A word to the wise is sufficient

Isaiah 16:1-5

A word to the wise is sufficient, and the trouble with such statements is the arrogant and the prideful will not receive such words.  Moab was not a good neighbor to Judea in fact it was a source of conflict.  So when the judgment came from God on Moab this prideful people began to court Judea.  They began to send gifts of lambs to Jerusalem, and Isaiah uses the metaphor “like a bird fleeing, forced from the nest.  Moab is fleeing for its life; it is no longer a source of conflict, now Moab is in a subordinate state to Judea. 

Verse five directs us to a reminder of a covenant God entered into with King David, and 

Isaiah 9:6-7, gives great insight to what God will do for David’s descendant, pointing us to 

the Messiah, the Christ.  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government 

shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, 

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there 

will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it 

with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the 

LORD of hosts will do this.”

 C.S. Lewis defined pride in this way; “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A 

proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you 

are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.”   Isaiah describes Moab’s 

sin as pride, and God makes His case clear about this sin of Moab in Jeremiah 48:29-30,  

“We have heard of the pride of Moab— he is very proud—of his loftiness, his pride, and 

his arrogance, and the haughtiness of his heart.  I know his insolence, declares the Lord;  

his boasts are false, his deeds are false.”  Moab and its people have not hidden their sin 

of pride from the all-seeing God, nor have you or I.  

Any nation, and any people whose sin is pride, God will not put up with them forever.   

The prophet Jeremiah tells us what God is going to do, but it will be many years from 75 

to 100 after Isaiah’s warning.  Isaiah’s account refers to the devastation of Moab by the 

Assyrian king Shalmaneser, where as Jeremiah refers to that by Nebuchadnezzar. This is 

Jeremiah’s account: “For thus says the Lord: “Behold, one shall fly swiftly like an eagle  

and spread his wings against Moab; the cities shall be taken and the strongholds seized.   

The heart of the warriors of Moab shall be in that day like the heart of a woman in her birth 

pains; Moab shall be destroyed and be no longer a people, because he magnified himself 

against the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 48:40-42)  A question you should ask; am I that kind of person, 

is the nation I live in such a nation?  And the follow-up question; if I am found guilty and 

the nation I’m in is guilty, what should my action be before a holy God?  Moab did not 

repent, it did not seek forgiveness, for as Lewis states; “ as long as you are looking down 

you cannot see something that is above you.”  

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice