Here the Prophet, as he comes to the end of his prophecy, suddenly exclaims, Woe to thee! as though he had said, that words failed him to express the grievousness of God’s vengeance. There is then more force in this single expression, than if he had at large described the miseries of that nation. He then adds, The people of Chemosh have perished The Prophet again intimates, that the Moabites vainly confided in their idol, Chemosh; they thought that there would be a sure safety to them from their god, who was, as they commonly say, a tutelar god. But the Prophet says, that their superstition would avail them nothing, for they and their idol would perish together. He exults over this fictitious god, that on the other hand he might extol the power of the only true God. For there is here an implied contrast between the God of Israel and Chemosh whom the Moabites worshipped.

He then adds, Thy sons and thy daughters shall be carried away into captivity The Prophet does not seem here to continue the same subject; for he had said before that ruin or destruction was coming on the Moabites, but he now mitigates that punishment, and speaks only of exile. But as captivity is like death, as it abolishes the name of a nation, he speaks correctly and suitably. And then we must observe, that God, for a time, so executed his vengeance on the Moabites, that he left them some hope as to the future, according to what follows in the last verse —