Jeremiah 48:25

Jer 48:25 The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the LORD.

Ver. 25. The horn of Moab is cut off,] i.e., His strength, power, glory, kingdoms; his sultans and princes, saith the Chaldee.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jer_48:25

The horn of Moab is cut off.

The history of Moab

The first charge brought against Moab is self-confidence, self-trust, self-sufficiency (Jer_48:7). This makes us contemporaries of the Moabites. We thought they were an ancient people, but behold how human they are, how English, how like ourselves and our children! They were so pleased with the stone wall they had put up; they measured it, and admired it, and said that it would save them from the high wind and the mighty storm. It was enough--high enough, broad enough, impenetrable, invincible. Now that is the kind of reasoning which God will not allow in human life. He demands that human life be lived in Himself, and not in things that our own hands have made. We are to be taught distinctly that we do not live in ourselves; that in ourselves we have actually no life; that we have nothing that we have not received, and in that spirit alone we are to hold life and to live. It would seem to be easy to put our whole trust in the living God, and yet it is the most difficult of all lessons. We will persist, even in opposition to many theories of our own to the contrary, that we are self-contained, self-consisting, and self-managing; and herein arises Gods perpetual controversy with mankind. There is, too, so much to favour the temptation. It looks as if we could do most things; that as we have so much we might easily have more. God says to us in every days providence, You are here for a purpose; you are here for a little time; you now but begin to be; every lesson you must learn, and every commandment you must keep. It is against that arrangement that we chafe, just as the little child chafes against parental authority and loving restraint. From the history of Moab we see that even blessings may be perverted, and sacred privileges may be turned into occasions of self-destruction (Jer_48:11). Too much ease, too little upset, too little anxiety, too little trouble will kill any soul. To come into a business made to your hands, to have a fortune left you, and to have everything prearranged, is to be exposed to very peculiar and urgent temptation. Thank God for the rough places in your lives. They are unpleasant, but they are disciplinary. They are like steep hills, but remember that great temples and blessed sanctuaries stand at the top of them. When discipline is not endured gradually it is brought to bear upon the life as an overwhelming judgment. This is the burden of the text. Two classes of persons should consider this. First, those who have daily discipline; they should say, Better have discipline a little at, a time, as we are able to bear it. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. These daily chafings and frettings are nard to bear, these daily disappointments are sharp thorns thrust into the very eyes; yet who knows what the judgment would be were it all to come at once? I will rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him: no temptation has happened unto me but such as is common to men; by and by the explanation will come, and then I shall be able to say, He hath done all things well. Then the lesson should be well considered by those who seem to escape discipline of God. The volcano is a long time in gathering all its fiery energy, but the outburst is momentary, and who can measure the destruction which follows? Christ may well say, What I say unto one, I say unto all, Watch,--even those who have apparently least necessity to watch, should not relax their vigils for a moment. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall See how frightful m the humiliation to which God can bring a man or a people. Look at the picture of Moab--horn cut off, the arm broken, the man drunk but not with wine, and reeling in helplessness, the proud one wallowing in his vomit and laughed to derision! We cannot, however, rest here: for the mercy of the Lord endureth for ever. Mercy triumphs over judgment. The destruction, therefore, was not arbitrary, but moral, being based upon an assigned reason. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. We should say, therefore, that this verse was the concluding verse in the whole history of Moab. What can there be after destruction? With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. The chapter does not end with the forty-second verse, but with the forty-seventh, and this is how it reads, Yet will I bring again, &c. One would fain construe these words into a hopeful omen. Out of what extremities cannot God deliver mankind? Let the most desponding rekindle their hope, and the most distant prodigal hear his fathers voice. Who can set bounds to the mercy of God? Yet must there be no trifling, even with a Gospel of hope. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, his power and strength.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

horn--the emblem of strength and sovereignty: it is the horned animal's means of offense and defense (Psa 75:5, Psa 75:10; Lam 2:3).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 25. The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken] His political and physical powers are no more.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

By another metaphor he expresses the same thing. By horn he means power, as all who are in any measure acquainted with Scripture well know that by this word is set forth power, strength, or any defense for the protection of a nation. He then says that the horn of Moab was cut off; and he adds afterwards as all explanation, that his strength was broken Hence by this second clause we understand what the Prophet meant when he said, that the horn of Moab was cut off. But he again introduces God as the speaker, because the Moabites thought that their horn could not be broken. As then Jeremiah would not have obtained credit, had he spoken in his own name, he again brought forward God as declaring his own words. It now follows, —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(25) The horn of Moab.—The horn of animals was naturally the symbol of their strength, and it was as natural that the symbolism should be extended to men and nations. (Comp. 1Sa_2:1; Psa_92:10; Lam_2:3; Dan_7:7-8; Luk_1:69.) The figure of the broken arm, powerless to grasp sword or sceptre, meets us again in Eze_30:21.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. The horn is an emblem of strength, the arm of authority. For the former see Psa_75:4-5; Psa_75:10, for the latter ch. Jer_17:5.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Make ye him drunken,.... Not with wine, but with the cup of divine wrath; with the vengeance of God; with sore judgments, afflictions, and calamities; give him his fill of them, till he is quite intoxicated with them, and has lost his senses, and is brought to madness and distraction, and reels, and staggers, and falls to the ground, like a drunken man; and his state and kingdom is quite ruined: this is said to the enemies of Moab, the king of Babylon and his army:

for he magnified himself against the Lord; made himself as great as he; yea, set himself above him; thought himself out of his reach; spoke proudly, haughtily, and contemptibly of him, and blasphemously against him, as if he could not deliver his people, or destroy his and their enemies. The Targum interprets it of the people of God, as in Zep 2:10; paraphrasing the words thus;

"bring distress upon them, that they may be like to drunken men; for against the people of the Lord have they magnified themselves:''

Moab also shall wallow in his vomit; as drunken men do: or, he shall "clap", or "dash (a) his hand in his vomit": dash his hands and feet against the ground as he lies in his vomit, as persons in such a condition do: or shall wring his hands, and clap them together for sorrow, being sick, and in distress. Some render it, "he shall clap the hand at Moab in his vomit" (b); men shall laugh at him as he lies wallowing in it, or rejoice at his fall and ruin; but this is expressed in the next clause:

and he also shall be in derision; as drunken men are; he shall be derided by others, as others have been derided by him; now it will be his turn.

(a) "plaudat", Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius; "plaudet", Piscator; "complodat", Munster, Tigurine version, Schmidt; "allidet", Lyranus. (b) "Complodet manus super Moabum jacentem in vomitu suo", Gataker.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The horn - i. e., his pride (marginal reference); his arm, i. e., his strength Jer 17:5.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

That is, the beauty and the strength of Moab. So these two terms often signify in holy writ, the horn being much the beauty of some beasts, and that part of their bodies by which they both do injury to others, and defend themselves from the assaults of others. God here declares that Moab should both lose its glory and beauty, and also all the power it formerly had to defend itself, or offend others.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The horn - That is the beauty and the strength of Moab.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.