Isaiah 16:13,14

d. INEXORABLE

TEXT: Isaiah 16:13-14

13

This is the word that Jehovah spake concerning Moab in time past.

14

But now Jehovah hath spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant shall be very small and of no account.

QUERIES

a.

What word had Jehovah spoken in time past?

b.

What are the years of a hireling?

PARAPHRASE

Jehovah has spoken many times and long in the past the doom of Moab. And now it is about to be fulfilled. Precisely within three years (as precisely as the hired laborer keeps track of his contract) the glory of Moab will be turned into contempt. The once proud Moabites will be a spectacle of defeat and shame. Only a very small and insignificant remnant will be spared.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 16:13-14 ABASEMENT: Isaiah declares that the abasement of Moab spoken so agonizingly in Isaiah 16:6-12 had been predicted by Jehovah many times in the past. Moab's demise is predicted as far back as the Pentateuch. Now the time limit is precisely ascribed. Three years hence! We do not know exactly when Isaiah made this prophecy. The defeat he refers to was administered at the hands of Shalmaneser IV (727 B.C.) or his successor, Sargon II (722 B.C.), potentates of Assyria. Moab, after the Assyrian conquests, became a wasteland, inhabited by nomadic tribes of desert-people. It remains so to this day. A very small remnant of Moabite people mixed with other nomadic peoples of that area and became the progenitors of those nomadic tribes inhabiting that deserted area today. God keeps His word!

QUIZ

1.

How far back in the past had Jehovah declared Moab's doom?

2.

Approximately when did Isaiah write this precise prediction?

3.

What happened, eventually, to the Moabites?