. The sentence on the enemy is real, and the prophet weeps through it, and even so the door is not bolted forever.

Jeremiah mourned the enemy he was sent to condemn, and God left Moab a future. Whose downfall would I enjoy, that I am not willing to grieve, or to imagine restored?

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