(24) Kerioth.--The name, plural in form (= cities), has been identified by Mr. Porter (Five Years, &c, ii. 191-198) with Kureiyeh, a ruined town lying not far from Buzrah, identified with the Bozrah that is coupled with it here, in the Ha-ran. These are, however, some sixty miles north of Heshbon, and this has been thought adverse to the identification. On the other hand, the expression "far and near" indicates that Jeremiah takes in the more distant cities to which the power of Moab may have extended. From the mention of "the palaces of Kirioth" in Amos 2:2, it appears to have been a place of importance. Mr. Grove (art. Kerioth in Smith's Dict. Bible) suggests its possible identity with Kureiyat, not far from Dibon and Beth-meon.

Bozrah.--The name (= fortification) is familiar as belonging to the more famous city of Edom (Jeremiah 49:13). The Moabite town, identified as above with the Buzrah of the Ha-ran, appears in 1 Maccabees 5:26 as Bosora, one of the towns of Galaad or Gilead, and in Roman history as Bostra, the birthplace of the Emperor Philip, known as the Arabian.

Verse 24. - Kerioth. Perhaps a synonym of Ar, the old capital of Moab (Isaiah 15:1). Hence in Amos 2:2, "I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth." Bozrah. The capital at one time of the Edomites (see Jeremiah 49:13). The ownership of particular cities varied from. time to time in this contested region. Far or near; i.e. towards the frontier or inland.

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.And upon Kerioth,.... Which once belonged to the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15:25; from this place Judas Iscariot is by some thought to have his name; as if it was "Ish Kerioth", "a man of Kerioth". Grotius takes it to be the Goiratha of Ptolemy:

and upon Bozrah; not in Idumea, but in Moab; the same with Bezer, Joshua 21:36;

and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, for and near; all the rest of the cities not named, whether nearer or farther off from Aroer.