What does Isaias Chapter 15 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Moab’s nighttime destruction leads to widespread lament. Flight, desolate waters and the torrent preserve admitted wording and alternative commentary. Further judgment is announced without inventing an extermination scene.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 15 announces Moab's desolation. Ar is laid waste and Moab's wall destroyed in the night, each reduced to silence. Dibon and the high places, Nabo and Medaba receive mourning; bald heads, shaved beards, sackcloth and weeping on roofs and streets spread the lament. Hesebon and Eleale cry as far as Jasa, and Moab's well-appointed men howl.

The speaker's heart cries for Moab. Flight toward Segor, the three-year-old heifer image, weeping up Luith and cries on Oronaim's way accompany ruin. Nemrim's waters become desolate, grass withers and greenness perishes. Visitation according to their work and leading them to the torrent of the willows are retained without inventing carried possessions. The edition gives alternative explanations of that torrent, Babylonian waters or an Arabian valley. Cries reach Gallim and Elim, Dibon's waters fill with blood, and further judgment is announced through a lion upon fugitives and the remnant. Kir, an unyoked heifer, a southward route, drought mechanism and exterminating packs are not specified.

The story inside

Opening: Moab’s nighttime destruction leads to widespread lament. Development: Flight, desolate waters and the torrent preserve admitted wording and alternative commentary. Conclusion: Further judgment is announced without inventing an extermination scene.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Moab’s nighttime destruction leads to widespread lament.
2
Flight, desolate waters and the torrent preserve admitted wording and alternative commentary.
3
Further judgment is announced without inventing an extermination scene.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 79774–79776
15:1. The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, it is silent: because the wall of Moab is destroyed in the night, it is silent.
Lines 79790–79793
15:5. My heart shall cry to Moab, the bars thereof shall flee unto Segor a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith they shall go up weeping: and in the way of Oronaim they shall lift up a cry of destruction.
Lines 79798–79802
15:7. According to the greatness of their work, is their visitation also: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows. Torrent of the willows.... That is, as some say, the waters of Babylon: others render it, a valley of the Arabians.
Lines 79807–79809
15:9. For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood: for I will bring more upon Dibon: the lion upon them that shall flee of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land.