Isaiah 15

The burden of Moab: because in the night Ar was laid waste, Moab has fallen silent: because in the night the wall was laid waste, Moab has fallen silent. Let it suffice to have spoken once about burden and weight. I give only this brief reminder: that sad things always follow a burden, whereas a vision is followed either by glad things at once, or by glad things at the end after the sad. Moab is a province of the Arabs, in which was Balak son of Beor (Num 22), who hired the soothsayer Balaam from Mesopotamia to curse Israel; where also the people were initiated into Baal-peor (ibid., 25). Its metropolis is the city AR (ער), which today is called Areopolis, a name compounded from the Hebrew and the Greek tongue; not, as many suppose, because it is the city of ἄρεος, that is, of Mars. And Ar also means ἀντίδικος, that is, adversary. How great its power was, Jeremiah testifies (Jer 48:2, 7ff.), saying: There is no more exultation in Moab. And again: You have trusted in your fortifications and in your treasures. And again: Moab has been fruitful from his youth, and has rested on his lees, and has not been poured from vessel to vessel, and has not gone into exile; and therefore his taste has remained in him, and his scent has not been changed. And in another place (ibid., 17): How has the strong rod been broken, the glorious staff? And a little later: We have heard of the pride of Moab; he is exceedingly proud. His loftiness, and arrogance, and pride, and the haughtiness of his heart I know, says the Lord, and his boasting. Just as, therefore, the Prophet prophesied against Babylon and the Philistines because they had oppressed the people of the Jews, so now the devastation of the Moabites, that is, of Arabia, by the Assyrians and the Babylonians is foretold. For they were laid waste by both nations, at the time when Sennacherib led Israel captive, and when Nebuchadnezzar overthrew Jerusalem (2 Kgs 17 and 25). For at the coming of each enemy he had mocked Ephraim and Judah, as Jeremiah says: Moab will strike his hand in his vomit, and he too will become a derision. For Israel was a derision to you, as though you had found him among thieves (Jer 48:26-27). Because of your words, therefore, which you have spoken against him, you will be led captive. And when he says: In the night AR was laid waste, Moab has fallen silent, it is a fitting beginning for the invective, that he who was conceived at night from his father's incest should be laid waste in darkness. Unless perhaps we take night for the greatness of the terror; and it is to be believed that, because the city trusted in its walls, it was overcome by stratagems and mines. I have heard a certain man of Areopolis say, and indeed the whole city is witness to it, that in a great earthquake in my infancy, when the seas passed over the shores of the whole world, the walls of this city collapsed on that same night.

The burden of Moab. LXX: The word against the land of Moab. Symmachus and Theodotion: The taking up of Moab. Just as circumcision is both carnal and spiritual, and of the spiritual it is said by the Apostle: For we are the circumcision, who serve God in the spirit, and glory in the Lord, and put no confidence in the flesh (Phil 3:3); and again, to distinguish the spiritual Israel, it is said of the carnal: Behold Israel according to the flesh (1 Cor 10:18): and, You Gentiles in the flesh (Eph 2:11); so Moab is to be taken spiritually, which means from the father, or paternal water, conceived of incest and drunkenness, because he would seem to have been begotten in a manner in the absence, or rather without the knowledge, of the father. In many places of the Scriptures we read of Moab, and especially in the volume of Numbers, when Balak, king of the Moabites, invited Balaam the soothsayer to curse, who among other things prophesied also this mystical word against Moab: A star will rise out of Jacob, and a man will rise up out of Israel, and will strike the princes of Moab (Num 24:17).

Because by night Ar has been laid waste, Moab has fallen silent; because by night the wall has been laid waste, Moab has fallen silent. LXX: By night the land of Moab perished, for by night the wall of the land of Moab perished. For AR (ער), which Theodotion alone set down thus, as it is read in the Hebrew, Aquila and Symmachus translated city, not considering that between the Hebrew letters AIN and RES it does not have the letter JOD, which, if it were there, would rightly be read as city. Worldly wisdom, of which the Lord speaks through the Prophet: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject (Obad 8; 1 Cor 1:19), because it has as its author the mind, which is begotten by God's creating, seems indeed to be born of the father, which is what Moab means; but because it is adulterous and an adversary to the people of God, it is begotten of incest, of a cave and of night. Hence it perished by night, namely in everlasting error. The Egyptians too in the Red Sea were overwhelmed by the waves at the morning watch, which indicates the time of night (Exod 14). And Lot, while the Sodomites were perishing by night, came to Zoar, and the sun rose for him (Gen 19). Understanding this, the blessed Apostle writes of the saints and the perfect (1 Thess 5:6, 7): We are not of the night nor of darkness, but we are sons of the day. For those who sleep sleep by night, and those who are drunk are drunk by night. But let us who are of the day keep watch, clothed with the breastplate of faith and love. And because he had left the night and had already begun to be a son of the day, he says to believers: The night has gone before, and the day has drawn near; let us walk honestly as in the day, not in revelings and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness (Rom 13:12). And when the land of Moab perishes by night, its wall too, which was built by the art of dialectic, was laid waste and destroyed in the same night, and fell silent in eternal silence. Moreover Ar, which means ἀντίδικος, that is, adversary, shows this: that this wisdom, which is the adversary of God, has been overcome by the Church's preaching fighting against it.

432. The burden of Moab. In this part, he threatens against the Moabites—who were descended from Moab, the firstborn of Lot (Gen 19:37)—because they rejoiced in the destruction of the sons of Israel by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, by whom nevertheless they themselves were destroyed, although afterwards. And this is divided into two parts:

in the first, he threatens their destruction;

in the second, he sets out the condition of their destruction: send forth the lamb (ch. 16).

The first of these is divided into two:

in the first, he threatens destruction by the Assyrians;

in the second, by the Babylonians: they shall lead them to the torrent (Isa 15:7).

The first of these is divided into three:

in the first, he indicates, from their sorrow, the magnitude of the punishment;

in the second, the manner and order of the punishment: the bars thereof (Isa 15:5);

in the third, the reckoning of the magnitude of the punishment: according to the greatness of their work (Isa 15:7).

433. He shows the magnitude of their sorrow as to three things,

namely, through the silence of stupor;

through the tears of sorrow: the house is gone up (Isa 15:2);

through the compassion of enemies: my heart shall cry to Moab (Isa 15:5).

Stupor occurs from the privation of the things in which someone trusts. Now they trusted in the royal city from which they hoped to receive help, and in their fortifications: and therefore, he says: the burden of Moab, that is, this is the vision of the burden of Moab, that is, the province of the Moabites; it is silent, from its stupor, because Ar, the royal city, is laid waste in the night, literally, because of grave tribulation; and because the wall, of fortification, is laid waste in the night, Moab is silent: if thieves had gone in (Obad 1:5).

437. Note on the words, the wall is destroyed in the night (Isa 15:1), that night has darkness,

and first, the darkness of the original stain: let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: a man child is conceived (Job 3:3);

second, the darkness of actual sin: they that sleep, sleep in the night (1 Thess 5:7);

third, the darkness of the ignorance of the unbeliever: the night is passed, and the day is at hand (Rom 13:12).

438. Second, night has dread:

first, the dread of oppressing despair: a tempest shall oppress him in the night (Job 27:20);

second, the dread of present affliction: her lamp shall not be put out in the night (Prov 31:18);

third, the dread of eternal damnation: they themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night . . . were pleasing to the eternal providence (Wis 17:2).

439. Third, night has the quiet of contemplation,

in which is first the desire of fervent love, below: my soul has desired you in the night (Isa 26:9);

second, the sacrifice of confession of sin: I rose at midnight to confess to you (Ps 118[119]:62);

third, the silence of divine consolation: for while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, your Almighty word came leaping down from heaven from your royal throne (Wis 18:14–15).

The house has gone up, and Dibon, to the high places to lament over Nebo, and over Medeba Moab will howl. Do not let it be irksome to you that I walk along the road of the history; for you yourself wished me to do this. Now what is understood is the royal house; and the city of Dibon goes up to the idols set on the heights: over Nebo and over Medeba, noble cities, the whole province will howl. For in Nebo was consecrated the idol Chemosh, which by another name is called Baal-peor.

On all its heads baldness, every beard will be shaved. Among the ancients the shaving of the beard and the head was a sign of mourning. By these things, therefore, the greatness of the grief is shown, as Jeremiah cries out the same things against Moab: Every head baldness, and every beard will be shaved, and on all hands a binding, and on every back haircloth (Jer 48:37).

The house has gone up, and Dimon, to the high places, to lament. LXX: Be sorrowful within yourselves, for Dimon will perish, where the altar is: thither you will go up to weep. The whole house of hostile wisdom, and Dibon, which means their flowing, goes up to the high places in which it had grown proud: not to sacrifice victims, but to lament the things in which it had formerly sinned. And truly falsehood passes like a river, and flows by, and can never stand firm in a stable dwelling. But the word of God, which is compacted, is stable. Hence the manna too, which is seen like ice upon the face of the earth, does not flow away, but stands firm. Moreover, according to the Seventy, the Moabites are commanded to grieve and lament, not over others (for this belongs to the perfect) but over themselves, because their Dibon too, that is, their composed discourse, which flowed like a torrent, is to perish: in which they had, as it were, the altar of their consecration, and all worldly riches. Hence it is said in the psalm too: If riches abound, do not set your heart upon them. And the beginning of salvation is to understand and weep over one's own sins.

Over Nebo and over Medeba Moab will howl: on all its heads baldness, every beard will be shaved. In its crossroads they are girded with sackcloth: and upon its roofs and in its streets everyone howls: he will go down in weeping. And Heshbon and Elealeh will cry out: their voice has been heard as far as Jahaz: for this the armed men of Moab will howl, his soul will howl to itself. My heart will cry out to Moab: its bars as far as Zoar, a heifer of three years: for by the ascent of Luhith he will go up weeping, and on the way of Horonaim they will raise a cry of crushing: for the waters of Nimrim will be desolate: because the grass has withered, the shoot has failed, all greenness has perished. According to the greatness of the work is also their visitation: they will lead them to the brook of the willows: for the cry has gone round the border of Moab: its howling as far as Eglaim, and its cry as far as the well of Elim: because the waters of Dimon are filled with blood. For I will set upon Dimon additions, for those who have fled from Moab, a lion, and for the remnant of the land. Since the whole of this prophecy has almost a single sense, lest I tear it apart by setting it forth piecemeal, I have set it all down together, and I shall run through in brief discourse what seems to me, according to the anagogy, to be meant in each part. Nebo means sitting or prophecy; Medeba, from the forest; Heshbon, thoughts; Elealeh, ascent; Jahaz, deed or command; Zoar, small; Luhith, cheeks; Horonaim, hole of grief; Nimrim, leopards or transgressors; Eglaim, calves or mounds of sand; Elim, rams or strong ones; Dimon, sufficient grief. Since, then, every doctrine contrary to the truth, which is born without the inspiration of God from human sense in the darkness of error, has been laid waste by night, and its arguments, which are understood as walls, have been destroyed by the Church's preaching, so that they have fallen silent in eternal silence, insomuch that their whole faction has been turned to penance and tears, over Nebo, that is, the prophecy and the sitting, that is, their teachers, and over Medeba, where there are no fruitful trees but a barren forest in which wild beasts dwell, of which it is written in the twenty-eighth psalm: And he will uncover the thickets of the forest: there will be howling and lamentation, and all the ornaments of eloquence will be taken from their heads, so that they remain naked and unsightly. And if they seemed to have anything of manliness in the beard, shaved by the churchman, it is shown to be effeminate and weak.

434. The house is gone up. Here he shows the magnitude of their punishment from the magnitude of their weeping, and he sets out three things.

First, he foretells their weeping, both as to those who weep: the house, namely, the royal house, and Dibon, a certain noble city; and as to the place: is gone up to mourn, that is, to weep, to the high places, in which they offered sacrifices to idols, that they might seek help in their mourning; and as to the matter: Moab, the entire province, has howled over Nabo and over Medaba, certain cities which had been destroyed: make you mourning as for an only son (Joel 2).

435. Second, he describes the manner of their mourning, according to the custom of the ancients, who grew their beard and hair in time of joy and cut them in time of sadness, as it says in Job 1:20: having shaven his head, he fell down upon the ground. On all their heads shall be baldness, above: and instead of curled hair, baldness (Isa 3:24).

In its crossroads they are girded with sackcloth; on its roofs and in its streets all howling will go down into weeping. The tears will not be private; public laments will resound for a public grief; neither matrons nor virgins, nor the tender age of children, nor the broken steps of old men will be kept within doors: the extremity of captivity will know neither shame nor weakness.

In their crossroads too, that is, in the byways of errors, while each one according to his own will fashions what he wishes, he is girded with the sackcloth of penance; and upon the roofs and housetops, on which at first they believed themselves to be lofty, and in the streets (because they do not enter by the narrow way that leads to life, but by the broad way that leads to death), there will be howling. And they will by no means go up into pride, but will go down into weeping.

436. Third, he excludes any limit to their weeping, both as to diversity of place: for every, that is, in every manner, howling, shall be, on the tops of their houses, which had level places for sitting, and in their streets shall come down weeping, from the high places to which they had ascended weeping, so that there was weeping in the mountains and in the valleys.

Indeed, it is not inappropriate that the author of the abyss, the devil, should be identified with the abyss, as he is also called death, being the head of death: "Where, O death, is your sting?" And the voice of death or the abyss groans with pain, since he sees that the power to prey upon the people he possessed from the beginning is being taken away. But if, perchance, you have little faith in my own words, we can produce the testimony of Isaiah: "Shall the prey be taken from the strong, or will the captive be rescued from the mighty? But thus says the Lord: 'The captives will indeed be taken away from the strong, and what was stolen by the mighty will be rescued.' " For no one denies that the mighty cry in protest and suffer as a result of losing their spoils, except those who think that the devil is of lesser malice or that he is altogether uninvolved. But persons with such opinions are inept and deceived. Turn instead to the teachers of truth, whose knowledge I can only introduce to you, that it might be yours, reader, to explore within more attentively. Jeremiah uses Moab as a figure for the prince of the world in describing his devastation and groaning: "There is lamentation in all the dwellings of Moab and in its streets, for I have shattered Moab like a useless vessel, said the Lord." Isaiah also bears witness to the coming destruction: "Moreover, Moab's army wails; its soul groans for itself," and again: "Everyone wails upon its roofs and in its streets." In this way, they suffer that they were despoiled of the people. Daily they groan over their plundering. Consequently, they do not cease to attack us also, in the hopes that they can recapture something of what was taken from them.

Heshbon and Elealeh will cry out. These are names of cities of the province of Moab, of which Heshbon was once the city of the king of the Amorites, about which the same Jeremiah says: Fire has gone forth from Heshbon, and flame from the midst of Sihon. Now Heshbon means thought, and so Jeremiah, alluding to the name: Against Heshbon, he says, they have thought evil things (Jer 48:2).

Even to Jahaz their voice has been heard. The city of Jahaz overlooks the Dead Sea, where the border of the province of the Moabites lies. This, then, indicates that the howling of the province will resound to its farthest borders. Hence Jeremiah too says: From the cry of Heshbon, up to Elealeh and Jahaz they have uttered their voice (Jer 48:34).

Over this the lightly armed of Moab will howl, its soul will howl for itself. The Hebrew word ELUSE (חלוצי), for which Aquila translated ἐξώμους, that is, lightly armed and with shoulders bared, and Symmachus girded, some think is to be understood not of men but as the name of a city, which today is called Eluza and is situated in the region of Moabitis. But we can also say this: that the whole strength of the fighting men has collapsed, and the whole land has resounded with their weeping for one another. If, however, ELUSE is understood, as Aquila would have it, as with shoulders bared, this sense is suggested to us: that all have bared their breasts to beat them in mourning.

Then they will understand all their thoughts to be vain, which is the meaning of Heshbon, and the ascent of pride to be empty, which is what Elealeh sounds, so that their voice is heard as far as the evil works which they have done, and the command which they thought was God's, condemning themselves by their own confession. Therefore the bars, that is, those who have been firm in Moab and have understood their error, will howl, and will begin to have hope of progress, when their soul has howled to itself.

Hesebon shall cry, weeping, and Eleale, which were cities that were, indeed, in the land of the kingdom of Moab; their voice is heard even to Jasa, which is another city of Moab. And as to the diversity of those who weep: for this, evil, shall the well appointed men, namely, well appointed for fighting, not just old men, and together with others but also to itself, when it stands alone; his soul, for mourning proceeds from the innermost of the heart: upon all the housetops of Moab, and in the streets thereof general mourning (Jer 48:3).

My heart will cry out to Moab. The Prophet speaks with the feeling of one who grieves, either because the enemies too, upon whom so many evils come, are God's creatures, or because they were to be crushed by such great calamities that they become pitiable even to their enemies. Jeremiah says the very same: Therefore my heart will sound for Moab like a flute.

Its bars, as far as Segor, a heifer of three years. And Jeremiah: From Segor, he says, as far as Horonaim, a heifer of three years. Of this city we have spoken in the books of Hebrew Questions as well, and now we note briefly that it is the fifth city after Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which, being small, was preserved at the prayers of Lot. And it is called Bala, that is, swallowed up, the Hebrews relating that it was overthrown by a third earthquake. It is the city which today in the Syrian tongue is called Zoora, in the Hebrew Segor: in both, the little one. We can take the heifer of three years as signifying full age. For as the thirtieth year is the strongest in men, so the third is in cattle and beasts of burden. Understand the bars, too, as borders and strength, because Segor is situated at the borders of the Moabites, dividing the land of the Philistines from them.

For by the ascent of Luhith he will go up weeping. And Jeremiah: By the ascent of Luhith, weeping, he will go up in tears. We understand it to be the slope of the road that leads to the Assyrians, and by this captivity is signified.

And on the road to Horonaim they will raise a cry of crushing. Again Jeremiah: The voice of a cry from Horonaim, devastation and great crushing. It would take long if I wished to speak about each one, since it is plain that these are the names either of cities in Moab or of places which those who are carried away into exile are leaving.

Hence the Prophet, with the feeling of one who suffers with them, speaks to those whose soul was howling to itself, and says: My heart will cry out to Moab, that I may call them to penance. And their bars and all the supports which they seemed to have in their heresies will come as far as Zoar, that is, as far as the little one: and they will be shown to be not strong but fragile. And this Zoar, that is, small penance, if it perseveres, will lead them to perfect salvation: which is what the heifer of three years signifies, according to what we read in Genesis, where Abraham is commanded to offer a heifer, a ram and a goat of three years, namely a perfect sacrifice, so that he might deserve to be the heir of the Lord (Gen 15). And when they have done penance, they will climb to higher things by Luhith, that is, by the tears of the cheeks. And by this, as it were, hole and entrance of grief, they will raise the cry of contrition to the Lord, so that they can say: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit: a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise (Ps 50 [51]:19).

440. My heart. Here he shows the magnitude of their punishment from the compassion of their enemies, for the prophet himself suffers with them; to Moab, that is, for the affliction of Moab: I will watch over you (Jer 48:31).

The bars. Here he describes the manner and order of their punishment, and he sets out three things.

First, the destruction of their land, the bars, that is, the strength or the borders, thereof, of Moab, are deserted, unto Segar, one of the five cities that was destroyed, Genesis 10, which was in the land of Moab, a heifer, because of lust, of three years old, when animals are in their vigor and ardor; or of three years old, because it fell by the third tremor of the earthquake, after Lot had left: Egypt is like a fair and beautiful heifer (Jer 46:20).

Second, the captivity of their men: for by the ascent of Luith, a certain slope, or a certain village, from which they were led captive, they shall go up, to Moab, led captive. And in the way of Oronaim, a certain city of Moab, through which they crossed, they shall lift up a cry of contrition: the soldier is led away captive (Nah 2:7).

For the waters of Nimrim will be deserted. This town lies above the Dead Sea, with salt waters, and barren for that very reason. And either he has alluded to the name, or what had not been so before came about after the devastation: that even the waters were turned to bitterness.

For the grass has withered, the shoot has failed, all greenness has perished. It is not, as some think, that all the grass truly dried up because of the barren waters of Nimrim; rather, Scripture is speaking by metaphor. And the sense is: in all Moab there will be the salt and bitter waters of Nimrim; as no grass springs up there, so drought will overtake the whole province, that is, from Segor to Horonaim, from border to border. Jeremiah says the very same: The waters of Nimrim will be very bad (Jer 48:34).

And this will come about because the waters of Nimrim, that is, the doctrine of the heretics, which is compared to leopards and transgressors, will be desolate and will be brought to nothing. They are leopards whose varieties and spots, in Jeremiah, are not changed (Jer 13), and apostates, of whom we read in the Psalms: I have counted all the sinners of the earth transgressors (Ps 118 [119]:119). Every grass too, and shoot, and whatever seemed green in their discourse, has withered.

Third, the barrenness of their fields, for the waters, that is, the land of Moab will be so barren it will be like the territory around the town of Nemrim, which is by the sea, because its waters are salty and bitter; not indeed because of the waters, but by the judgment of God, the grass, already arisen, is withered away; the spring, as to what was sprouting; the greenness, of trees already arisen: he has turned rivers into a desert (Ps 106[107]:33).

According to the greatness of the work, so also their visitation: they will lead them to the torrent of the willows. For willows we read in the Hebrew ARABIM (ערבים), which can also be understood as Arabs, and can be read ORBIM (עורבים), that is, a village situated on their borders, whose inhabitants are said by many to have provided food for Elijah on Mount Horeb: a name which, because of its ambiguity, is also translated as ravens, and as the West, and as level places. And the sense is: the visitation will be according to the greatness of the disease. Take visitation here not as a remedy but as a blow. I will visit, he says, their iniquities with the rod, and their sins with stripes (Ps 88 [89]:33). The torrent of the willows understand as the rivers of Babylonia, of which David says: On the willows in the midst of it we hung up our instruments (Ps 136 [137]:2); or else as the valley of Arabia through which one passes to the Assyrians.

And they have been visited by God according to the greatness of their sins, so that him whom they had not perceived through benefits they might come to know through scourges. Accordingly they will be led to the valley or brook of the willows, so that no fruit may remain in them. For they say this is the nature of the seed of these trees: that whoever drinks it in a cup is without children. Hence the saints too, who because of their sins have come to be in the confusion of this world, hang their instruments on the willows of the rivers of the Babylonians (Ps 136 [137]).

442. According to the greatness. Here the reckoning of the magnitude of their punishment is set out: their work, of sin; their visitation, vengeance: according to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be (Deut 25:2).

443. They shall lead them to the torrent. Here he threatens destruction by the Babylonians, where some were held captive, and as to this he says: the Chaldeans shall lead them, Moab, to the torrent, the Euphrates, beside Babylon, of the willows, which thrive by the river: upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept (Ps 136[137]:1).

For the cry will go round the border of Moab, its howling as far as Eglaim, and its cry as far as the well of Elim. Jeremiah too writes almost all the same things. And these are cities and places of the Moabites, in which the crying and wailing of the captive people is described.

A cry goes round all the borders of the Moabites, either of those who call them to repentance, or of those who lament for their error: so that through their howling they may be able to offer the calves of the lips, and come as far as the fountain of the Lord's rams, or of the strong: because Elim signifies both.

Some of them were killed, and as to this he says: for the cry is gone round about, of those who weep, or of the Chaldean warriors.

For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood. Where formerly there was luxuriance because of the watered fields and the ever-flowing springs, there, because of the multitude of the slain, streams of blood will flow.

For I will set additions upon Dibon: for those who flee from Moab, a lion, and for the remnant of the land. Lest anyone think it a fault of the scribe and, in wishing to correct an error, make one, the one city is written both with the letter M and with the letter B: of these, Dimon is interpreted as silence, Dibon as flowing. Both names having been given it because of the waters that flow silently, to this day this little town is called indifferently both Dimon and Dibon. And as for his saying: I will set additions upon Dibon, since it seemed to raise the question what these might be, he showed it in the following line, saying: For those who flee from Moab, a lion, and for the remnant of the land: so that even those who have slipped away in flight are consumed by beasts. Although by metaphor we can also understand the lion as the king of the enemies, so that no one can escape his power, as though it were a roaring.

And the waters of Dimon, which means sufficient sorrow, or grief, which had polluted many by their sprinkling, will be shown to have been to the deceived peoples not for salvation but for blood. Hence the prophetic word promises that upon the flowing tears, which is the meaning of Dibon, they will redouble not one grief but many additions of grief: so that, after they have done full penance and have fled from Moab, they may have as their prince the lion, God, whom the Seventy called ariel, which means lion of God: whose edition I have forborne to discuss in this place, because it disagrees in very many points with the Hebrew truth, and from what we have translated its sense too can be understood.

For the waters of Dibon, the name of a city, in which they practiced their lusts because of the pleasantness of the place: the Moabites ran into the waters of Dibon (2 Kngs 3). Some remained, afflicted by various persecutions: for I will bring more, punishments, upon Dibon, to which the Jews had fled, upon them that shall flee of Moab, from the Assyrians; and upon the remnant of the land, whom the Assyrians sent away; the lion: literally, beasts that were killing them, or a raging enemy, namely the Chaldeans, above: for all this his indignation is not turned away (Isa 9:12).