The Harvest of Moab (Isaiah 16:6-11)

Like Sodom, Moab’s delightful land of pastures and vineyards would be miserably laid waste.

For the introduction to this section (Isaiah 15-16), see Isaiah’s Kill List – Part 2.

The oracle against Moab works through the general themes of the Heptateuch. The final step is missing as a sign that the nation would be cut off like Adam: Moab would be denied a memorial, given no rest among the tombs of his fathers. Within this structure, the key to this passage is its Deuteronomy theme.

CYCLE 2D5
Maturity/Transformation – Deuteronomy:
The Harvest of Moab

(Isaiah 16:6-11)

Priesthood Submission to heaven		Kingdom Dominion on earth
Proud Moab will not submit to Yahweh (16:6a)	TRANSCENDENCE Sabbath	His arrogant boasts will come to nothing (16:6b)
The entire people will wail in fear and mourning (16:7a)	HIERARCHY Passover	It famous city of grapes will be trodden down to ruin (16:7b)
The branches of Moab’s strong wine made weak (16:8a)	PRIESTHOOD Firstfruits	even through its shoots extended in all directions ((16:8b)
The Lord weeps with those who enjoyed Moab’s abundance (16:9a)	KINGDOM Pentecost	Weeping will replace rejoicing over reaping (16:9b)
Gladness will be taken away from the fruitful field (16:10a)	PROPHECY Trumpets	There will no longer be singing or shouting in the vineyards (16:10b)
There will be no treaders in the winepress (16:10c)	OATH/SANCTIONS Atonement	The Lord’s belly groans for the now barren city of grapes (16:11)
—	SUCCESSION Booths	—

The Deuteronomy Cycle expands on the devastation of vegetation in the Deuteronomy Stanza of 2D2 (15:6b). Moses spoke to Israel in the land of Moab, but Isaiah speaks to Moab from the land of Judah.

The prophet’s conscious use of Amos is evident as he continues his reprise from Amos 9:11-12 in the previous Cycle into Amos 9:13-15 in this Cycle. But whereas Amos promised fertility and an abundance of wine to Israel in its restoration under the imperial order, Moab will be forever dispossessed of them. Like Sodom, the delightful land of pastures and vineyards would be miserably laid waste.

Once again, the histories of Lot and Boaz are in the background of the prophet’s masterful tableau. Rather than waiting, as Abraham did, for God to make the famine-prone land of Canaan fertile, Lot took a moral risk and moved to one of the cities of the fertile plain. His daughters likewise siezed fertility. The motif of Moab’s vine is another dig at Lot’s drunkenness. All of these were acts of “stealing fruit” from God. Like Lot, instead of trusting in God, Elimelech took a moral risk and moved his family to the fertile fields of Moab. Ultimately, it was the faith of Boaz that restored fertility to the land and the womb in Bethlehem as a covenant blessing under the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 28:1-14).

Both Israel and Moab would be rendered barren, but only Israel would be restored to fertility, especially in regard to the providential continuation of the Davidic dynasty in Zerubbabel as a preservation of the Lord’s Messianic promise to Abraham: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:6).

A primary theme of the Maturity step is “plunder or plagues” as a result of obedience or disobedience at Testing. So whereas the tenfold 2D4 alluded to the Covenant in its structure, 2D5 alludes to the results in Creation. Thus the Day 7 dyad is missing. Like Adam, having failed to profess faith in Yahweh (Oath), Moab is cut off (Sanctions). Moab’s rejection of Yahweh’s offer of covenant mercy in 2D4 results in the withdrawal of His “creational” blessing in 2D5. Moab’s prosperity (plunder) is turned to ruin (plagues). The two-tablet structure of the Kingdom Cycle has become the two-witness structure of the prophet. However, its pillars are not complete.

As Jachin and Boaz columns, these “temple legs” are missing their feet. Dominion of the ground is denied, and perhaps there is also the idea that Moab has refused to lie in submission at the feet of Boaz (David’s grandfather). She has behaved like the daughters of Lot, resorting to wine-fuelled bacchanals and statecraft to procure fertility and prosperity. In contrast, Israel’s dynastic “fertility” and influence among the nations would come not from wine but from the Spirit of the Lord—via a son of Boaz (Zechariah 4:1-14).

• (16:6a) The prophet now turns again to his own people. Moab in his pride will reject the Lord’s offer of mercy in 2D4, so he is now denounced afresh. This pride is evident in the boasting of King Mesha recorded on the Moabite stone, whose text elaborates on the Bible’s account of Mesha’s rebellion. Its discovery near Dibon in 1868 resulted in an ownership dispute and a bidding war for its possession. Subsequently, the stele was broken into pieces by local Bedouins, and in a divine irony those pieces were distributed as fertility amulets. Not all the pieces were retrieved, but fortunately a cast of the stone had been made when it was still intact.
• (16:6b) The first three words of the Stanza rhyme. The first two words are from a root for “rising up,” so they are two steps to the center, the peak of “arrogance,” a word connoting fiery passion and fury. In the final two words, he is taken down from this height.
• The combined meaning of the two Stanzas in the Transcendence dyad relates to the Call in the worship pattern, but Moab has rejected the call given in 2D4. He has exalted himself above God.
• (16:7a) Failure to submit to God and offer substitutionary blood in the Garden-Sanctuary always leads to human bloodshed in the Land. The word “wail” appears at Division and Conquest in the Stanza. The first mention of Moab is in the priestly step, and the second is in the kingly step. This means that the pagan priests are invoking the gods on behalf of their conquered kings. This cry is then taken up by the entire host of the nation at Maturity. The seventh and final word is missing because the gods do not answer.
• (16:7b) They mourn for the “ruins,” which is a pun on a word that means either foundations or raisin cakes. The latter were used in religious feasts (Hosea 3:1). The root means something pressed down, so Kir (15:1) was crushed and devoured like grapes as a judgment for its fertility rites. Jeremiah 48:31 puts a similar sounding word in its place, making “men” out the grapes.
  The combined meaning of the two Stanzas in the Hierarchy dyad relate to Confession in the worship pattern: mourning and humility. Because Moab would not prostrate himself before the Lord, he would wail for himself and be humiliated. Notice that 16:7a is masculine (priests, kings, troops) but 16:7b is feminine (ruins/raisin cakes of “wall of earthenware,” a fortified city).
• (16:8a) The Firstfruits/Priesthood dyad begins with Heshbon and Sibmah which were allotted to Jacob’s firstborn (Numbers 32:37). “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power” (Genesis 49:3). Heshbon was a Levite city (Joshua 21:39) and Sibmah was famous for its vines (Jeremiah 48:32). This gives us the Altar and the Table. As in Jeremiah 25 and Revelation 17, the Lord turns the cup that intoxicated the rulers of the nations into a cup of wrath. There is a play on words, since the word for “broken down” was also used of being smitten with wine.
  The cup corresponds to the Tree of Knowledge, which, like wine, is a global (Noahic or Melchizedekian) blessing if received as a gift from God, but a curse if seized and abused by Man. So the Lord turns the nations against Moab and treads him like grapes. Assyria and Babylon both destroyed vineyards, a practice certain to bring desolation to grape-growing regions. Perhaps, in the Lord’s mercy, and as is His habit, Moab survived the Assyrian invasion to be given a second chance. But he remained defiant and was later destroyed by Babylon. Even after this, the Lord was willing to put aside the prohibition against Moabites joining the assembly (Deuteronomy 23:3-5; Nehemiah 13:2; Isaiah 56:3-8).
• (16:8b) Moab’s lack of submission to heaven destroyed the vines in the Priesthood Stanza, and the Kingdom Stanza describes the end of Moab’s dominion on earth. Notice the shift to the feminine in “her branches.” Moab’s household (Psalm 128:3) is a single vine which reached to Jazer in the north, strayed to the desert on the east, and her shoots propagated beyond the sea on the west.
• (16:9a) The Kingdom/Testing dyad corresponds to Pentecost, but there is no harvest, only lamentation. As in 15:5, the Lord Himself weeps with those who will weep (Romans 12:15). He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11). The reach of the vine from Sibmah to Jazer is now reversed as the “offspring” is cut off and the dynasty is ended.
• (16:9b) Having sent rain upon the just and unjust alike (Matthew 5:45), the Lord now waters Heshbon and Elealeh (see the notes on Isaiah 15:4) with His tears. Jeremiah explains that shouts will still be heard, but not the shouts of joy (Jeremiah 48:33).
• (16:10ab) The other Maturity theme is God’s “kingdom” gift to the priestly man of wine, women, and song. This is why music differentiated the silent “Adamic” Tabernacle of Moses from the “bridal” Tabernacle of David. The original referent is the man’s rejoicing over the woman in Genesis 2. Here, the man is the field (16:10a) and the woman is the vineyard (16:10b). The lack of “bread and wine” fellowship with God always ends in barrenness.
• (16:10c) The glad song of the winemakers is silenced by war. The wine that is now poured out is the blood of Moabite men.
• (16:11) The voice of the bridal city, the fortress of bricks, is now a silent grief playing upon the strings of the Lord’s heart and mind as a Davidic lament. The Hebrew idiom is bowels and entrails, His compassion resounding with her “menstrual” sorrow. Kir Hareseth is chosen to represent the inverse of the puns in Genesis of the words “sons” and “built up.” The city is a woman bereft of sons, like the daughters of Lot. The missing final dyad (the wine of Noahic rest and Succession) is a silent testimony to the end of Moab’s sons and cities. Lot’s bacchanal is finally ended.

Stanza analysis

(16:6) As in 2D4, the first two Stanzas are “Ten Words” that work in two ways. As the Genesis/Ark dyad, Moab’s proud declarations are exposed as serpentine half-truths, a counterfeit of God’s Law.

Transcendence	We have heard	of his loftiness
Hierarchy	of the pride	and his pride
Ethics	of Moab;	and his arrogance;
Oath/Sanctions	he is proud	but nought
Succession	exceedingly	are his boastings.

(16:9b) The “Ten Words” structure begins with tears as rain from heaven. The Ethics line alludes to the heavenly king’s faculty of judgment.

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