2 Kings 3:4

_AND MESHA KING OF MOAB WAS A SHEEPMASTER, AND RENDERED UNTO THE KING OF ISRAEL AN HUNDRED THOUSAND LAMBS, AND AN HUNDRED THOUSAND RAMS, WITH THE WOOL._ Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master, х_ NOQEED_ (H5349), a herdsman, a sheep-breeder (Amos 1:1). The Septuagint retains the original, Moosa basileus Mooab een Nookeed]. His dominions embracing an extensive pasture country, he paid, as annual tribute, the wool of 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams. It is still common in the East to pay custom and taxes in the fruits or natural produce of the land. It is probable, however, that so immense flocks were not paid as a regular yearly tribute, but only on some special occasion, as the accession of a new king to the throne of Israel....

1-5 Jehoram took warning by God's judgment, and put away the image of Baal, yet he maintained the worship of the calves. Those do not truly repent or reform, who only part with the sins they lose by, but continue to love the sins that they think to gain by....

Verse 2 Kings 3:4. _WAS A SHEEPMASTER_] The original is נקד _naked_, of which the Septuagint could make nothing, and therefore retained the Hebrew word νωκηδ: but the Chaldee has מרי גיתי _marey githey_, "a sheepmaster;" _Aquila_ has ποιμνιοτροφος; and _Symmachus_, τρεφων βοσκηματα; all to the same sense. The original signifies one who _marks_ or _brands_, probably from the _marking_ of sheep. He fed many sheep, c., and had them _all marked_ in a particular way, in order to ascertain his property. _A HUNDRED THOUSAND LAMBS_] The _Chaldee_ and _Arabic_ have _a_ _hundred thousand fat oxen_....

Moab, the region immediately east of the Dead Sea and of the lower Jordan, though in part suited for agriculture, is in the main a great grazing country. Mesha resembled a modern Arab Sheikh, whose wealth is usually estimated by the number of his flocks and herds. His tribute of the wool of 100, 000 lambs was a tribute in kind, the ordinary tribute at this time in the East. Mesha is the monarch who wrote the inscription on the “Moabite stone” (2 Kings 1:1 note). The points established by the Inscription are: 1. That Moab recovered from the blow dealt by David 2Sa 8:2, 2 Samuel 8:12, and became again an independent state in the interval between David’s conquest and the accession o

EXPOSITION 2 KINGS 3:1 THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF JEHORAM'S REIGN OVER ISRAEL; HIS WAR WITH MOAB. 2 KINGS 3:1 NOW JEHORAM THE SON OF AHAB BEGAN TO REIGN OVER ISRAEL IN SAMARIA THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF JEHOSHAPHAT KING OF JUDAH. This note of time is not quite in accordance with the chronology of 1 Kings, which gives Jehoshaphat a reign of twenty-five years (1 Kings 22:42), Ahab one of twenty-two years ...

AND MESHA KING OF MOAB WAS A SHEEP MASTER,.... With which his country abounded; he kept great numbers of them, and shepherds to take care of them; he traded in them, and got great riches by them; his substance chiefly consisted in them: AND RENDERED UNTO THE KING OF ISRAEL: either as a present, or as an annual tribute: AN HUNDRED THOUSAND LAMBS, AND AN HUNDRED THOUSAND RAMS, WITH THE WOOL; that is, upon them, unshorn, and so the more valuable; and it was usual for tributary nations to pay their tribute to those to whom they were subject in such commodities which they most abounded with; so the Cappadocians, as Strabo c relates, used to pay, as a tribute to the Persians, every year, 1500 horses and 2000 mules, and five myriads of sheep, or 50,000; and formerly, Pliny d says, the only tribute was from the pastures. c Geograph. l. 11. p. 362. d Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 3....

2. JEHORAM, MOAB, AND ELISHA CHAPTER 3 _ 1. Jehoram, King of Israel (2 Kings 3:1)_ 2. Moab's rebellion (2 Kings 3:4) 3. Elisha's message and prediction (2 Kings 3:10) 4. The defeat of Moab (2 Kings 3:21) In chapter 1:17 we read, “And Jehoram reigned in his stead (Ahaziah) in the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah.” (He was associated with his father in the government of the kingdom. See 2 Kings 8:27;...

REIGN OF JEHORAM. WAR WITH MOAB. The only two kings of Israel on whom the censure pronounced is in any way qualified are Jehoram, the last of the house of Omri, and Hoshea (2 Kings 17:2), the last king of Israel. All the others are said to have done evil. The war with Moab is the subject of the famous inscription of Mesha discovered in 1868 (pp. 34, 69). On this Mesha states that Omri occupied the land of Mehedebah (Medeba, Numbers 21:30; Joshua 13:9; Isaiah 15:2) his days, half his son's days, forty years. In Kings it is specially said that Mesha's rebellion was after the death of Ahab. Omri and Ahab together according to Kings reigned on

MESLIA. See App-54 on "the Moabite stone"....

_And Mesha king of Moab_ This name for the king of Moab occurs in the first line of the Moabite stone. In that inscription the Moabite king mentions his successes against Omri and Omri's successor and speaks of forty years as the time during which the conflict between Israel and Moab continued. Now Omri reigned six years (1 Kings 16:23) and Ahab's reign lasted twenty-two years (1 Kings 16:29) while Ahaziah reigned one or two years more. Thus the whole period of forty years would not be covered unless we take in the reign of Jehoram. The Moabite inscription naturally represents only the Moabite successes, but the Scripture narrative shews that the victory over Omri had been followed by a defeat in the days of Ahab. _a sheepmaster_ The LXX. transliterates the word writing Νωκήδ. It occurs only he