Isaiah 15:1-9·~1 min

The Burden against Moab

Isaiah opens by declaring that in a single night Moab's major strongholds are laid waste, and the immediate response is not resistance but ritualized grief. Dibon ascends to its high places to weep, Nebo and Medeba howl, heads are shaved, beards are cut off, and from streets to rooftops the whole land is clothed in sackcloth and loud lament.

T¹his is the burden against Moab: ²Dibon goes up to its temple ³In its streets they wear sackcloth; ⁴Heshbon and Elealeh cry out;

The prophet's own heart cries out for Moab as its fugitives flee southward and its once-fertile places fail. The waters of Nimrim dry up, grass withers, greenery disappears, and what wealth remains must be carried away across the Brook of the Willows, turning the land's ecological and economic exhaustion into part of the judgment itself.

⁵My heart cries out over Moab; ⁶The waters of Nimrim are dried up, ⁷So they carry their wealth and belongings

Moab's cry circles its whole border, reaching every extremity of the nation, while Dimon's waters run with blood rather than refreshment. Yet even that is not the end, because the LORD says more is still coming: surviving fugitives and those left in the land will face a lion, meaning judgment pursues what the first devastation spares.

⁸For their outcry echoes to the border of Moab. ⁹The waters of Dimon are full of blood,

Section summaryThe chapter's single movement traces Moab's ruin through a chain of cities and images of grief: nightfall destruction, temple lament, public sackcloth, cries heard across the land, dried grass and water, desperate flight with carried possessions, and finally blood-stained waters with further judgment still approaching. The effect is cumulative, presenting Moab not as selectively wounded but as overwhelmed in body, land, wealth, and voice.

Role in the chapterThis section gathers the whole oracle into a sustained lament over Moab's total collapse.