Jeremiah 48:29,30

E. Abhorrent Exaltation Jeremiah 48:29-30

TRANSLATION

(29) We have heard of the pride of Moab, so very proud; his loftiness and his pride, his arrogancy and the haughtiness of his heart. (30) I know (oracle of the LORD) his insolence. His boasts are empty, he is not able to perform them.

COMMENTS

Without question the major theme running through the oracles against the nations is that of national arrogance. Indeed nearly every conceivable facet of this theme is treated in one or more of these oracles. National arrogance is an affront to the Lord and He must deal with it. The proud will be humbled. With poignant pictures Jeremiah depicts again and again the shame, degradation and disgrace into which the nations shall fall.

The arrogance of the Moabites must have been well known in antiquity. Isaiah many years earlier had emphasized this characteristic of the Moabites and now Jeremiah borrows his terminology to make the same point here, The point is forcibly made by piling up synonyms for pride and haughtiness (Jeremiah 48:29). In verse thirty the Lord corroborates the assertion of the prophet in the previous verse: I know his wrath (oracle of the LORD). The term wrath here probably refers to the arrogant, angry outbursts to which proud men are so prone. The last part of verse thirty is extremely difficult to translate and there is no agreement among the standard English translations as to how it should be rendered, The King James Version is extremely vague. The American Standard Version renders: his boastings have wrought nothing. The Revised Standard Version offers this interpretative translation: his boasts are false, his deeds are false. The basic idea is that in his words and in his works Moab is essentially untrue.