English · KJV

Jeremiah 48:13

“Moab's Complacency and Ease”Jeremiah 48:11–13

King James Version
And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
And Moab H4124 shall be ashamed H954 of Chemosh H3645, as the house H1004 of Israel H3478 was ashamed H954 of Bethel H1008 their confidence H4009.

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
Then Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh, just as the house of Israel was ashamed when they trusted in Bethel.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el their confidence.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
And Moab shalbe ashamed of Chemosh as the house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el their confidence.

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
And ashamed hath been Moab because of Chemosh, As the house of Israel have been ashamed Because of Beth-El their confidence.

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
10 Hebrew words
  1. וּבֹשׁu·Voshand it will be ashamedH954Conj-w ¦ V-Qal-ConsecPerf-3msVerb Qal Consecutive Perfect 3rd Singular Masculineוּandבֹשׁit will be ashamed
  2. מוֹאָבmo·'AvMoabH4124N-properNoun Proper Location
  3. מִכְּמוֹשׁmi·ke·Mo·oshfrom ChemoshH3645Prep-m ¦ N-properNoun Proper TitleמִfromכְּמוֹשׁChemosh
  4. כַּאֲשֶׁרka·'a·Sherjust asH834Prep-k ¦ RelParticle Relativeכַּjustאֲשֶׁרas
  5. בֹּשׁוּbo·shuthey were ashamedH954V-Qal-Perf-3cpVerb Qal Perfect 3rd Plural common gender
  6. בֵּיתbeit[the] house ofH1004N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
  7. יִשְׂרָאֵלYis·ra·'ElIsraelH3478N-properNoun Proper Location
  8. מִבֵּיתmi·Beitfrom Beth-H1008Prep-m ¦ N-properNoun Proper LocationמִfromבֵּיתBeth-
  9. אֵל'el-elH1008N-properNoun Proper Location
  10. מִבְטֶחָםmiv·te·Chamtheir trustH4009N-msc ¦ 3mpNoun Singular Masculine Construct with suffixמִבְטֶחָtrustםtheir
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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Prophecy Against Moab
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This verse

When judgment comes, Moab will be ashamed of its god Chemosh, just as the northern kingdom of Israel was ashamed of the shrine at Bethel it had trusted.

“And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh,”

Moab’s god will be shown helpless, and the nation will be disappointed in him in front of everyone.

“as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel”

The northern kingdom had already learned this at the shrine where Jeroboam set up his calf, in the very place Jacob had met God.

“their confidence.”

Bethel was what Israel trusted for its security, and it failed them, as every confidence apart from the LORD does.

Passage studyJeremiah 48:11–13

Moab, Wine Left Settled on Its Lees

11Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed. 12Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will send unto him wanderers, that shall cause him to wander, and shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles. 13And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.

Summary

Jeremiah pictures Moab as wine that has been left to stand. From the beginning of its history Moab had lived at ease, settled on its lees like wine that stays on its sediment and is left in the same vessel. It had escaped exile, and so it kept its own taste and smell: the same pride, the same stubbornness and the same trust in its god Chemosh. The LORD answers that settled ease with a judgment shaped to fit it. He will send men who tip Moab over, empty its vessels and smash its jars. Then Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh, as the northern kingdom of Israel was once ashamed of Bethel, the shrine it had trusted. These three verses teach that God sees what long comfort can do to a heart, that his discipline is a mercy to those who receive it, and that every confidence placed anywhere but in him ends in shame.

Why Moab Is Pictured as Wine Left on Its Lees

Jeremiah 48 is the LORD’s long word of judgment against Moab, one of the oracles against the nations that fill Jeremiah 46–51. These chapters show that the LORD rules every nation and that his justice reaches far beyond Israel. Moab lay east of the Dead Sea, and its people descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew (Genesis 19:37). It was Israel’s neighbour and often its enemy, from the days when Balak king of Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel (Numbers 22) to the war that Israel and Judah fought against Moab in 2 Kings 3. Verse 11 gives the reason for the ruin the chapter goes on to describe, and it gives it in a picture from the wine vat.

Ease from his youth

“Moab hath been at ease from his youth.” The word for being at ease, shâʼan, means to be at ease, at rest and secure. It is a pleasant word in itself, and the same rest would be a blessing in humble hands. The context shows what Moab made of it, a security that turned into complacency. “From his youth” carries this back to the beginning of Moab’s life as a nation.

The verse adds that Moab had stayed out of captivity. The word gôwlâh means exile or captivity, and it can also mean the exiles themselves, the people who were carried away. Israel came to know that experience well, and Jeremiah himself foretold that Judah would serve the king of Babylon seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11). Moab, by contrast, had stayed settled in its own land and had escaped the humbling that came on Israel through invasion and exile.

Lees, and wine poured from vessel to vessel

Lees are the sediment that settles at the bottom of wine after it ferments: dead yeast, bits of grape skin and other solids. The Hebrew word, shemer, comes from a root meaning to preserve or keep. To make wine clear, the maker pours it carefully from one vessel into another and leaves the sediment behind, and this is the emptying “from vessel to vessel” that Moab had been spared. Some wine is left on its lees for a time on purpose, to develop its flavour, but wine left there too long and undisturbed turns cloudy, bitter or too strong.

Moab is that wine. It had sat undisturbed for generations, and what was in it had settled deep and become part of it: its national pride, its idolatry and its stubbornness. “Therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” Taste and scent are what a wine is known by. Moab’s taste stands for its character and disposition, and its scent for its reputation and the influence it had on others. Both were exactly what they had always been. Moab had used its long ease to grow fixed in its ways, proud and unrepentant, and that hardened character is what made it ripe for the judgment that follows.

What Moab’s Ease Teaches About God’s Refining

Scripture often speaks of God’s discipline of his people as refining. Malachi says that the Lord “shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver” (Malachi 3:3), and Zechariah says God will bring a remnant through the fire “and will refine them as silver is refined” (Zechariah 13:9). In Isaiah the LORD says, “I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross” (Isaiah 1:25). Israel’s invasions and exiles were God’s discipline for its disobedience and idolatry, painful and disruptive, and they were meant to draw his people back to him in repentance. Being emptied from vessel to vessel pictures that kind of hard, purifying change, and it is exactly what Moab had escaped.

This is why ease can be dangerous. Long prosperity, kept apart from humility and thankfulness, can harden a heart and set a person or a nation firmly against God’s work in it. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). The New Testament teaches the same about discipline: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11). Peter says that the trials of believers prove their faith as gold is tried with fire (1 Peter 1:6–7), and Paul says that tribulation works patience, patience experience, and experience hope (Romans 5:3–5).

In Christ God goes to the root of what settles in us. He makes his people new, so that they put off the old man and put on the new man, “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24). That change rests on Christ’s own work, for God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The taste and scent that stayed the same in Moab are changed by the Holy Spirit in those who belong to Christ, and the trials he allows are part of that change.

The LORD Sends Men to Tip Moab Out

“Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD.” “Therefore” ties the judgment directly to the settled pride of verse 11. “The days come” uses yôwm, the ordinary word for a day or a span of time, and announces a time God has appointed and will surely bring. “Saith the LORD” renders nᵉʼum Yᵉhôvâh, the utterance or declaration of the LORD, the words that mark a prophet’s message as God’s own.

“I will send unto him wanderers.” The verb is shâlach, to send or stretch out, and God himself is the one sending, so the men who come against Moab are instruments he has chosen. The KJV’s “wanderers, that shall cause him to wander” renders tsâʻâh, a word meaning to stoop or tip over, and in this verse it is the tipping of vessels to empty them. The same root is used twice, first for the men and then for what they do, so the sense is “I will send him tippers, and they shall tip him over.” This takes up the picture of verse 11 exactly. Moab was wine left standing on its lees, and now the LORD will send men to tip it out.

“And shall empty his vessels.” Rûwq means to pour out or to empty. Kᵉlîy is a broad word for any vessel, implement or article, so it takes in Moab’s wealth and goods along with its wine. “And break their bottles.” Nebel is a skin-bag for liquids, and from that a jar or vase, and the same word names a lyre, from the shape of its body. Here the containers that held Moab’s wine are smashed. The wine that sat so long in one vessel is poured out all at once, and the vessels it sat in are broken, so that Moab’s wealth, its plenty and the settled ease it took joy in are taken away together. What Moab escaped for generations comes on it now.

Who did the LORD send against Moab?

The invaders are usually understood to be the Babylonian armies under Nebuchadnezzar. Earlier in this same book the LORD calls the king of Babylon “my servant” and says he will bring him “against all these nations round about” (Jeremiah 25:9). In the late seventh and early sixth centuries before Christ, Babylon brought judgment on Judah, Ammon, Edom and Moab, and invasion, deportation and plunder were how a defeated nation was taken apart in that day.

God uses the armies of the world to carry out his purposes. “But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another” (Psalm 75:6–7), and the most High “ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will” (Daniel 4:17). The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (Romans 1:18), and it reaches even a nation that has rested secure for centuries.

Why Moab Will Be Ashamed of Chemosh

“And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh.” Chemosh, Kᵉmôwsh, was Moab’s national god. His name is traced to a root meaning to subdue, so that his worshippers thought of him as the powerful one, the subduer. Moab offered sacrifices to him, and in the war of 2 Kings 3, when the battle went against him, the king of Moab “took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall” (2 Kings 3:27). Even Solomon built a high place “for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab” (1 Kings 11:7). Each nation around Israel looked to its god to protect it in war and prosper it in peace.

The word for ashamed, bûwsh, means at root to grow pale, and so to be ashamed, disappointed or confounded. It is the shame of a trust that has failed. When the invaders come, Chemosh will be shown helpless to save the people who trusted him, and Moab’s shame will be public, a whole nation disappointed in its god before the eyes of its neighbours. The god whose name spoke of subduing will be unable to keep his own land.

Bethel, Israel’s false confidence

“As the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.” “The house of Israel” here is the northern kingdom. Bethel, Bêyth-ʼÊl, means “house of God”, from bayith, house, and ʼÊl, God. It was where Jacob met God in a dream and made his vow (Genesis 28:10–22). After the kingdom divided, Jeroboam set up a golden calf there, so that his people would stop going up to Jerusalem to worship (1 Kings 12:26–33). The house of God became the centre of the northern kingdom’s idolatry, and the place named for God became the place of Israel’s shame.

Israel made that shrine its mibṭâch, its confidence, refuge and security, and trusted it to hold the kingdom together. Hosea foretold how it would end. The people would fear for the calf and mourn over it, and “Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel” (Hosea 10:5–6). The kingdom fell and went into exile. Jeremiah sets the two side by side so that Moab can read its future in Israel’s past. God judges misplaced trust in the same way among all peoples, his own included.

Why the LORD puts idols to shame

Idolatry gives the glory of the one true and living God to the things he made, or to gods of human invention, and it breaks the covenant bond he desires with his people. His first commandments claim their worship for himself alone and forbid the making and serving of images (Exodus 20:3–5). He alone is worthy of that worship, and he knows that trust given elsewhere ends in emptiness and ruin. The psalm says of idols, “They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not,” and then, “They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them” (Psalm 115:4–8). Isaiah mocks the man who burns part of a tree to warm himself and bows down to the rest as his god (Isaiah 44:9–20). Paul says that men who knew God changed his glory into an image and worshipped the creature more than the Creator (Romans 1:21–25). Chemosh and Bethel stand for every security people build for themselves apart from God, and every one of them ends the way these two did.

Shame Taken Away in Christ

The shame that fell on Moab and Israel is the shame that rests on all who worship created things in place of the Creator, whether the thing trusted is strength, wisdom, wealth or religious works. The judgment on Moab is a sober picture of what awaits all who hold on to their pride and refuse God’s mercy, and it makes his grace in Christ all the brighter.

Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the one in whom “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and he ever lives to make intercession for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25). God has laid him in Sion as “a chief corner stone, elect, precious” (1 Peter 2:6), and the promise is sure: “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:11). Moab’s jars were emptied and broken, but Jesus offers living water (John 4:10) and life more abundantly (John 10:10), a gift kept safe in him from every invader. He gathers those who wandered in sin and brings them into a peace that lasts.

Where Our Confidence Rests

Moab’s story speaks to anyone whose life has gone smoothly for a long time. Ease is a gift from God, and the danger lies in what settles in us while it lasts: pride, self-sufficiency, sins left unconfessed, and a quiet contentment with ourselves as we are. When God pours us from vessel to vessel, through hardship, through the discomfort of conviction, through repentance and humbling, he is clearing that sediment away, and his discipline is a sign of his care.

The things people lean on can be emptied and broken as quickly as Moab’s jars: money, work, reputation, health, plans and comfort. Jeremiah gives the LORD’s own counsel: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me” (Jeremiah 9:23–24). The LORD who judged Moab is faithful to everyone who trusts him, and a confidence placed in him will hold.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Jeremiah 48:1–13. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.

1662–1714 · 13 verses
Passage under commentJeremiah 48:1–13
I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points(1.) (2.) Details

We may observe in these verses,

I.The author of Moab's destruction; it is the Lord of hosts, that has armies, all armies, at his command, and the God of Israel (Jeremiah 48:1), who will herein plead the cause of his Israel against a people that have always been vexatious to them, and will punish them now for the injuries done to Israel of old, though Israel was forbidden to meddle with them (Deuteronomy 2:9), therefore the destruction of Moab is called the work of the Lord (Jeremiah 48:10), for it is he that pleads for Israel; and his work will exactly agree with his word, Jeremiah 48:8.

II.The instruments of it:

Spoilers shall come (Jeremiah 48:8), shall come with a sword, a sword that shall pursue them, Jeremiah 48:2. "I will send unto him wanderers, such as come from afar, as if they were vagrants, or had missed their way, but they shall cause him to wander; they seem as wanderers themselves, but they shall make the Moabites to be really wanderers, some to flee and others to be carried into captivity." These destroyers stir up themselves to do execution; they have devised evil against Heshbon, one of the principal cities of Moab, and they aim at no less than the ruin of the kingdom: Come, and let us cut it off from being a nation (Jeremiah 48:2); nothing less will serve the turn of the invaders; they come, not to plunder it, but to ruin it. The prophet, in God's name, engages them to make thorough work of it (Jeremiah 48:10): Cursed be he that does the work of the Lord deceitfully, this bloody work, this destroying work; though it goes against the grain with men of compassion, yet it is the work of the Lord, and must not be done by the halves. The Chaldeans have it in charge, by a secret instinct (says Mr. Gataker), to destroy the Moabites, and therefore they must not spare, must not, out of foolish pity, keep back their sword from blood; they would thereby bring a sword, and a curse with it, upon themselves, as Saul did by sparing the Amalekites and Ahab by letting Benhadad go. Thy life shall go for his life. To this work is applied that general rule given to all that are employed in any service for God, Cursed by he that does the work of the Lord deceitfully or negligently, that pretends to do it, but does it not to purpose, makes a show of serving God's glory, but is really serving his own ends and carries on the work of the Lord no further than will suit his own purposes, or that is slothful in business for God and takes neither care nor pains to do it as it should be done, Malachi 1:14. Let not such deceive themselves, for God will not thus be mocked.

III.The woeful instances and effects of this destruction.

The cities shall be laid in ruins; they shall be spoiled (Jeremiah 48:1) and cut down (Jeremiah 48:2); they shall be desolate (Jeremiah 48:9), without any to dwell therein; there shall be no houses to dwell in, or no people to dwell in them, or no safety and ease to those that would dwell in them. Every city shall be spoiled and no city shall escape. The strongest city shall not be able to secure itself against the enemies' power, nor shall the finest city be able to recommend itself to the enemies' pity and favour. The country also shall be wasted, the valley shall perish, and the plain be destroyed, Jeremiah 48:8. The corn and the flocks, which used to cover the plains and make the valleys rejoice, shall all be destroyed, eaten up, trodden down, or carried off. The most sacred persons shall not escape: The priests and princes shall go together into captivity. Nay, Chemosh, the god they worship, who, they hope, will protect them, shall share with them in the ruin; his temples shall be laid in ashes and his image carried away with the rest of the spoil. Now the consequence of all this will be,

1.Great shame and confusion: Kirjathaim is confounded, and Misgah is so. They shall be ashamed of the mighty boasts they have sometimes made of their cities: There shall be no more vaunting in Moab concerning Heshbon (so it might be read, Jeremiah 48:2); they shall no more boast of the strength of that city when the evil which is designed against it is brought upon it. Nor shall they any more boast of their gods (Jeremiah 48:13); they shall be ashamed of Chemosh (ashamed of all the prayers they have made to and all the confidence they put in that dunghill deity), as Israel was ashamed of Beth-el, of the golden calf they had at Beth-el, which they confided in as their protector, but were deceived in, for it was not able to save them from the Assyrians; nor shall Chemosh be able to save the Moabites from the Chaldeans. Note, Those that will not be convinced and made ashamed of the folly of their idolatry by the word of God shall be convinced and made ashamed of it by the judgments of God, when they shall find by woeful experience the utter inability of the gods they have served to do them any service.

2.There will be great sorrow; there is a voice of crying heard (Jeremiah 48:3) and the cry is nothing but spoiling and great destruction. Alas! alas! Moab is destroyed, Jeremiah 48:4. The great ones having quitted the cities to shift for their own safety, even the little ones have caused a cry to be heard, the meaner sort of people, or the little children, the innocent harmless ones, whose cries at such a time are the most piteous. Go up to the hills, go down to the valleys, and you meet with continual weeping (weeping with weeping); all are in tears; you meet none with dry eyes. Even the enemies have heard the cry, from whom it would have been policy to conceal it, for they will be animated and encouraged by it; but it is so great that it cannot be hid,

3.There will be great hurry; they will cry to one another, "Away, away! flee; save your lives (Jeremiah 48:6); shift for your own safety with all imaginable speed, though you escape as bare and naked as the heath, or grig, or dry shrub, in the wilderness; think not of carrying away any thing you have, for it may cost you your life to attempt it, Matthew 24:16-18. Take shelter, though it be in a barren wilderness, that you may have your lives for a prey. The danger will come suddenly and swiftly; and therefore give wings unto Moab (Jeremiah 48:9); that would be the greatest kindness you could do them; that is what they will call for, O that we had wings like a dove! for unless they have wings, and can fly, there will be no escaping."

IV.The sins for which God will now reckon with Moab, and which justify God in these severe proceedings against them.

1.It is because they have been secure, and have trusted in their wealth and strength, in their works and in their treasures, Jeremiah 48:7. They had taken a great deal of pains to fortify their cities and make large works about them, and to fill their exchequer and private coffers, so that they thought themselves in as good a posture for war as any people could be and that none durst invade them, and therefore set danger at defiance. They trusted in the abundance of their riches and strengthened themselves in their wickedness, Psalm 52:7. Now, for this reason, that they may have a sensible conviction of the vanity and folly of their carnal confidences, God will send an enemy that will master their works and rifle their treasures. Note, We forfeit the comfort of that creature which we repose that confidence in which should be reposed in God only. The reed will break that is leaned upon.

2.It is because they have not made a right improvement of the days of the peace and prosperity, Jeremiah 48:11.

(1.)They had been long undisturbed: Moab has been at ease from his youth. It was an ancient kingdom before Israel was, and had enjoyed great tranquillity, though a small country and surrounded with potent neighbours. God's Israel were afflicted from their youth (Psalm 129:1, Psalm 129:2), but Moab at ease from his youth. He has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, has not known any troublesome weakening changes, but is as wine kept on the lees, and not racked or drawn off, by which it retains its strength and body. He has not been unsettled, nor any way made uneasy; he has not gone into captivity, as Israel have often done, and yet Moab is a wicked idolatrous nation, and one of the confederates against God's hidden ones, Psalm 83:3, Psalm 83:6. Note, There are many that persist in unrepented iniquity and yet enjoy uninterrupted prosperity.

(2.)They had been as long corrupt and unreformed: He has settled on his lees; he has been secure and sensual in his prosperity, has rested in it, and fetched all the strength and life of the soul from it, as the wine from the lees. His taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed; he is still the same, as bad as ever he was. Note, While bad people are as happy as they used to be in the world it is no marvel if they are bad as they used to be. They have no changes of their peace and prosperity, therefore fear not God, their hearts and lives are unchanged, Psalm 55:19.

Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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