(10) Moab shall be trodden down . . .--There seems at first something like a descent from the great apocalypse of a triumph over death and sin and sorrow, to a name associated with the local victories or defeats of a remote period in the history of Israel. The inscription of the Moabite stone, in connection with Isaiah 15, helps to explain the nature of the allusion. Moab had been prominent among the enemies of Israel; the claims of Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been set up against those of Jehovah, the God of Israel (Records of the Past, xi. 166), and so the name had become representative of His enemies. There was a mystical Moab, as there was afterwards a mystical Babylon, and in Rabbinic writings a mystical Edom (i.e., Rome). The proud nation was to lie wallowing in the mire of shame, trampled on by its s on the threshing-floor is trampled by the oxen till it looks like a heap of dung. In the Hebrew word for "dunghill" (madm?nah) we may probably trace a reference to the Moabite city of that name (Jeremiah 48:2), in which Isaiah sees an unconscious prophecy of the future condition of the whole nation.

Verse 10. - In this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest. The protecting hand of God will ever be stretched out over the spiritual Zion - the Church of the Redeemed - to defend it and keep it safe throughout eternity. Moab shall be trodden down. Various reasons have been given for the selection of Moab to represent the enemies of the redeemed. Perhaps, as the Moabites were, on the whole, the bitterest of all the adversaries of the Jews (see 2 Kings 24:2; Ezekiel 25:8-11), they are regarded as the fittest representatives of the human adversaries of God. For the dung-hill; rather, in the water of a dung-pit. The image is, perhaps, selected with conscious reference to Psalm 83, where the psalmist prays that the "children of Lot" and their helpers may become "as the dung of the earth" (ver. 10).

25:9-12 With joy and praise will those entertain the glad tidings of the Redeemer, who looked for him; and with a triumphant song will glorified saints enter into the joy of their Lord. And it is not in vain to wait for him; for the mercy comes at last, with abundant recompence for the delay. The hands once stretched out upon the cross, to make way for our salvation, will at length be stretched forth to destroy all impenitent sinners. Moab is here put for all adversaries of God's people; they shall all be trodden down or threshed. God shall bring down the pride of the enemies by one humbling judgment after another. This destruction of Moab is typical of Christ's victory, and the pulling down of Satan's strong holds. Therefore, beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; for your labour is not in vain in the Lord.For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest,.... Where he will make the feast of fat things, Isaiah 25:6 even in his church, which is his resting place, and where he delights to dwell; and over whom his hand is, and abides for their protection and safeguard; and where he gives rest, as the Septuagint (k) render it; even spiritual rest to the souls of his people; and where, as the Targum has it,

"the power of the Lord is revealed;''

namely, in the preservation of his church, and in the destruction of its enemies; as follows:

and Moab shall be trodden down under him: under the Lord, and his mighty hand of power; or "under it"; under the mountain, the church; under the feet of the saints; see Malachi 4:2 or, "in his place" (l), as Jarchi and Kimchi explain it; wherever he is, or shall be found, where he lies there shall he be trodden upon. By Moab the enemies of the church are meant, and is put for them all, even all the antichristian powers, both Turks and Papists; their ruin is expressed by treading down or threshing, in allusion to the threshing of corn, as the word used mostly signifies, when the straw is bruised by the cartwheel, or the feet of oxen; or to the treading of straw in the mire, as follows:

even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill; or in "it" (m); or "in the waters of the dunghill" (n), as the Cetib; where being cast and trodden, it rots, and becomes dung; and so the Targum,

"as straw is trodden in the clay;''

Jarchi interprets it to this sense. R. Joseph Kimchi takes it to be the name of a place, Madmenah, which was one of the cities of Moab, Jeremiah 48:2.

(k) . (l) "apud se", i.e. "in loco suo", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius. (m) as the Keri or marginal reading directs it should be read. (n) in "aquis sterquilinii", De Dieu.