Jeremiah 48:4

Jer 48:4 Moab is destroyed; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.

Ver. 4. Moab is destroyed,] i.e., Shall be shortly.

Her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.] While they either are forsaken of their parents, {as Jer 47:3} or else see them to be slain or carried away captives.

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.

little ones . . . cry--heightening the distress of the scene. The foe does not spare even infants.

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

The Prophet speaks again generally of the whole country. It is said that the land of Moab was afflicted; not that it was so then; but to make certain the prophecy, he speaks of the event as having already taken place; for the prophets, as it is well known, speaking in the person of God, relate things as yet hidden, as though they had been completed. He says that the little ones of Moab so cried as to be heard. This is much more emphatic than if he had said that men and women cried out; for children do not soon perceive what is going on, for their understanding is not great. Men and women howl when threatenings only are announced; but little children are not moved but by present evils, and except they are actually beaten, they are not affected; and then they hardly distinguish between some slight evil and death. Hence, when the Prophet says that the little ones of Moab were heard in their crying, he means that the grievousness of its calamity would be extreme, as that little children, as though wise before their time, would perceive the atrocious cruelty of their enemies. It 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.

(4) Her little ones.—The Hebrew adjective is the same as the Zoar, the little one, of Gen_19:20, and that city may probably have been, as in Isa_15:5, in the prophet’s mind. In any case the “little ones” are cities, and not children.

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

4. her little ones have caused a cry to be heard] Read rather, with LXX, they make a cry to be heard unto Zoar (S.E. of the Dead Sea). The point then is that the cry extends throughout Moab from N. to S. Cp. Isa_15:5, from which also Jer_48:5 is mainly taken.

4, 5. Both these vv. are probably later than Jeremiah.

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.

Moab is destroyed,.... Either the whole nation in general; so the Targum,

"the kingdom of Moab is broken;''

and so Abarbinel; or a city so called, which some take to be the city Areopolis. Jerom (g) says, that Moab is a city of Arabia, now called Areopolis; and which also has the name of Rabbathmoab, or "grand Moab";

her little ones have caused a cry to be heard; seeing their parents killed, and they left desolate, and in the hands of the enemy; and not only so, but just going to be dashed in pieces by them. The Targum interprets it, her governors; and so Jarchi, who thinks they are so called, because they are lesser than kings. Kimchi and Ben Melech suggest, that these are called so by way of contempt. The word "tzeir" signifies both "little" and "great", as the learned Pocock (h) has abundantly proved.

(g) De locis Heb. fol. 87. H. & 93. B. (h) Not. Miscell. in Port. Mosis, p. 17, 18.

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

Moab - Probably the city elsewhere called Ar-Moab. See the Septuagint of this verse.

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

Little ones. Hebrew, "to Segor," ver. 34., and Isaias xv. 5. (Calmet) --- Chaldean, "princes" of the second rank. (Vatable)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Moab was both the name of the whole country, and of a principal city in it. Some by it here understand the city; by her

little ones some understand little children; others, inferior magistrates, or the common people.

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

4. Moab — Some understand here the city Ar-Moab, of Num_21:15, etc.; but this is unnecessary. It is better to take it in its ordinary sense, the name of the country.

Little ones… cry — No feature of the picture could be more pathetic than these piteous cries of the children.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Moab is destroyed. The mention of Moab in the midst of towns is certainly surprising. We should expect Ar-Moab. Her little ones. The received text, as it stands, is untranslatable, and our choice lies between the correction suggested by the vowel points, and the reading of the Septuagint and a few of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, "unto Zoar." In favour of the latter, which is adopted by Ewald and Graf, it may he urged that Zoar and Horenaim are mentioned together, not only in ver. 34, but also in Isa_15:5, which has evidently been imitated in the following verse. It is not quite clear what "her little ones" in the first mentioned correction mean. Some think, the children; others, the poor; Hitzig prefers the small towns of Moab. On the site of "Zoar," see Smith"s "Dictionary of the Bible," but compare Canon Tristram in "The Land of Moab."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

her youths Jonathan [renders]: Her governors, younger than the kings.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.