Commentary - Jeremiah 48:18-20

Bird's-eye view

Jeremiah 48 is a sustained oracle against Moab, a nation that was a perennial thorn in Israel's side and, more importantly, a people swollen with a peculiar and stubborn pride. This chapter is a detailed unpacking of what happens when a nation's arrogance comes up before the throne of God. The Lord here is settling accounts, and He does so with terrifying specificity. The theme is not simply that Moab will be judged, but how thoroughly their pride will be dismantled. Every high thing will be brought low, every source of security will be exposed as a paper wall, and every boast will be turned to a wail. This is a case study in divine deconstruction. God is taking apart the Moabite identity, brick by proud brick, until nothing is left but shame and dust.

The passage before us, verses 18-20, is a snapshot of this national humiliation. We are not seeing the battle from a distance; Jeremiah brings the camera in close. We see the citizens of specific towns, Dibon and Aroer, caught in the maelstrom. The language is direct and personal. It is a command to come down, to sit in the dirt, to watch the highways for refugees. The judgment is not an abstract concept; it is a present and unfolding reality. The glory is gone, the strongholds are ruined, and the only thing left to do is ask the fleeing survivors, "What has happened?" The answer is simple and stark: Moab is shattered, and the news of its destruction is to be published for all to hear. This is what the unrelenting judgment of a holy God against intractable pride looks like.

Outline

The Pride of Moab

Before diving into these verses, we have to understand the central sin of Moab. The Bible is clear on this point. Isaiah tells us, "We have heard of the pride of Moab; he is very proud: even of his haughtiness, and his pride, and his wrath" (Isaiah 16:6). Jeremiah echoes this later in this same chapter: "We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart" (Jer. 48:29). Notice the repetition. God wants to make sure we get the point. Moab's problem was not just pride, but a layered, deep-seated, marrow-deep pride. They were proud of their strength, their wealth, their gods, and their seeming security. They had been "at ease from his youth" (Jer. 48:11), like wine settled on its dregs, undisturbed and complacent. This kind of arrogance is a direct affront to the Creator, who alone is worthy of glory. When a nation puffs itself up like this, it is inviting a pin. And in this chapter, God brings the pin.

Verse by Verse Commentary

Jeremiah 48:18

"Come down from your glory And inhabit the parched ground, O inhabitant of the daughter of Dibon; For the destroyer of Moab has come up against you, He has ruined your strongholds."

Come down from your glory... This is not a suggestion; it is a command from the sovereign God. The glory spoken of here is the self-awarded glory of man. It is the comfortable seat, the high place, the position of honor and ease. Dibon was a principal city of Moab, a place of significance. And its inhabitants are told to abandon their station. God's judgments always begin by knocking us off our high horses. All human glory is derivative and dependent, and when we forget that, God has ways of reminding us. The first step in humiliation is a change in altitude. You were up, now you are commanded to come down.

And inhabit the parched ground... The descent is not to a slightly less comfortable position. It is a descent into abject humility and want. From a glorious city to thirsty ground. This is the biblical picture of judgment: a reversal of fortunes. It is a move from the palace to the dust heap. The parched ground is a place of shame, of thirst, of desperation. It is where you sit when everything has been taken from you. This is what happens when God resists the proud; He gives them an abundance of what they have tried so hard to avoid: lowliness.

O inhabitant of the daughter of Dibon... The address is personal. God is not speaking to an abstract entity called "Moab." He is speaking to the people, the families, the individuals living in their comfortable homes in Dibon. Judgment is always personal. The phrase "daughter of Dibon" is a Hebrew idiom that personifies the city and its populace. They are addressed as a collective whole, a community that is about to be undone.

For the destroyer of Moab has come up against you... Here is the reason for this sudden, brutal demotion. An agent of God's wrath is on the move. In the historical context, this was Babylon. But we must always see that behind the earthly instrument is the heavenly hand. God is the one who raises up destroyers. Nebuchadnezzar was God's servant to accomplish His purposes, whether he knew it or not. The destroyer does not come up by accident; he is sent. He has come "against you." Your pride has made you a target, and the arrow has been loosed.

He has ruined your strongholds. All the things Moab trusted in are now being dismantled. Strongholds are not just military fortresses; they are anything in which we place our ultimate security outside of God. It could be wealth, political alliances, national heritage, or military might. Moab had jejich, and they thought they were safe. But the destroyer sent by God makes short work of man-made security. The ruin of our strongholds is God's severe mercy, clearing away the lies we trust in so that we might be brought to a place of trusting Him alone.

Jeremiah 48:19

"Stand by the road and keep watch, O inhabitant of Aroer; Ask him who flees and her who escapes And say, ‘What has happened?’"

Stand by the road and keep watch, O inhabitant of Aroer... Now the scene shifts to another town, Aroer, which was situated on the edge of the Arnon Gorge. Its position on a main thoroughfare makes it the perfect vantage point to witness the unfolding disaster. The command to "stand and keep watch" is filled with a sense of anxious dread. The people of Aroer are to become spectators of their own nation's collapse. They are not yet overrun, but they are on the side of the road, watching the flood of refugees pour out from the interior. This is the posture of someone who knows something terrible is happening but cannot yet grasp the full scope of it.

Ask him who flees and her who escapes... The news is not coming from an official proclamation or a royal messenger. The news is written on the faces of the terrified survivors. The command is to interrogate the fugitives, both men and women. The judgment is comprehensive; it spares no one. The picture is one of utter chaos, of a society completely uprooted and on the run. The only way to get information is to grab someone running past you and demand an answer.

And say, ‘What has happened?’ This is the question of stunned disbelief. How could this happen to us? We were Moab, the proud, the secure. We were the ones who had been at ease. This question reveals the shock that always accompanies the judgment of the proud. Pride blinds us to our precarity. We build our towers of Babel and assume they will stand forever. And when God comes down to confuse our language and scatter us, the first question on our lips is always, "What has happened?" The answer, of course, is that God has happened.

Jeremiah 48:20

"Moab has been put to shame, for it has been shattered. Wail and cry out; Declare by the Arnon That Moab has been destroyed."

Moab has been put to shame, for it has been shattered. Here is the answer to the question. What has happened is shame and shattering. The word for shame here means disgrace, confusion, and deep humiliation. It is the opposite of the glory they started with in verse 18. Their pride has been met with its polar opposite. And the reason for the shame is that they have been "shattered." This is a word for being broken in pieces, utterly dismantled. It is not a mere defeat; it is annihilation. The vessel has been broken beyond repair.

Wail and cry out... The only appropriate response to this kind of judgment is loud, unrestrained grief. The time for boasting is over. The time for revelry is over. The only thing left is to wail. This is the sound of a nation's funeral. It is the raw, guttural cry of loss and despair. God commands this response. He wants them to feel the weight of what their pride has purchased.

Declare by the Arnon That Moab has been destroyed. The news is not to be kept quiet. It must be published. The Arnon was a river that formed a natural border for Moab. To declare the news there is to announce it at the very boundary of their former strength. It is to shout it from the rooftops, to make their humiliation public. Why? Because God's judgments are object lessons. The fall of Moab is a warning to all other proud nations and proud individuals. God's glory will not be shared with another. When a people sets itself up against Him, He will make an example of them. The destruction of Moab is a sermon preached to the surrounding nations, and the text of that sermon is simple: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Application

It is easy for us to read a passage like this and thank God that we are not like those proud Moabites. But that, of course, is the very essence of pride. The warnings here are for us. We live in a nation and a culture that is drunk on its own sense of importance, its own glory, its own strongholds. We trust in our technology, our economy, our military, our enlightened sensibilities. We are Moab, settled on our dregs.

This passage is a call to come down. It is a call for individual Christians and for the church as a whole to repent of our pride. We must voluntarily come down from our glory and sit in the dust before a holy God. We must do this in repentance, or God will make us do it in judgment. The destroyer is always at the ready. The choice before us is simple: humble ourselves, or be humbled.

The good news of the gospel is that there is a way to come down that leads not to destruction, but to life. Jesus Christ, who had all the glory of heaven, came down. He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, and inhabited the parched ground of this fallen world. He stood by the road and watched the fugitives of a broken humanity. And on the cross, He was put to shame and shattered for our pride. He took the full force of God's judgment against arrogance so that we, in turning to Him, could be spared. He was destroyed so that we might be rebuilt. Therefore, the only proper response is to abandon our own strongholds and find our refuge in Him. For He is the only glory that will last, and the only stronghold that will never be ruined.