31 Therefore will I wail for Moab; yes, I will cry out for all Moab: for the men of Kir Heres shall they mourn.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Some think the last word to be a proper name, though, according to etymology, it is "the city of potsherd." They therefore give this rendering, "the strong city." But Isaiah calls it "Kir-hareseth," qyr-hrst; he extends the word by adding a syllable to it; but the word, however, is the same. Then he says, I will think of the men of Kir-cheres The word hgh, ege, is properly to complain, to whisper, to murmur; and hence some render the words not improperly, "I will mutter to the men of the city of potsherd." [1] The Prophet does not relate here what he would do, as I have before reminded you; but that he might represent to the life the ruin of Moab, he mentions their howling, crying, and complaints. He then says, I will howl, cry aloud, and with a trembling voice complain, as those who are grievously oppressed with evils; at one time they complain, cry aloud, and howl, and at another they mutter inwardly, grumble and murmur. Thus the Prophet assumes the character of such persons, in order that he might more fully set forth the extreme calamity of that nation. He afterwards comes to particulars: --
1 - This paragraph has been transplanted from the text. The verbs here are imperatives in the Sept and Syr., "Howl ye," etc.; and in the future tense in the Targ., "they shall howl, etc. The Vulg., is according to the Hebrew. The last verb is in the third person, "He (Moab) will mourn for the men of Kir-heres." This city was on the extremity of Moab northward, as Jazer was on its extremity southward. -- Ed.
Mine heart - Rather, "there shall be mourning for" etc.
(r) Therefore will I wail for Moab, and I will cry out for all Moab; [my heart] shall mourn for the men of Kirheres.
(r) Read (Isaiah 16:7).
Therefore will I howl for Moab,.... The prophet, being as a man affected with the miseries of a people very wicked, and so deserving of them; though indeed by this he does not so much design to express the affections of his own heart, as to show what reason the Moabites would have to howl for the calamities of their country; for, as Kimchi observes, the prophet here speaks in the person of the people of Moab; see Isaiah 16:7;
and I will cry out for all Moab; the whole country of Moab, which should become desolate:
mine heart shall mourn for the men of Kirheres; the same with Kirhareseth, a city of Moab, Isaiah 16:7; whose foundations should be sapped, the city taken, and the men of it put to the sword, or caused to flee; and their case being deplorable, the prophet says his heart should mourn for them like a dove, as Kimchi and Jarchi observe; though it may be rendered, "he shall mourn" (g); that is, Moab; for the destruction of such a principal city, and the men of it. The Targum renders it,
"for the men of the city of their strength.''
(g) "gemet", Montanus.
I will cry . . . for . . . Moab--Not that it deserves pity, but the prophet's "crying" for it vividly represents the greatness of the calamity.
Kir-heres--Kir-hareseth, in Isaiah 16:7; see on Isaiah 16:7. It means "the city of potters," or else "the city of the sun" [GROTIUS]. Here "the men of Kir-heres" are substituted for "the foundations of Kir-hareseth," in Isaiah 16:7. The change answers probably to the different bearing of the disaster under Nebuchadnezzar, as compared with that former one under Shalmaneser.
Jeremiah 48:31-33 are also an imitation of Isaiah 16:7-10. V. 31 is a reproduction of Isaiah 16:7. In Jeremiah 48:7, Isaiah sets forth the lamentation of Moab over the devastation of his country and its precious fruits; and not until v. 9 does the prophet, in deep sympathy, mingle his tears with those of the Moabites. Jeremiah, on the other hand, with his natural softness, at once begins, in the first person, his lament over Moab. על־כּן, "therefore," is not immediately connected with Jeremiah 48:29., but with the leading idea presented in Jeremiah 48:26 and Jeremiah 48:28, that Moab will fall like one intoxicated, and that he must flee out of his cities. If we refer it to Jeremiah 48:30, there we must attach it to the thought implicitly contained in the emphatic statement, "I (Jahveh) know his wrath," viz., "and I will punish him for it." The I who makes lament is the prophet, as in Isaiah 16:9 and Isaiah 15:5. Schnurrer, Hitzig, and Graf, on the contrary, think that it is an indefinite third person who is introduced as representing the Moabites; but there is no analogous case to support this assumption, since the instances in which third persons are introduced are of a different kind. But when Graf further asserts, against referring the I to the prophet, that, according to what precedes, especially what we find in Jeremiah 48:26., such an outburst of sympathy for Moab would involve a contradiction, he makes out the prophet to be a Jew thirsting for revenge, which he was not. Raschi has already well remarked, on the other hand, under Isaiah 15:5, that "the prophets of Israel differ from heathen prophets like Balaam in this, that they lay to heart the distress which they announce to the nations;" cf. Isaiah 21:3. The prophet weeps for all Moab, because the judgment is coming not merely on the northern portion (Jeremiah 48:18-25), but on the whole of the country. In Jeremiah 48:31, Jeremiah has properly changed לאשׁישׁי (cakes of dried grapes) into אל־אנשׁי, the people of Kir-heres, because his sympathy was directed, not to dainties, but to the men in Moab; he has also omitted "surely they are smitten," as being too strong for his sympathy. יהגּה, to groan, taken from the cooing of doves, perhaps after Isaiah 38:15; Isaiah 59:11. The third person indicates a universal indefinite. Kir-heres, as in Isaiah 16:11, or Kir-haresheth in Isaiah 16:7; 2-Kings 3:25, was the chief stronghold of Moab, probably the same as Kir-Moab, the modern Kerek, as we may certainly infer from a comparison of Isaiah 16:7 with Isaiah 15:1 see on 2-Kings 3:25, and Dietrich, S. 324.
Kir - herez - A city of Moab.
*More commentary available at chapter level.