The pride of Moab - See on Isaiah 16:1 (note).

We have heard the pride of Moab,.... Israel, and all the nations round about, had heard of this, and seen or heard of many instances of it; the thing was notorious; according to Kimchi, it is the prophet that here speaks in the name of the nations; but it seems best to understand it of the Lord himself, as appears from the Jeremiah 48:30; and who here speaks in the plural number, because of the plurality of persons in the Godhead; as he afterwards does in the singular number, to denote the unity of the divine essence:

(he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart; a heap of words to express the same thing; suggesting that the instances of his pride were many, and that it was exceeding great indeed: these many words were little enough; and indeed words were wanting fully to declare it. The same was observed in Isaiah's time, and in much the same language; only more words are here used, to show that his pride was increased since that time; see Isaiah 16:6.

Jeremiah 48:29 and Jeremiah 48:30 only more fully develop the idea contained in Isaiah 16:6. Those who "heard" are the prophet and the people of God. There is an accumulation of words to describe the pride of Moab. Isaiah's expression also, עברתו לא־כן בּדּיו, is here expanded into two clauses, and Jahveh is named as the subject. Not only have the people of God perceived the pride of Moab, but God also knows his wrath. בּדּיו belongs to לא־כן as a genitive, as in Isaiah לא־כן means "not right," contrary to actual facts, i.e., untrue.

(Note: The Masoretic accentuation, according to which Athnach is placed under כּן, exhibits another view of the words in the text: this is shown by the Chaldee paraphrase, "their nobles endure not, they have not done what is right." The Masoretes took בּדּים in the sense of "staves," and took staves as a symbol of princes, as in Hosea 11:6. Luther, in his translation, "I know his anger well, that he cannot do so very much, and attempts to do more than he can," follows the Vulgate, Ego scio jactantiam ejus, et quod non sit juxta eam virtus ejus, nec juxta quod poterat conata sit facere, which again seems to have followed the lxx in taking בּדיּו for בּדּיו.)

We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart.

29. pride-(Isa 16:6, 7). Moab was the trumpeter of his own fame. Jeremiah adds "loftiness and arrogancy" to Isaiah's picture, so that Moab had not only not been bettered by the chastisement previously endured as foretold by Isaiah, but had even become worse; so that his guilt, and therefore his sentence of punishment, are increased now. Six times Moab's pride (or the synonyms) are mentioned, to show the exceeding hatefulness of his sin.

48:14-47. The destruction of Moab is further prophesied, to awaken them by national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and mediating on the terror, it will be of more use to us to keep in view the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, and to have our hearts possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to search into all the figures and expressions here used. Yet it is not perpetual destruction. The chapter ends with a promise of their return out of captivity in the latter days. Even with Moabites God will not contend for ever, nor be always wroth. The Jews refer it to the days of the Messiah; then the captives of the Gentiles, under the yoke of sin and Satan, shall be brought back by Divine grace, which shall make them free indeed.