Isaiah 15

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The double ki beleil ('because in the night') creates a drumbeat of urgency: two cities fall in one night. The verb shuddad ('is devastated') paired with nidmah ('is destroyed, is silenced') emphasizes both the violence and its finality. The root d-m-h in nidmah can mean either 'to be destroyed' or 'to be silenced' — both meanings operate simultaneously: the cities are destroyed and their voices are silenced.
2. Ar and Kir are the two principal cities of Moab. Ar (possibly modern Khirbet el-Medeyineh) was on the Arnon River; Kir-Moab (Kir-Hareseth, modern Kerak) was the fortified capital on a high plateau. If both fall in a single night, Moab's entire defensive structure has collapsed.

Translator Notes

1. The mourning rituals — shaved heads (qorchah) and cut beards (geru'ah) — were standard expressions of grief in the ancient Near East, though formally prohibited for Israelites (Leviticus 21:5, Deuteronomy 14:1). The prophet reports Moab's customs without condemnation, simply documenting their grief.
2. The 'temple' (ha-bayit, literally 'the house') likely refers to the temple of Chemosh, Moab's national deity. Dibon (modern Dhiban) was the city where the Mesha Stele was discovered. Nebo is not the mountain where Moses died but a Moabite town (attested in Numbers 32:3). Medeba (modern Madaba) is known for its Byzantine mosaic map but was an ancient Moabite city.

Translator Notes

1. The mourning is public and total: streets (chutsot), rooftops (gaggot), and open squares (rechovot) — every public space is filled with grief. The phrase yored ba-bekhi ('going down in weeping' or 'dissolving in tears') suggests weeping so intense that the mourner physically collapses. We rendered 'collapsing in tears' to capture the physical dimension.
2. Sackcloth (saq) was the universal garment of mourning and penitence in the ancient Near East — coarse goat or camel hair worn against the skin. The rooftops were public spaces used for proclamation, prayer, and communal gathering.

Translator Notes

1. The geographic sweep expands: Heshbon (modern Hesban) and Elealeh (modern el-Al) are northern Moabite cities; Jahaz (location debated, possibly Khirbet el-Medeyineh) is farther south. The cries carry across the landscape — the sound of mourning is the chapter's dominant sensory image.
2. The phrase chalutsai Mo'av ('the armed ones of Moab,' its soldiers) yari'u ('cry out, tremble') means even the military has lost its nerve. The expression nafsho yar'ah lo ('his soul trembles for him') describes inner collapse — not just military defeat but psychological disintegration.

Translator Notes

1. The first line — libbi le-Mo'av yiz'aq ('my heart cries out for Moab') — is the emotional center of the oracle. The prophet's own heart joins Moab's lament. This is not triumphant prophecy but grieving prophecy. The identification of the speaker is debated: is this the prophet's voice or God's? The ambiguity may be intentional — in prophetic experience, the two can merge.
2. Zoar was one of the cities of the plain spared when Sodom was destroyed (Genesis 19:22), located near the southern end of the Dead Sea. Eglath-shelishiyah ('three-year-old heifer') is likely a place name, though its location is uncertain. The ascent of Luhith and the road to Horonaim trace the southward flight path of refugees — these are specific topographic features, the hilly roads down which Moabites flee.
3. The phrase za'aqat shever ('a cry of breaking/anguish') uses shever in its double sense: both physical destruction and emotional shattering. The refugees raise a cry that expresses both what is happening to their cities and what is happening to their hearts.

Translator Notes

1. The waters of Nimrim (probably Wadi en-Numeirah, southeast of the Dead Sea) were evidently a fertile oasis. Their desolation means the refugees fleeing south will find no water, no pasture, no sustenance. The threefold description — dried grass (yavesh chatsir), finished vegetation (kalah deshe), no green (yereq lo hayah) — eliminates every possibility of life-sustaining growth.
2. The ecological destruction reinforces the totality of Moab's collapse: it is not merely military defeat but the death of the land itself. The water sources that sustained life have failed.

Translator Notes

1. The yitrah ('excess, abundance') and pequddatam ('their stored-up goods, their possessions') represent everything Moab has accumulated — now loaded onto the backs of refugees fleeing south. The nachal ha-aravim ('Wadi of the Willows') is likely the border watercourse between Moab and Edom, possibly the modern Wadi el-Hasa. Crossing it means leaving Moab entirely — the refugees abandon their homeland.
2. The image of people carrying their remaining possessions across a border stream is one of the most human moments in the prophets. This is not abstract judgment but the lived experience of displacement.

Translator Notes

1. The verb hiqqifah ('encircles, surrounds') means the cry of grief has reached every border of Moab — there is no quiet corner, no place untouched. Eglaim and Beer-elim mark the geographical extremes of Moab, likely at or near the Dead Sea shore. The repetition of yillatah ('her wailing') is monotonous by design — the wail is unvarying and inescapable.
2. Beer-elim ('well of the mighty ones' or 'well of the terebinths') may be the same location mentioned in Numbers 21:16–18, the well that Israel sang over during the wilderness journey. If so, the place once associated with celebration is now associated with mourning.

Translator Notes

1. The name Dimon appears to be a deliberate alteration of Dibon (the major Moabite city, cf. v. 2) to create a wordplay with dam ('blood'): Dimon/dam — the city's very name now echoes with blood. The waters that should sustain life are full of death.
2. The divine first person returns: ashit ('I will bring/place') — God claims agency for what falls on the survivors. The 'lion' (aryeh) sent against the remnant may be metaphorical (a conquering army) or literal (predatory animals reclaiming depopulated territory). Either way, even survival offers no safety.
3. The phrase she'erit adamah ('remnant of the land') closes the chapter with the barest thread of survival — not a restored nation but a fragment clinging to scorched ground. The oracle ends without resolution, continuing directly into chapter 16.