epcblog: Isaiah 15

The current and following chapter in Isaiah contain a prophecy against the nation of Moab. The descendants of an incestuous relationship, the Moabites were often against Israel, calling upon their false God Chemosh and using whatever means they could to seek curse upon God’s people. The book of Numbers tells the story of one king of the Moabites, Balak, who tried to retain the services of a pagan prophet, Balaam, in order to bring about the demise of the Israelites. Moab would want to see the descendants of Jacob cursed, but here the God of Jacob speaks to His people of the pitiable condition of Moab.

It was the Moabites, and their King Eglon, who in the days of the judges oppressed Israel and extracted from her the produce of the land for the fattening up of the enemies of God. But the people of God were delivered from this adversary through the provision of a savior in the judge Ehud. In another era there would come a famine in the land of Israel that led a couple from Bethlehem to sojourn in Moab. When the famine was over and Naomi the Israelite had lost both her sons and her husband, she returned with Ruth the Moabitess, who would be an ancestor of King David, from whom came the Christ.

God did not despise the Moabites because of their ethnic heritage. Of course He hated their demonic gods and their high places of false worship. He hated the way that they turned against His people with violence. Yet here in this chapter Isaiah seems to show a heart of sympathy for Moab in their distress. As the prophetic spokesman of God, Isaiah will point to the arrogance and pride of Moab in the coming chapter. But at least for these few verses that comprise the opening to His case against this nation, we see simply an account of the devastation that will come to these descendants of Lot. We hear of signs of mourning, for so many will die. We hear of the destruction of fields and of blood filling the waters.

This was not the first time that God had expressed something of a concern for Moab in His word. Israel was not permitted to destroy Moab on their way to the promised land according to God’s command. They were not among the nations that were being dispossessed by Joshua and his generation in obedience to the plan of God for the conquest of Canaan. Yet God himself is the judge of all the nations. He knows the beginning of every land and its end. Here He speaks the words that are specifically given for Moab.

Whole cities like Ar and Kir will be destroyed in just one night. The country of Moab will wail in mourning. Even the armed men who have been trained to face danger with fortitude will find their courage melting away before them in the face of an enemy of overwhelming power. Refugees will flee as Lot once begged to flee to Zoar in the day of the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah. They will move along the roads of escape with wailing. The land will no longer sustain them because of the destructive power of an enemy. The water will not be suitable for drinking, and the vegetation will be consumed.

Could God actually have a heart of sympathy toward those who were not the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Specifically, will He feel anything for the people of Moab, a land that He calls in another place His washbasin? We count on the fact that his mercy goes beyond the borders of Israel. We need Him to look not only at the distress of the Moabites, but more generally upon the desperate condition of all the people groups of the world. We need to know that the Lamb of God shed His blood for those who never had a temple in Jerusalem and were never given the Old Testament sacrificial law that they were to follow. Christ is our assurance of this needed mercy. He is the ladder between earth and heaven, not only for the descendants of the Jews, but for all the elect throughout the world. The sum of all of our assurance is found in this, that by the grace of God, and through the gift of faith, we are in Jesus Christ.

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Isaiah 15

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