Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

HE here names other Cities; for his meaning is to bundle up all the Cities of this Country (as it were) in one fardle, that they may be thrown into the same destruction with the rest; as if he should say, Not one shall escape. Whereas he adds a little after, Therefore the harnessed of Moab: although the Hebrew particle be a showing of the cause, yet others expound it otherwise; but it is a matter of no great moment. The Prophets meaning is to show that none shall be exempted from howling, seeing the strongest and most valiant amongst them shall do it. Afterwards he shows that every one shall be so affected with his own grief, that he shall not mind his neighbour. In the 5. verse he takes to himself the person of a mourner, or a sorrowful person: but it may seem strange, yea very unfitting, that the Prophet should bewail the destruction of the Moabites, for he should rather have sorrowed at the calamity of the Church, and rejoiced at the overthrow of the enemies. But the Prophets are wont to take upon them the person of those against whom they prophesy afflictions, to the end they may represent their estate as it were upon a stage or scaffold. And thus they moved affections more, then if they had propounded the doctrine simply without this art. And yet no doubt the Prophets trembled themselves at the judgements of God, yea even at those which they threatened the wicked withal: but that which I have said is less constrained, and agrees best, as we may easily discern by common experience. He calls them fugitives which fled thence: for his meaning is that those which shall escape from Moab shall come unto Zoar, whom he compares to a heifer of three year old, which is in her full force and strength, and hath not yet brought forth, nor felt labour, nor the yoke; but fetches her frisks, and plays the wanton.