Jeremiah 48:23

And upon Kiriathaim, and upon Bethgamul, and upon Bethmeon, BETH-GAMUL - meaning the city of camels. BETH-MEON - the house of habitation. Beth-baal-meon (). Now its ruins are called Miun....

14-47. The destruction of Moab is further prophesied, to awaken them by national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and mediating on the terror, it will be of more use to us to keep in view the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, and to have our hearts possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to search into all the figures and expressions here used. Yet it is not perpetual destruction. The chapter ends with a promise of their return out of captivity in the latter days. Even with Moabites God will not contend for ever, nor be always wroth. The Jews refer it to the days of the Messiah; then the captives of the Gentiles, under the yoke of sin and Satan, shall be brought back by Divine grace, which shall make them free indeed....

BETH-MEON - Meon is probably the Moabite Olympus, and thus Beth-Baal-Meon, the full name of this town Joshua 13:17, would signify the place where the heavenly Baal was worshipped....

EXPOSITION This prophecy is so full of repetitions that the question has naturally arisen whether the most prominent of these may not be due to interpolation. For instance: 1.Jeremiah 48:29-24 recur in Isaiah 16:6; Isaiah 15:4, Isaiah 15:5, Isaiah 15:6; Isaiah 16:12, Isaiah 16:11;...

AND UPON KIRJATHAIM,.... Of which see Jeremiah 48:1; AND UPON BETHGAMUL; this is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture; supposed by Grotius to be the Maccala of Ptolemy, put for Camala: AND UPON BETHMEON: of which see Isaiah 15:2....

CHAPTER 48 Concerning Moab _ 1. The overthrow of Moab (Jeremiah 48:1) _ 2. The humiliation of Moab (Jeremiah 48:11) 3. Reaping what they sowed (Jeremiah 48:20) 4. Destroyed on account of its pride (Jeremiah 48:29) With these divisions the chapter may be studied in detail. Moab was of incestuous off spring Genesis 19:37. Israel is now exhorted to flee and save itself because Moab is to be destroyed. Moab's national deity was Chemosh, who was also worshipped by the sister nation, the

Enumeration of the cities which are to suffer (Jeremiah 48:20). The strength of Moab is destroyed, and Moab is become drunken (with the cup of Yahweh, Jeremiah 25:15), an object of present derision, as Israel formerly was to Moab, when Israel was treated as a detected thief (Jeremiah 2:26). Let the Moabites seek refuge like the dove in the inaccessible crannies of some ravine. Jeremiah 48:20 ff. Several of these sites are unknown; Bozrah is not the Edomite city of Jeremiah 49:13....

BETH-GAMUL. Now _Khan Jemail,_ east of Dibon. BETH-MEON. Now _Tell M'ain._ Compare Joshua 13:17....

The metrical arrangement begun in Jeremiah 48:17 ends in the middle of Jeremiah 48:20. From "tell ye it" onwards to the end of Jeremiah 48:24 is in all probability a later addition. Of the places not already mentioned in the ch. the position of some is quite unknown....

IV. THE ORACLE AGAINST MOAB Jeremiah 48:1-47 The Moabites occupied the region east of the Dead Sea and for the most part south of the river Arnon. The Arnon flows through a steep, twisting gorge in the mountains of Moab and was of great strategic importance in antiquity. In times of political decline the kingdom of Moab shrank to the area on the southern side of the river which thus became a natural border on the north. In more vigorous periods the kingdom expanded northward beyond the river. The Israelites first came into contact with the Moabites at the end of the period of wilderness wandering. At that time Balak, king of Moab, hired Balaam to curse Israel (Numbers 22-24). This was the beginning of a long history of enmity between the two nations.[381] The Moabite Stone as well as the Bible reflects the hostility between the Israelites and the Moabites.[382] [381] See...