(9) Distress not the Moabites . . . I have given Ar unto the children of Lot.--The children of Lot, like those of Ishmael and Esau, had their earthly inheritance before the children of Abraham.

Verse 9. - The Moabites, being the descendants of Lot, and so allied by race to the Israelites, the latter were commanded to pass through their country without offering them any injury or assault. Ar, a border-town of Moab (Numbers 21:15), here put for the country itself. It is the Areopolis of the Greeks, and was, as Jerome tells us, destroyed in a single night by an earthquake. A hill with ruins a short distance southwest from Ara'ir, is supposed to be its site.

2:8-23 We have the origin of the Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites. Moses also gives an instance older than any of these; the Caphtorims drove the Avims out of their country. These revolutions show what uncertain things wordly possessions are. It was so of old, and ever will be so. Families decline, and from them estates are transferred to families that increase; so little continuance is there in these things. This is recorded to encourage the children of Israel. If the providence of God has done this for Moabites and Ammonites, much more would his promise do it for Israel, his peculiar people. Cautions are given not to meddle with Moabites and Ammonites. Even wicked men must not be wronged. God gives and preserves outward blessings to wicked men; these are not the best things, he has better in store for his own children.And the Lord said unto me,.... When upon the borders of Moab:

distress not the Moabites, neither contend with than in battle; besiege not any of their cities, nor draw them into a battle, or provoke them to fight:

for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; at least not as yet, the measure of their sins not being fully up, and the time of their punishment not come; otherwise in David's time they were subdued, and became tributaries to him, and the Edomites also, 2 Samuel 8:2,

because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession; so the Moabites were, they sprung from Moab, a son of Lot by his firstborn daughter, Genesis 19:37. Ar was the metropolis of Moab, called Ar of Moab, Isaiah 15:1 and is here put for the whole country of Moab; so Aben Ezra interprets it of Moab. Jarchi says it is the name of the province; in the Septuagint version it called Aroer.