and therefore we fuppofe, that their drefs correfponded with their temper and character, and, by its fineness and elegance, would fhew their pride and vanity. Their profperous condition being reverfed, and exchanged for a calamitous ftate, they were not, as formerly, to retire into their chambers to put on their gay attire; but, in the open streets, and on the tops of fiat-roofed houfes, they fhould gird themselves with fackcloth, made of the coarfeft materials. The practice of wearing fackcloth was anciently used as a fymbol of forrow and diftrefs. The patriarch Jacob put it on, when he fuppofed that his beloved fon Jofeph was dead. When famine prevailed in Samaria, the king of Ifrael put fackcloth on his skin, below his royal robes; and when the people of Nineveh proclaimed a faft, they put on fackcloth, from the greatest even to the least of them. In like manner also did the Moabites clothe themselves with this rough, coarse fort of stuff, at the time in which this prediction received its accomplishment. In this habit, they howled and wept abundantly, loudly bemoaning their mifery, and deploring, with tears in great plenty, the afflictive circumftances to which they were reduced.

4 And Hefhbon fhall cry, and Elcalch: their voice fhall be heard even unto Jahaz: therefore the armed foldiers of Moab fhall cry out his life thall be grievous unto him.

The prophet proceeds farther to exhibit the moving fcenes of diftrefs which he had very affectingly represented in the foregoing verfes. Hefhbon was a famous city, that ftood over against Jericho, about twenty miles diftant from Jordan. Sihon, king of the Amorites, took it from the Moabites; who afterward re-united it to their poffeffions*. Elealeh was another city of Moab, fituated not far from Hefhbon;

and is faid to have been built with it, by the children of Reuben. The inhabitants of thefe cities were to cry and lament over the defolation of their country with a very bitter and loud lamentation.--Their voice fhall be heard even unto Jahaz; a frontier-town, in the border of their land. This circumftance fhews the great extent of the calamities which the Moabites were to fuffer at this period, and the grievous mourning which was to be made on account of their complicated diftreffes. Therefore the armed foldiers of Moab fhall cry aut, not with fhouts of triumph and joy, but with fhriekings arifing from anguifh and confternation, from fear and terror. Not only were the weak, unarmed inhabitants of Moab to be diftreffed with timidity and vexation, but even the strong, the ftout-hearted, and thofe prepared for battle, were to be greatly afflicted and dejected.—His life fhall be grievous unto him. This was to be the lamentable condition of almoft every one of the Moabites, who would therefore be ready to prefer death to life itself.

5 My heart fhall cry out for Moab, his fugitives fall flee unto Zoar, an heifer of three years old: for by the mounting up of Luhith with weeping fhall they go it up: for in the way of Horonaim, they shall raise up a cry of deftruc

tion.

Deeply affected by a view of the approaching miferies which were to befal the Moabites, Ifaiah here expreffes the tender compaffion which he felt for them. My heart shall cry out for Moab, in forrowful ftrains, on account of the complicated calamities which, ere long, fhall feize upon them. The words plainly intimate, the reality and intenseness of the grief and affliction which his generous heart felt, on contemplating, by the spirit of prophecy, the awful judgments

*Numb. xxxii. 37.

with which the avowed enemies of his country were to be vifited. In this profpect, he was inwardly and greatly afflicted.His fugitives fhall flee to Zoar; the name of the city to which Lot, the renowned progenitor of this people, fled, when he escaped for his life out of Sodom: and, in the feafon of public danger to his pofterity, that city, or one of the fame name, was to become a place of refort, for fafety, to the fugitives of Moab.An heifer of three years old has, at first fight, a strange appearance in this place. The words may be intended to exprefs the ftrength and vehemence with which the Moabites would howl and cry, in their flight, when they were to make a loud, doleful noife, like the lowing of a heifer. 1 rather fuppofe, with fome learned men, that the words, thus tranflated, may fignify the name of another place befide Zoar, to which the fugitives ran for fhelter. For by the mounting up of Lubith with weeping fhall they go it up. Whether Luhith was a rock, a city, or fortrefs, it seems to have been fituated on a confiderable eminence, and the afcent to it was probably very fteep. In climbing their way up, for fafety, the Moabites were to weep, and bewail the loffes which they had sustained, the riches they had left behind them, the friends of which they had been bereaved, and the great dangers to which they were ftill expofed. Placing their happiness in the poffeffion of worldly good things, having nothing defirable to expect beyond this prefent life to fupport their minds, and unable to govern their paffions, they gave way to immoderate grief; they were diffolved in tears, they wept, they cried, they howled.For in the way of Horonaim, they fhall raife up a cry of deftruction. There were probably two Horons; the one of which was called the Upper, and the other the Lower, for the fake of diftinction. The name fignifies caverns; and was given to the place because it abounded with caves

VOL. II.

See Gen. xix. 20, 21, 22.
N

and

and dens, wherein people might conveniently hide themselves in times of danger. In the way leading to Horonaim, the cry of deftruction was raised. The mournful tidings of devaftation made by an enemy, were loudly publifhed on this road; and the news of the distress, which was thereby excited, were spread far and near. Thefe cries were, no doubt, accompanied with earnest entreaties for affiftance, poured forth to thofe from whom any relief might be expected.

6 For the waters of Nimrim fhall be defolate for the hay is withered away, the grafs faileth, there is no green thing.

These words fuggeft fome more reafons for the weeping and crying, mentioned in the preceding verfe. Nimrim was either a town fituated near to fome fine fprings of water, which were feldom or never known to fail, or the valley in which thefe waters took their rife. To increase the calamities of Moab, the waters, which were known by this name, were to become defolate; the fountains being either ftopt or marred by the enemy, in their progress through the country, or dried up by a great drought, which, at the time referred to, was to come upon the land.. -The low grounds about Nimrim, that were commonly covered with grafs, which was made into hay, were to affume a very difmal appearance; the grafs, and the herbage, with every green thing, were to wither, infomuch that provifion for cattle was to become exceeding scarce, and very difficult to be ob tained.

7 Therefore the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have laid up, fhall they carry away to the brook of the willows.

Another ground of lamentation to the Moabites is described in these words, which admit of two interpretations

pretations that are fomewhat different. First, They may fignify, that the abundance which that people had acquired, and the treasures which they had amaffed, in the time of their profperity, were to be carried away, and fecretly depofited by them near a river, whose banks were covered with willows, in order to preserve them from being feized by their enemies. In this view, the words fuggeft what would doubtless be one cause of forrow and vexation. Secondly, They may denote, that their enemies, when ravaging the country, would seize upon their riches and treasures, and convey them away to the water known at that time by the name of the Brook of the willows, which ran between Moab and Babylon, that they might afterward, when they fhould have more leisure and convenience, carry them to that great city, which was fituated on the river Euphrates, where willows grew in vaft numbers. The Moabites being thus deprived of their best effects by the Affyrians, would prove to them another fource of grief and lamentation.

8 For the cry is gone round about the borders of Moab: the howling thereof unto Eglaim, and the howling thereof unto Beer-elim.

Our prophet, having contemplated the feveral movements of the Moabites, when feized with confternation, and overwhelmed with forrow, now fupplies any defect with which his representation might be attended, by pointing out the univerfality of that forrow and lamentation which he had in his view. The cry of deftruction, and the howling, on account of defolation, fhould not only be heard in the interior parts of the country of Moab, but was to extend through all their borders, even to those places which were fituated in the most remote corners of the land, fuch as Eglaim and Beer-elim.