Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1362

 are the flocks intended for slaughtering, בּהמתּכם the beasts of burden.

Verses 18-19
Elisha continued: “and this is too little for Jehovah (the comparative force of נקל is implied in the context, especially in the alternating combination of the two clauses, which is indicated by ו...ו, see Ewald, §360, c.): He will also give Moab into your hand, and ye will smite all the fortified and choice cities, fell all the good trees (fruit-trees), stop up all the springs of water, and spoil all the good fields with stones.” מבצר and מבחור are intended to produce a play upon words, through the resemblance in their sound and meaning (Ewald, §160, c.). In the announcement of the devastation of the land there is an allusion to Deu 20:19-20, according to which the Israelites were ordered to spare the fruit-trees when Canaan was taken. These instructions were not to apply to Moab, because the Moabites themselves as the arch-foes of Israel would not act in any other way with the land of Israel if they should gain the victory. הכאב, to add pain, is a poetical expression for spoiling a field or rendering it infertile through the heaping up of stones.

Verses 20-23
The water came in the morning at the time of the morning sacrifice (see 1Ki 18:36), to indicate that the Lord was once more restoring His favour to the people on account of the sacrifice presented to Him in His temple. The help of God, which preserved the Israelitish army from destruction, also prepared destruction for the Moabites. 2Ki 3:21-23. On hearing the report of the march of the allied kings, Moab had raised all the men that were capable of bearing arms, and stationed them on the frontier. In the morning, when the sun had risen above the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite to them like blood, and said: “That is blood: the (allied) kings have destroyed themselves and smitten one another; and now to the spoil, Moab!” Coming with this expectation to the Israelitish camp, they were received by the allies, who were ready for battle, and put to flight. The divine help consisted, therefore, not in a miracle which surpassed the laws of nature, but simply in the fact that the Lord God, as He had predicted through His prophet, caused the forces of nature ordained by Him to work in the predetermined manner. As the sudden supply of an abundance of water was caused in a natural way by a heavy fall of rain, so the illusion, which was so fatal to the Moabites, is also to be explained in the natural manner indicated in the text. From the reddish earth of the freshly dug trenches the