About the Ammonites
49
📚Concerning the Ammonites thus says the LORD: “Has Israel no sons? Has he no heir?
Why then does their king 📖 inherit Gad 📖,
and his people live in his cities?
2 📚Therefore, see, the days are coming,
says the LORD, when I will cause
an alarm of war to be heard in Rabbah
of the Ammonites;
and it will become a desolate heap,
and its daughters will be burned
with fire.
Then Israel will be the heir of those
who were his heirs, says the LORD.
49:2 Rabbah was the chief city of the Ammonites. Today the capital of the kingdom of Jordan is located in the same place.⚜
3 📚Wail, O Heshbon 📖, for Ai 📖 is ruined.
Cry out, you daughters
of Rabbah! Tie on sackcloth!
Lament, and run to and fro by the walls!
For their king 📖 will go into captivity,
together with his priests and
his officials.
4 📚Why do you glory in the valleys,
your flowing valley,
O backsliding daughter?
You who trusted
in your treasures 📖, saying,
‘Who will come to me?’
49:4 God here calls a people other than Israel “daughter”. He uses this same phrase concerning Judah in Jer 31:22.⚜
5 📚See, I will bring fear on you,
says the Lord God of hosts,
from all those who are around you;
and every one of you will be driven
out headlong, and no one will
gather the fugitives.
6 📚But afterwards I will bring back
the captives 📖 of the children of Ammon,
says the LORD”.
49:1-6 Other messages concerning the Ammonites are Ezek 25:1-7; Amos 1:13-15; Zeph 2:8-11. The land of Ammon was north of Moab, east of the Jordan River. The Ammonites were related to the Moabites, being descended, as they were, from Abraham’s nephew Lot (Gen 19:36-38).⚜
About Edom
7 📚Concerning Edom thus says
the LORD of hosts:
“Is wisdom 📖 no longer in Teman 📖?
Has counsel perished from the prudent?
Has their wisdom vanished?
8 📚Flee! Turn back! Live in the deep places,
O inhabitants of Dedan;
for I will bring on Esau the calamity
due to him,
the time when I will punish him.
9 📚If grape pickers came to you,
would they not leave some
gleaning grapes?
If thieves came at night,
they would destroy only until
they have enough.
10 📚But I have made Esau bare.
I have uncovered his secret places,
and he will not be able to hide himself.
His offspring and his brethren
and his neighbours are ruined,
and he is no more. 📖
11 📚Leave your fatherless children;
I will keep them alive.
And let your widows trust in me.
12 📚“For thus says the LORD:
See, those who were not sentenced
to drink from the cup have assuredly drunk;
and are you the one who is
to go altogether unpunished?
You will not go unpunished,
but you will surely drink it.
13 📚For I have sworn by myself,
says the LORD,
that Bozrah will become a desolation,
a reproach, a wasteland, and a curse,
and all its cities will be wastelands
forever”.
49:13 This Bozrah is not the Bozrah of Jer 48:24, which was in Moab.⚜
14 📚I have heard a message from the LORD,
and an ambassador has been sent
to the nations:
“Gather together and come against her,
and rise up for the battle.
15 📚For, see, I will make you small among
the nations, and despised
among men.
16 📚The terror you inspire and
the pride of your heart have deceived you,
O you who live in the clefts of the rock,
who hold the height of the hill.
Though you make your nest
as high as the eagle,
I will bring you down from there,
says the LORD.
49:14-16 See Oba 1-4. Like Moab Edom had much pride with little reason for it.⚜
17 📚And Edom will become a desolation.
Everyone who goes by it will be
astonished, and will hiss at all its plagues.
18 📚As in the overthrow of Sodom 📖
and Gomorrah and their neighbouring
cities, says the LORD,
no one will remain there, and
no son of man will live in it.
19 📚See, he will come up like a lion
from the flooding of the Jordan against
the dwelling place of the strong;
but I will make him suddenly run away
from her.
And who is the chosen man whom
I may appoint over her?
For who is like me?
And who will appoint me the time?
And who is that shepherd
who will stand before me?
49:19 God states that He Himself is the one behind the destruction of Edom. The proud rulers of that people would learn that there is no success in resisting the God of Israel, the King of the universe.⚜
20 📚Therefore hear the plan of the LORD
that he has devised against Edom,
and his purposes that he has formed
against the inhabitants of Teman.
Surely they will draw away the least
of the flock;
surely he will make their pastures
desolate by them.
21 📚The earth is shaken at the noise
of their fall, the noise of their cry is
heard at the Red Sea.
22 📚See, he will come up and fly like an eagle 📖,
and spread his wings over Bozrah;
and on that day the heart of the mighty men
of Edom will be like the heart
of a woman in labour”.
49:7-22 Other messages concerning Edom are Isa 21:11-12; Ezek 25:12-14; Amos 1:11-12; Oba 1-16; Mal 1:3-5. Edom was located south of Moab, south of the Dead Sea. Edom’s people were descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother (Gen 36:1, 9).⚜
About Damascus
23 📚Concerning Damascus:
“Hamath and Arpad are put to shame,
for they have heard bad news and
they are disheartened.
There is trouble on the sea;
it cannot be quiet.
49:23 Damascus was and is the capital city of Syria. Hamath and Arpad were cities north of Damascus. For other messages concerning Damascus see Isa 17:1-3 and Amos 1:3-5.⚜
24 Damascus has become feeble,
and has turned around to flee,
and fear has seized her.
Anguish and pain have seized her,
like a woman in labour.
25 📚Why has the praised city
not been deserted, the city of my joy!
49:25 Damascus even then was an old city (Gen 14:15), famous for beauty.⚜
26 📚Therefore in that day 📖 her young men
will fall in her streets,
and all the men of war will be cut off,
says the LORD of hosts.
27 📚And I will kindle a fire in the wall
of Damascus, and it will consume
the palaces of Ben-Hadad 📖”.
49:27 God Himself will see to the punishment of Damascus.⚜
About Kedar and Hazor
28 📚Concerning Kedar, and concerning the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked: “Thus says the LORD:
Arise, go up to Kedar, and despoil
the men of the east.
49:28 Kedar was the home of wandering tribes in the Arabian desert (Isa 21:13-15). A son of Ishmael named Kedar probably gave his name to this tribe and area (Gen 25:13). This Hazor is not the city of the same name north of the Sea of Galilee (Josh 11:1), but an area in the Arabian desert near Kedar.⚜
29 📚They will take away their tents
and their flocks;
they will take their tent curtains,
and all their goods, and their camels
for themselves;
and they will cry out to them,
‘Fear is on every side.’
30 📚Flee! Go far away!
Live in the deep places,
O inhabitants of Hazor, says the LORD,
for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
has made a plot against you,
and has conceived of a plan against you.
31 📚Arise, go up to the wealthy nation,
which lives without care, says the LORD,
which has neither gates nor bars,
which lives alone.
32 📚And their camels will become booty,
and their many cattle plunder;
and I will scatter to all the winds those
who are in the farthest corners,
and I will bring their calamity from
every side of it, says the LORD.
33 📚And Hazor will become a den
for jackals 📖, and a desolation forever.
About Elam
No man will remain there,
and no son of man will live in it”.
34 📚The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying,
49:34 Elam was the name of a region east of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is today the country of Iran.⚜
35 📚“Thus says the LORD of hosts:
See, I will break the bow
of Elam,
the chief of their might.
36 📚And I will bring the four winds
from the four quarters of
heaven on it,
and will scatter them toward
all those winds;
and there is no nation
where those thrown
out of Elam will not go.
49:36 This indicates trouble from every direction. “The four winds” signify forces of destruction sent by God in judgment.⚜
37 📚For I will cause Elam to be
dismayed before their enemies,
and before those
who seek their life,
and I will bring disaster on them,
my fierce anger, says the LORD;
and I will send the sword after them,
until I have consumed them;
38 📚And I will set my throne 📖 in Elam,
and will destroy from there the king
and the princes, says the LORD.
39 📚But it will come to pass
in the latter days,
that I will bring back the captives 📖
of Elam, says the LORD”.