The High Cost of Hot Air: Judgment on Moab Text: Jeremiah 48:28-34
Introduction: The Mother of All Sins
We live in an age that has lost its mind, and the central reason for this is that we have lost our dictionary. We have men who cannot define what a woman is, and so it is no surprise that we have a culture that cannot define what sin is. But if you want to understand the madness of the current moment, you must understand the sin that sits at the root of it all. Before there was sexual confusion, before there was political corruption, before there was idolatry, there was pride. Pride is the mother sin, the sin from which all other sins are born. It is the original rebellion, the desire to be as God, determining good and evil for oneself. It is the declaration of cosmic independence, and it is the central reason why civilizations collapse.
The prophet Jeremiah is tasked with delivering God’s word of judgment to the nations surrounding Judah, and here, in chapter 48, his gaze falls upon Moab. Moab was a cousin to Israel, descended from Lot, and they had a long and complicated history. But the central charge that God lays at their door, the indictment that undergirds the entire prophecy of their destruction, is the sin of pride. Moab was proud. Exceedingly proud. And because God is God, this pride could not be allowed to stand.
This is not some dusty, ancient history lesson. This is a direct word to our own civilization. We are a people drunk on our own accomplishments, puffed up by our technological prowess, and arrogant in our dismissal of the God who gave us breath. We believe our boasts, we trust in our inflated press releases, and we think that our fury, our moral outrage, our cancel mobs, actually accomplish something. But God declares here that it is all nothing. It is hot air. It is a chasing after the wind. And when a nation builds its foundations on nothing, it is only a matter of time before the entire structure comes crashing down.
In this passage, we see a collision of two realities: the inflated reality of Moab’s pride and the bedrock reality of God’s sovereign judgment. And we also see something remarkable, something that ought to arrest our attention: the sorrow of God. God does not delight in this destruction. He wails, He weeps, He moans. This is not the detached, impersonal karma of the Eastern mystics. This is the personal, covenantal, and holy grief of a Creator over the necessary judgment of His rebellious creatures. This is a hard word, but it is a necessary one, for it is only when we see the utter futility of our pride that we can begin to understand the glorious relief of the gospel.
The Text
Leave the cities and dwell among the crags, O inhabitants of Moab, And be like a dove that nests Beyond the mouth of the chasm. We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is very proud, Of his haughtiness, his pride, his arrogance, and the exaltedness of his heart. I know his fury,” declares Yahweh, “But it is nothing; His idle boasts have accomplished nothing. Therefore I will wail for Moab, Even for all Moab will I cry out; I will moan for the men of Kir-heres. More than the weeping for Jazer I will weep for you, O vine of Sibmah! Your branches stretched across the sea, They reached to the sea of Jazer; Upon your summer fruits and your grape harvest The destroyer has fallen. So gladness and joy are gathered up From the fruitful orchard, even from the land of Moab. And I have made the wine to cease from the wine presses; No one will tread them with shouting, The shouting will not be shouts of joy. From the outcry at Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz they have given forth their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim and to Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim will become desolate.
(Jeremiah 48:28-34 LSB)
The Futility of Flight (v. 28)
The prophecy begins with a command that reveals the desperation of Moab's situation.
"Leave the cities and dwell among the crags, O inhabitants of Moab, And be like a dove that nests Beyond the mouth of the chasm." (Jeremiah 48:28)
The judgment coming upon Moab is so total that the normal places of safety, the fortified cities, will become death traps. The only hope for survival is to abandon civilization itself and flee to the most inaccessible places, to the rocky crags and chasms. They are to be like a dove, a creature of flight and refuge, nesting in a place that seems secure from predators. This is a picture of complete societal collapse. The structures that once provided security are now the very places where the danger is concentrated.
But there is a deep irony here. A dove nesting in the side of a chasm is still exposed. It is a precarious safety. This is a command to flee, but it is a flight that offers no ultimate security. When God’s judgment comes, there is no place to hide. You can run to the rocks, but the rocks belong to Him. You can flee to the mountains, but He is the one who set them in place. The psalmist understood this well: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7). This flight is not a solution; it is a symptom of the terror that has overtaken them. It is the beginning of their unraveling.
The Diagnosis: A Cancer of Pride (v. 29)
Verse 29 gives us the root cause of Moab’s destruction. It is a spiritual diagnosis, and it is terminal.
"We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is very proud, Of his haughtiness, his pride, his arrogance, and the exaltedness of his heart." (Jeremiah 48:29)
Notice the sheer repetition. God piles up the synonyms to make the point inescapable. This isn't just a minor character flaw; it is the defining characteristic of the nation. Pride, haughtiness, arrogance, an exalted heart. Moab’s reputation for pride was well-known, "We have heard." This was their national brand. They were puffed up, self-important, and full of themselves. This is the original sin of Satan, who was not content to be a creature and sought to exalt his throne above God’s. It is the sin of Adam, who believed the lie that he could be like God.
Pride is fundamentally a theological error. It is a denial of the Creator/creature distinction. It is the creature forgetting his place and acting as though he were the Creator. An "exaltedness of his heart" means that Moab had made a god of himself. He looked at his accomplishments, his wealth, his military strength, and he worshiped them. He worshiped himself. And because God is jealous for His own glory, He will not tolerate rivals. "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). This is not a suggestion; it is a law of the universe, as fixed as gravity.
The Divine Dismissal (v. 30)
God now speaks in the first person, giving His own assessment of Moab’s bluster.
"I know his fury,” declares Yahweh, “But it is nothing; His idle boasts have accomplished nothing." (Jeremiah 48:30)
Moab’s pride was not quiet; it was loud and angry. "I know his fury." This is the rage of a creature who believes he is entitled, who flies into a passion when his will is thwarted. We see this all around us today. The furious outrage of those who demand that reality bend to their desires. But God’s assessment is devastating in its simplicity: "But it is nothing." The Hebrew is even more blunt. It’s "not so." It’s a sham. It’s a lie.
Their "idle boasts have accomplished nothing." All their big talk, all their threats, all their self-congratulation, it is all vapor. It has no substance. It has effected nothing in the real world, the world that God governs. This is a direct assault on the modern belief in the power of self-affirmation, the idea that you can speak your own reality into existence. God says, no. Your words are just noise. Your boasts are empty. They accomplish nothing because you are not God. Only His Word accomplishes what He pleases. The proud man lives in a fantasy world of his own making, but judgment is the moment when reality, God’s reality, breaks in with shattering force.
The Sorrow of the Judge (v. 31-33)
What follows is one of the most startling and profound sections in all of prophetic literature. The Judge of all the earth weeps over the sentence He must pronounce.
"Therefore I will wail for Moab, Even for all Moab will I cry out; I will moan for the men of Kir-heres. More than the weeping for Jazer I will weep for you, O vine of Sibmah! Your branches stretched across the sea... Upon your summer fruits and your grape harvest The destroyer has fallen. So gladness and joy are gathered up... And I have made the wine to cease from the wine presses..." (Jeremiah 48:31-33)
This is the holy sorrow of God. Let this sink in. God is not a stoic deity, impassive and remote. He is a person, and He grieves. His wailing is not a sign of weakness, but of the depth of His character. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11). The judgment is necessary because His holiness demands it. Pride must be broken. But the breaking of it is a cause for divine grief.
He weeps for Moab as a ruined vineyard. The "vine of Sibmah" was famous for its grapes. Its branches were so prosperous they "stretched across the sea." This was the source of their wealth, their joy, their celebration. It was a picture of life and gladness. And now, the "destroyer has fallen" upon it. All the fruit is gone. The gladness and joy are "gathered up," a bitter pun on the harvest. The wine presses are silent. The shouting of the grape-treaders, which was once a shout of joy, is no more. God Himself says, "I have made the wine to cease."
This is a picture of total desolation. Not just military defeat, but the end of all joy, all culture, all celebration. The very things that made Moab Moab are being stripped away. And God mourns this loss. This is crucial. God’s wrath is not a petty, human tantrum. It is the settled, holy, and sorrowful opposition of the Creator to all that would destroy the goodness of His creation. He weeps for the good things that must be swept away in the judgment of the bad.
The Sound of Collapse (v. 34)
The passage ends with a cacophony of grief, a map of sorrow spreading across the land.
"From the outcry at Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz they have given forth their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim... for even the waters of Nimrim will become desolate." (Jeremiah 48:34)
The shout of joy from the winepresses has been replaced by an outcry of terror. The sound of weeping and wailing echoes from city to city, from one end of the land to the other. The geography here is specific. It’s not an abstract sorrow; it is a concrete, historical collapse. The names of the cities are listed like tombstones in a graveyard. The contagion of grief spreads everywhere. Even the "waters of Nimrim," a place of life and refreshment, "will become desolate." The judgment is comprehensive. Nothing will be left untouched.
This is the end result of pride. It begins with an exalted heart, it continues with furious boasts, and it ends in a land full of weeping where even the water has died. Pride promises everything and delivers nothing but desolation.
The Gospel for the Proud
This prophecy against Moab is a dark and heavy word. So where is the good news? The good news is found in recognizing that we are Moab. Every one of us, by nature, has an exalted heart. We are proud, arrogant, and our boasts are just as empty. Our fury against God’s law is just as futile. We have built our own little kingdoms and celebrated our own harvests, all while ignoring the God who gave them.
The judgment described here is the judgment that we deserve. A complete stripping away of all our false joys, a silencing of all our proud songs. The destroyer should fall upon our harvest. And this is precisely what happened at the cross.
On the cross, the true Vine, Jesus Christ, allowed the Destroyer to fall upon Him. God the Father gathered up all the gladness and joy from His Son. He made the wine of His life to cease. The outcry of the forsaken Son echoed from Golgotha. He endured the ultimate desolation that our pride deserved. Why? So that the judgment would not have to fall on us.
And notice the sorrow of God. The Father who wailed over Moab surely wailed over the judgment that fell upon His own Son. This is the cost of our salvation. The holy grief of God was poured out at Calvary. He did this to break the power of our pride. He shows us the end of all human arrogance in the desolation of Moab, and then He shows us the cure for it in the desolation of His Son.
Therefore, the call of the gospel is the same as the call to Moab, but with a promise attached. "Leave the cities," leave your man-made systems of security and pride. "Dwell among the crags," find your refuge not in a chasm, but in the Rock of Ages, cleft for you. Be like a dove, but find your nest not in a cliffside, but in the wounds of Christ. For it is only there, in the place of His judgment, that we find our safety. It is only by admitting our pride is nothing that we can receive His everything. It is only by ceasing our own empty boasts that we can begin to boast in Him alone.