Isaiah 15:2

He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep

The helplessness of heathen gods

We have a picture of men going to old altars, and finding there nothing but silence.

Bajith may be regarded as the temple of the Moabite god.

1. So they were reduced to a state of helplessness; their very gods had forsaken them, and had thus revealed their own character as deities. It is under such circumstances--namely, of desertion and sorrow--that men find out what their religion is really worth. The Lord taunts all the heathen nations because their gods forsook them in the hour of calamity. One prophet exclaims, “Thy calf hath cast thee off, O Samaria.” The Lord Himself is represented as going up and down throughout the temples of heathenism, mocking and taunting the gods with which they were filled, because they were merely ornamental or decorative gods, and were utterly without power to assuage the sorrow of the human heart.

2. Whilst, however, all this is true of heathenism, there is a sense in which even Christian men may go back to old altars and find them forsaken. The Lord, the living One, the Father of the universe, is not pledged to abide at the altar forever to await the return of the prodigal. In the very first book of the Bible we read, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” There is a day of grace, so measurement can be determined with sufficient nearness to excite alarm, lest its golden hours should be lost. When the door is once shut it will not be opened again. Men may so live that when they go to the sanctuary itself, where the sweetest Gospel is preached in all its purity and nobleness, they find no comfort in the place that is devoted to consolation. The fault is to be found in themselves; they have sinned away their opportunities, they have enclosed themselves within walls of adamant, they have betaken themselves to the worship of their own vanity and the pursuit of their own selfish purposes, so that when they return to the house of God they find that the Lord has abandoned His temple. “They shall call upon Me, and I will not answer.” This is more than silence; it is silence aggravated, silence intensified, silence increased into burdensomeness. (J. Parlour, D. D.)

Signs of mourning

The sorrow of those who mourn is represented by a very, graphic figure:--“On all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.” The primary reference is probably to some sacrificial ceremony. At a very early period baldness was regarded as a symbol of intensest sorrow amongst Eastern nations. Baldness was forbidden to Israel, for the probable reason that it was identified with the sacrificial worship of heathen deities. The picture of lamentation is continued in the third verse. In Eastern countries, when men were afflicted with great sorrow, they betook themselves to the fiat roofs of their houses, and there publicly and loudly wailed on account of their agony. (J. Parlour, D. D.)