Isaiah 16:8
For the fields of Heshbon languish, and the vine of Sibmah: the lords of the heathen have broken down the principal plants thereof, they are come even unto Jazer, they wandered through the wilderness: her branches are stretched out, they are gone over the sea.
For the fields of Heshbon languish,.... Through drought; or because of the forage of the enemy, and their treading upon them; or because there were no men left to till and manure them. Of Heshbon
See Gill on "Isaiah 15:4". It seems to have been a place famous for fields and pastures, and to have been a very fruitful and well watered place; hence we read of the fish pools in Heshbon, Song of Solomon 7:4 though Aben Ezra and Kimchi think the word signifies vines, as they suppose it does in Deuteronomy 32:32:
and the vine of Sibmah; called Shebam and Shibmah, in
Numbers 32:3 thought to be the Seba of Ptolemy {e}; and seems to have been famous for vines and vineyards:
the lords of the heathen have broken down the principal plants thereof; that is, the Chaldeans and their army, and commanders and principal officers of it, dealing with them as the Turks do with vines, wherever they meet with them, destroy them; though Jarchi and Kimchi interpret all this figuratively, both here and in the above clauses, of the inhabitants of these places, the multitude of the common people, and their princes, some being killed, and others carried captive; to which sense the Targum,
"because the armies of Heshbon are spoiled, the multitude of Sebama are killed, the kings of the people have killed their rulers:''
they are come even unto Jazer; meaning either the Chaldean army, or the Moabites, who had fled hither; or rather this is to be understood of the vines of Sibmah, expressing the excellency and large spread of them, which reached even to Jazer; which, as Jerom says {f}, was fifteen miles from Heshbon, called Jaazer, Numbers 21:32:
they wandered through the wilderness; the wilderness of Moab, Deuteronomy 2:8 not the lords of the Heathen, nor the Moabites, but the vines and their branches, which crept along, and winded to and fro, as men wander about:
her branches are stretched out; that is, the branches of the vine Sibmah:
they are gone over the sea; the Dead Sea, called the sea of Jazer,
Jeremiah 48:32 or rather a lake near that city.
{e} Geograph. l. 5. c. 19.
{f} De locis Hebraicis, fol. 92. G.