The High Places of Pride Come Down Text: Jeremiah 48:1-5
Introduction: The Geography of Judgment
When we read the prophets, particularly the sections where God pronounces judgment on the nations surrounding Israel, it is easy for our eyes to glaze over. We read a long list of foreign-sounding cities, Nebo, Kiriathaim, Heshbon, Madmen, Horonaim, and we think it is little more than ancient history, a divine score-settling with peoples long gone. But to do this is to misread the Scriptures fundamentally. The Bible is not a history book in the way that a secular textbook is. It is the living Word of God, and it establishes patterns. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The principles of His government do not change. What He hates in the third millennium B.C., He hates in the twenty-first century A.D. What brought His judgment upon Moab is the same thing that will bring His judgment upon America, or Russia, or any other nation that puffs out its chest in pride against Him.
Moab was a cousin to Israel, descended from Lot, Abraham's nephew. They had a long and intertwined history, sometimes as allies, often as enemies. They were not ignorant pagans in some far-flung corner of the world. They were neighbors. They saw the glory of Yahweh in Israel's history. They knew the stories. But knowledge is not repentance. Proximity is not conversion. Moab's defining sin, as Isaiah and Jeremiah both tell us, was pride. "We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is very proud, of his loftiness, his pride, and his arrogance, and the haughtiness of his heart" (Jer. 48:29). Moab was the nation of the high places. They built their altars and their fortresses on the tops of mountains, thinking their elevation gave them security. But no place is high enough to escape the judgment of the Most High God.
This chapter is a detailed, relentless, and poetic description of the total unraveling of a proud nation. God is not an abstract force. He is personal, and His judgments are meticulous. He names the cities one by one, like a commanding general reading off a list of targets. He knows every street, every fortress, every weeping mother, every terrified child. This is not random chaos. This is the careful, deliberate, and just dismantling of a culture that has set itself against the throne of God. And as we walk through these opening verses, we must ask ourselves: where are our high places? What are the lofty strongholds of our own culture where we place our trust? Because whatever they are, they will be put to shame and shattered.
The Text
Concerning Moab. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Woe to Nebo, for it has been destroyed; Kiriathaim has been put to shame, it has been captured; The lofty stronghold has been put to shame and shattered. There is praise for Moab no longer; In Heshbon they have devised calamity against her: ‘Come and let us cut her off from being a nation!’ You too, Madmen, will be silenced; The sword will follow after you. The sound of an outcry from Horonaim, ‘Devastation and great destruction!’ Moab is broken; Her little ones have made their cry of distress heard. For by the ascent of Luhith They will ascend with continual weeping; For at the descent of Horonaim They have heard the distressed cry of destruction."
(Jeremiah 48:1-5 LSB)
The Lord of Armies Speaks (v. 1)
We begin with the divine declaration and the first wave of destruction.
"Concerning Moab. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Woe to Nebo, for it has been destroyed; Kiriathaim has been put to shame, it has been captured; The lofty stronghold has been put to shame and shattered.'" (Jeremiah 48:1)
The prophecy begins with a formal introduction. This is not Jeremiah's opinion. This is a word from "Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel." Yahweh of hosts means the Lord of Armies. He is the commander-in-chief of all celestial and terrestrial forces. The Babylonians, who would be the instrument of this destruction, are merely a tool in His hand, a rod He wields to discipline the nations. He is also the God of Israel. This is a covenantal statement. His judgment on Moab is not disconnected from His purposes for His own people. The world does not revolve around Washington D.C. or Beijing. History revolves around the Church of Jesus Christ. God judges the nations for their pride, yes, but also for how they relate to His covenant people.
He pronounces a "woe." A woe is not just a curse; it is a funeral dirge. It is a lament for a destruction so certain that it can be spoken of as already accomplished. God speaks of the future destruction of Nebo in the past tense: "it has been destroyed." This is the prophetic perfect. When God declares a thing, it is as good as done. His word does not return to Him void.
Notice the targets. Nebo was a major city, but it was also the name of a prominent Babylonian god. Kiriathaim was another key city. But the central target is "the lofty stronghold." The Hebrew word is misgav, which means a high place, a refuge, a place of security. This is the heart of Moab's sin. They trusted in their geography, in their military engineering, in their elevated fortresses. They thought they were safe. But God says their source of pride will become their source of shame. It is "put to shame and shattered." The very thing they boasted in will be the monument of their humiliation. This is how God always works. He brings down the proud by turning their own strength against them. He makes their idols into millstones around their necks.
The Conspiracy of Judgment (v. 2)
Next, the praise of Moab ceases, and a plan for its annihilation is revealed.
"There is praise for Moab no longer; In Heshbon they have devised calamity against her: ‘Come and let us cut her off from being a nation!’ You too, Madmen, will be silenced; The sword will follow after you." (Jeremiah 48:2 LSB)
A nation's reputation, its "praise," is a fragile thing. Moab was known for its wealth, its vineyards, its military might. But that praise has evaporated. It is gone. In its place, in Heshbon, a city that once belonged to Israel but was now a Moabite stronghold, a plot is hatched. The enemies of Moab, the Babylonians, are already conspiring. God shows Jeremiah the war council of the enemy. He hears them plotting: "Come and let us cut her off from being a nation!"
This is the ultimate goal of total war. It is not merely to defeat an army, but to erase a people from the map, to extinguish their name and their memory. This is what our secularist enemies want for the Christian faith. They want to cut us off from being a people. They want to erase our influence, our memory, our heritage. But they are plotting in Heshbon, and God in heaven hears them. He is sovereign over the conspiracies of evil men.
Then there is a play on words. "You too, Madmen, will be silenced." The city of Madmen sounds like the Hebrew word for "be silenced" or "be brought to ruin" (damam). God is a poet in His judgments. The name of the city becomes its destiny. The sword of God's judgment is personified; it will "follow after you." There is no escape. You cannot outrun the divine decree. If God has marked a nation for judgment, that judgment will pursue them relentlessly until it overtakes them.
The Sound of Destruction (v. 3-4)
The prophecy then shifts from the council of war to the battlefield itself. We hear the sounds of the calamity.
"The sound of an outcry from Horonaim, ‘Devastation and great destruction!’ Moab is broken; Her little ones have made their cry of distress heard." (Jeremiah 48:3-4 LSB)
Prophecy is often intensely sensory. Jeremiah doesn't just see the future; he hears it. He hears the outcry from Horonaim, a city in the south of Moab. The cry is one of "devastation and great destruction." The Hebrew is stark: shod u-sheber gadol. It is utter ruin, a great shattering. The nation is "broken." This is the same word used for a shattered pot. It is irreparable. It is a complete collapse of their society.
And who is at the center of this auditory chaos? "Her little ones have made their cry of distress heard." God hears the cries of children. This is not to say the judgment is unjust. The sins of a nation are visited upon the whole nation, and the children suffer the consequences of their fathers' rebellion. This is a hard truth, but it is a biblical one. Corporate solidarity is real. When a father drives his family off a cliff, everyone in the car goes down. Moab had sacrificed its children to the idol Chemosh for generations. Now, in the day of judgment, the cries of their children are the soundtrack of their national demise. This is a terrible and just irony. The God who commanded His people not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk does not take the suffering of children lightly. He is repaying Moab for their institutionalized cruelty.
The Geography of Grief (v. 5)
Finally, the scene focuses on the refugees, the survivors fleeing the destruction.
"For by the ascent of Luhith They will ascend with continual weeping; For at the descent of Horonaim They have heard the distressed cry of destruction." (Jeremiah 48:5 LSB)
Here we see the topography of sorrow. The people are fleeing. They are going up the "ascent of Luhith," a known pass in the mountains of Moab. And as they go up, they do so "with continual weeping." The Hebrew is emphatic: "weeping upon weeping." It is an unceasing, desperate grief. They are losing everything: their homes, their families, their nation, their hope.
And as they flee, the sounds of destruction from below pursue them. As they go down the "descent of Horonaim," the place where the battle was raging, the "distressed cry of destruction" echoes in their ears. There is no escape from the consequences of their sin. The high places they trusted in have become the very paths of their sorrowful exile. The ascent to their stronghold has become the ascent of weeping. The place of their pride is now the place of their panic.
Conclusion: Pride Before the Fall
So what does this ancient woe against a long-dead nation have to do with us? Everything. The central sin of Moab was pride. They trusted in their high places. They trusted in their wealth. They trusted in their own strength. And God brought it all to nothing. He put their glory to shame.
Our nation is riddled with the same sin. We have our own lofty strongholds. We trust in our economy, our military, our technology, our Supreme Court, our enlightened sense of our own goodness. We have built our cultural high places to celebrate sexual deviancy, the murder of the unborn, and the arrogance of autonomous man who thinks he can define reality for himself. We praise ourselves continually. But the word of the Lord stands forever: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).
The judgment on Moab is a template. First, God declares the woe. The warnings are sent through His prophets, through His Word. Then, the praise of the nation begins to fail. The internal rot becomes visible. Conspiracies and calamities are devised. The sword is unsheathed. Then the sound of destruction begins, and the cries of the most vulnerable are heard in the land. And finally, the weeping begins as the proud are sent into exile from all they held dear.
This is a terrifying trajectory, and it is the one we are on. But the message of the prophets is never just judgment. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, wept over the destruction of his own people before he pronounced judgment on Moab. The purpose of the warning is to call for repentance. God does not delight in the death of the wicked. He warns because He is merciful.
The only high place that is safe is Mount Zion. The only lofty stronghold that cannot be shattered is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is our misgav, our high tower and our refuge. The judgment that we deserve fell upon Him. He endured the ultimate devastation and destruction on the cross. He was cut off from His people so that we, a rebellious and proud people, could be brought near. The only way to escape the fate of Moab is to abandon our own high places, to come down from the arrogant mountains of our self-reliance, and to take refuge in the shadow of the cross. For every nation that exalts itself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself under the mighty hand of God will, in due time, be exalted.