John Gill Commentary Isaiah 16

Send you the lamb to the ruler of the land
Or tribute, as the Targum rightly interprets it. The Moabites, being conquered by David, paid tribute to him (2 Samuel 8:2). When the kingdom was divided in Rehoboam's time, the tribute was paid to the kings of Israel, which continued till the times of Ahab, when the Moabites rebelled, and refused to pay it (2 Kings 3:4, 2 Kings 3:5).

And this tribute, as appears from the passage now referred to, has been paid in lambs and rams; which now they are bid to pay to the king of Judah, David's lawful heir and successor in his kingdom; who is supposed to be meant by the ruler of the land, that is, of the land of Judah, whose reigning king at this time was Hezekiah; but rather by "the ruler of the land" is meant the king of Moab, for the words may be rendered, more agreeably to the language and the accents, "send you the lamb" (or lambs, the singular for the plural), "O ruler of the land"^F20; though others, "send you the lamb of the ruler of the land"^F21; that is either, O king of Moab send the tribute that is due; or you people of the land send the tribute which your ruler owes to the king of Judah; so Jarchi understands it of the king of Moab.

Some indeed expound the ruler of the land of God himself, who is the Governor of the world; and take the sense to be, that the Moabites are bid to send a lamb, or lambs, for sacrifice, to the God of the whole earth, in order to appease him, and atone for their sins; which is said either seriously, as some think, this being to answer a good purpose, or ironically, as others, it being now too late; but the sense given is the best.

In the Talmud^F23 it is applied to Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of the land, who came to the mount of the daughter of Zion, by the way of rocks and mountains. The Targum applies it to the Messiah, paraphrasing it thus, ``they shall be bringing tributes to the Christ of Israel, who is strong over them.'' Jerom interprets it of Christ, the Lamb of God, the ruler of the world, or who was to be sacrificed to the ruler of the world; who descended from Ruth, the Moabitess, who he supposes is meant by the rock of the wilderness, as he renders the next clause:

from Sela to the wilderness, unto the mount the daughter of Zion :
According to Kimchi, and others, Sela was the chief city of the kingdom of Moab. The word signifies a rock; it is the same with Petra^F24, the chief city of Arabia, and from which Arabia Petraea had its name. Some take it to be Selah, the chief city of Edom, afterwards called Joktheel (2 Kings 14:7). It was a frontier city, and lay upon the borders of Moab and Edom to the south; as the wilderness of Jordan was on the border of Moab to the north, and is thought to be here meant; or, according to Vitringa, the plains of Jericho, the same with the wilderness of Judea, where John the Baptist came preaching; which lay in the way from Sela or Petra, the chief city in Moab, unto Jerusalem. Strabo^F25 says of Petra, the metropolis of the Nabataeans, that it lies in a plain, surrounded with rocks and precipices, and within it fountains and gardens, and without it a large country, for the most part desert, especially towards Judea, and from hence it is a journey of three or four days to Jericho; and so the sense is, send the lambs, or the tribute, from Sela or Petra, the chief city of Moab; send them, I say, to the wilderness of Judea, or by the way of that, even to Mount Zion or Jerusalem, the metropolis of Judea, and the seat of the king of it.

FOOTNOTES:

• F20: (Ura lvwm rk wxlv) "mittite agnum, dominator terrae", Montanus; so Luther; which is approved by Reinbeck de Accent. Heb. p. 395.
• F21: "Mittite agnum dominatoris terrae", Pagninus, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
• F23: T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 96. 2. & Gloss. in ib.
• F24: Joseph. Antiqu. l. 4. c. 4. sect. 7. Ptolem. Geogr. l. 5. c. 17. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28.
• F25: Geograph. l. 16. p. 536. Ed. Casaub.

For it shall be Or, "otherwise it shall be" ^F26 ; if you do not pay this tribute: [that] as a wandering bird cast out of the nest : or, "as a wandering bird, the nest sent out": that is, as a bird that has forsaken its nest, and wanders about, and its young ones are turned out of the nest, scarcely fledged, and unable to shift for themselves, but flutter about here and there, trembling and frightened, see (Proverbs 26:2) : [so] the daughters of Moab shall be at the fords of Arnon : turned out of their houses, wandering up and down, not knowing where to go; unable to help themselves, and in the utmost fright and consternation, fleeing to the very borders of their land, as the fords of Arnon were, see (Numbers 21:13Numbers 21:14) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F26: (hyhw) "alioqui", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Take counsel, execute judgment
This refers either to what goes before, that they would take the counsel given, and do that which was just and right, by paying tribute to the king of Judah; or to what follows, that they would enter into a consultation, the king of Moab with his nobles, and resolve upon what was right, and do it, by protecting and harbouring the distressed Jews, who would flee unto them from the enemy: make your shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday ;
a time of the greatest heat, to which the Assyrian army, for its force and fury, and the mischief done by it, is compared: and the Moabites they are advised to make a shadow, as large and as strong as the dark night, that is, to protect the Jews in their distress, and to refresh and comfort them under it; see (Isaiah 4:6) (Isaiah 25:4Isaiah 25:5) : hide the outcasts ;
such as were driven out of their land through the fury and persecution of the enemy, receive and conceal, as Rahab did the spies: do not betray him who wanders ;
from his native place, as a bird from its nest, being forced to it; such an one, or as many as may be, in such a case, do not discover them where they are, or betray them, and deliver them up into the hands of their enemy.

Let mine outcasts dwell with thee whom God had cast out, but who were the Lord's people, and whom he owns as such, though cast out by the enemy, or obliged to flee, and quit their country; let these be sojourners in your land; let them continue awhile there; let them dwell privately and peaceably:

Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler : that is, O king of Moab, or kingdom of Moab, as the Targum, hide and protect the Jews that shall flee to you for shelter, from the face of the spoiler of their land and substance, Sennacherib king of Assyria; and, to encourage them to do these things, it is suggested that they would not be long troublesome to them, and would quickly be in a capacity of requiting them, and of being serviceable to them in like distress:

for the extortioner is at an end ; or "the squeezer", or "wringer out" ^F1 ; that oppressed them, and wrung their property out of their hands; that milked them out of their substance, and even sucked their blood; meaning the Assyrian monarch, whose time was short, and an end was soon put to all his schemes and oppressions:

the spoiler ceaseth : out of the land, being obliged to depart out of it:

the oppressors are consumed out of the land : the Assyrian army, and its officers, who were all consumed in one night by an angel, (2 Kings 19:35) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: (Umh) "expressor", Pagninus, Montanus; emunctor, [vel] emulsor", Vatablus.

And in mercy shall the throne be established That is, the throne of Hezekiah, and his government over Judah, which was more firmly settled and established after the overthrow of the Assyrian army, through the mercy of God vouchsafed to him, and on account of the mercy he exercised among his subjects, see (Proverbs 20:28) . Hezekiah was a type of Christ, and his throne typical of his, and the ultimate view of the prophecy may be to the stability of the kingdom of Christ; so the Targum, ``then the Christ of Israel, his throne shall be established in goodness:''

and he shall sit upon it in truth ; which does not so much intend the reality of his sitting there, as his continuance, signified by sitting, and the constancy and stability of his reign, or his governing with faithfulness and truth; in the tabernacle of David ; or "tent"; meaning his palace, or house in Jerusalem, alluding to his having been a shepherd before he was a king, or referring to the unsettled state of David's house; this was typical of the church of God, where Christ sits and reigns as King, see (Amos 9:11) ; the Targum is, ``in the city of David;'' Jerusalem, as Aben Ezra:

judging and seeking judgment ; acting the part of a righteous, faithful, and diligent Judge; seeking to do justice to the poor and needy, and searching into the cause that comes before him, to find out, and take the right side of it: and hasting righteousness ; not delaying justice, protracting a cause, deferring the sentence, and the execution of it, but dispatching the whole as speedily as may be; all which characters, though they may be found in Hezekiah, yet are much more eminently in Christ.