(28) O ye that dwell in Moab . . .--The general thought is the same as in Jeremiah 48:6; Jeremiah 48:9, but is more vivid as being more specific. The Moabites are to leave their cities and take refuge in the caves, always in Palestine the asylum of fugitives (1 Samuel 13:6; 2 Samuel 17:9), as the wild dove flies to "the clefts of the rock" (Song Song of Solomon 2:14).
Verse 28. - Dwell in the rook. Jeremiah probably thinks of the rocky defiles of the Amen, so splendidly adapted for fugitives (see Consul Wetzstein's excursus to the third edition of Delitzsch's 'Jesaja;' he speaks of perpendicular walls of rock). Like the dove (i.e. the wild dove); comp. 'Iliad,' 21:493; 'AEneid,' 5:213.
48:14-47. The destruction of Moab is further prophesied, to awaken them by national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and mediating on the terror, it will be of more use to us to keep in view the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, and to have our hearts possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to search into all the figures and expressions here used. Yet it is not perpetual destruction. The chapter ends with a promise of their return out of captivity in the latter days. Even with Moabites God will not contend for ever, nor be always wroth. The Jews refer it to the days of the Messiah; then the captives of the Gentiles, under the yoke of sin and Satan, shall be brought back by Divine grace, which shall make them free indeed.
O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock,.... Signifying hereby that they would not be in safety in their strongest and most fortified cities, which would be besieged by the enemy, and taken; and therefore are advised to leave them, and flee to the rocks and mountains, that if possible they might be safe there:
and be like the dove, that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth; which, for fear of birds of prey, makes her nest in the side of a hole, or cleft of a rock, that she and her young may be safe from them; and which being pursued by the hawk, flies into a hollow rock or cavern, as Homer (d) observes: but here it intends the place where it makes its nest; which is for the most part in deserts and rocky places, where great numbers of doves resort, and make their nests, as Diodorus Siculus (e) relates; and especially in the holes and clefts of rocks, to which the allusion is in Sol 2:14. The Targum is,
"and be as a dove that leaves her dove house, and comes down and dwells in the bottom of a pit,''
or ditch.
(d) Iliad. 21. v. 495. (e) Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 92.
and be like the dove, that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth; which, for fear of birds of prey, makes her nest in the side of a hole, or cleft of a rock, that she and her young may be safe from them; and which being pursued by the hawk, flies into a hollow rock or cavern, as Homer (d) observes: but here it intends the place where it makes its nest; which is for the most part in deserts and rocky places, where great numbers of doves resort, and make their nests, as Diodorus Siculus (e) relates; and especially in the holes and clefts of rocks, to which the allusion is in Sol 2:14. The Targum is,
"and be as a dove that leaves her dove house, and comes down and dwells in the bottom of a pit,''
or ditch.
(d) Iliad. 21. v. 495. (e) Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 92.