Read & explore together
Moab’s Destruction
Isaiah 16 is a prophecy about Moab. It speaks of fugitives, refuge, pride, ruined harvests, failed prayer, and a fixed time when Moab’s glory will fall.
Understanding the passage
The setting of this message
Within this passage, Yahweh’s word concerns Moab. The verses move from appeals to protect outcasts and do justice, to a contrast with a throne marked by loving kindness and righteousness, then to grief over Moab’s pride, losses, and coming humiliation.
Isaiah 16:1–14Main takeaway
This passage shows that Moab’s pride will not stand, while true rule is marked by truth, justice, and righteousness.
Explore the message
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Outcasts needing shelterThe opening lines picture weakness and displacement. Moab’s daughters are like wandering birds and a scattered nest.
Explanation
The opening lines picture weakness and displacement. Moab’s daughters are like wandering birds and a scattered nest. The commands that follow call for counsel, justice, shade, and protection. The passage plainly urges people not to betray fugitives but to hide and shelter them.
02A place of refuge and right ruleThe appeal continues by asking for a hiding place from the destroyer. Then the text says oppression and destruction will end.
Explanation
The appeal continues by asking for a hiding place from the destroyer. Then the text says oppression and destruction will end. After that comes a different picture: a throne in David’s tent, established in loving kindness, with truth, justice, and swift righteousness.
03Pride leads to mourningMoab is described as very proud, marked by arrogance, wrath, and empty boasting. The result is wailing and mourning.
Explanation
Moab is described as very proud, marked by arrogance, wrath, and empty boasting. The result is wailing and mourning. The prophecy names Kir Hareseth and says Moab will lament deeply. The point is not Moab’s strength, but the emptiness of its proud claims.
04Fruitfulness lost and the end announcedThe fields and vines of places such as Heshbon and Sibmah are struck, and vineyard joy stops.
Explanation
The fields and vines of places such as Heshbon and Sibmah are struck, and vineyard joy stops. The speaker also expresses grief for Moab. Yet prayer at Moab’s sanctuary will not prevail. Yahweh then states a counted limit of three years before Moab’s glory becomes contemptible.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What images show Moab’s vulnerability at the start of the passage?
Look for the comparison to wandering birds and a scattered nest, then the commands about fugitives and outcasts.
02What qualities define the throne in David’s tent?
Use the exact terms in the verse: loving kindness, truth, judging, seeking justice, and swift righteousness.
03How does the passage connect Moab’s pride with its coming downfall?
Compare the statement that Moab’s boastings are nothing with the final word that its glory will be brought into contempt.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Isaiah 16:1–14
1Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
2For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.
3Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive!
4Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortionist is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land.
5A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.
6We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing.
7Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken.
8For the fields of Heshbon languish with the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have broken down its choice branches, which reached even to Jazer, which wandered into the wilderness. Its shoots were spread abroad. They passed over the sea.
9Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen.
10Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop.
11Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.
12It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail.
13This is the word that Yahweh spoke concerning Moab in time past.
14But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble.”