Who are the Moabites??

Click here to read Isaiah 16

Chapter 16 continues the theme from Isaiah 15, God's concern for the Moabites.  We might wonder why?  One response to that question comes from the Book of Ruth.  If you have never read this book, click on the link in the previous sentence.  Go ahead, I will wait.

Okay, maybe trying to go through Isaiah is enough, so let me give you a quick overview.  There was a woman Naomi.  She was a good Jewish woman who lived in Bethlehem (which means "House of Bread"), only at that time ironically enough, there was NO bread at all...there was a drought and a famine.  So Naomi and her family packed up the family camels and moved to Moab, which is east of the Promised Land, on the other side of the Dead Sea.  Now, the Moabites were not exactly seen as the most upright or righteous people.  In fact, most Jewish people looked down on them.  There is a connection to Samaritans in the time of Jesus here.  The Moabites were seen as people of ill-repute and of loose morals.  I will let your imagination fill in the rest.

One of Naomi's son's marries Ruth, a Moabite woman.  To make a long story short, Ruth's love for Naomi (the word is hesed, or Lovingkindness) causes Ruth to take care of Naomi throughout the whole book.  Ruth is a hero and loved...this Moabite woman.

For God to be concerned about the Moabites becomes this wonderful connection and understanding of who God is.  And Isaiah picks up on that.

Here is my question: who are the Moabites today?  Who are the people who we look down upon and push to the fringes?  I encourage you to spend sometime thinking about this and then re-read Isaiah 16 with our present day Moabites in mind.

May the traces of God's grace surround you today.