#72. The Lord’s Provision Fools the Moabites
And when all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to bear arms and older were gathered; and they stood at the border. Then they rose up early in the morning, and the sun was shining on the water; and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood. And they said, “This is blood; the kings have surely struck swords and have killed one another; now therefore, Moab, to the spoil!”
II Kings 3:21-23 NKJV
There are some portions of Scripture on which people will take polar opposite views. The account of Rahab and the spies in Joshua chapter 2 is one such account. Some have claimed Rahab’s misleading the soldiers of Jericho who came to her door was a great sin. Others, looking to Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 claim that hiding the spies and deceiving the soldiers was the very act of faith for which the Lord praised Rahab through all generations. It seems to me evident from the Lord’s work at Jericho, Ai a few chapters later, Gideon and the 300, Ehud and Eglon, and many other places that deceit in war is a providential gift of God. It does not open the door for breaking the 9th commandment but rather teaches us that the 9th commandment was never intended to forbid deceit as a strategy of war for the saving of many lives.
Our text today provides another example of the Lord using His great works as a means to judge the enemies of His people. The same water that miraculously came into the wilderness of Edom and saved the three armies was then used by God to deceive the Moabites.
Word had spread that Israel, Judah, and Edom were coming against Moab’s southern border and were suffering from exhaustion. The Moabites gathered every soldier and older man that could bear arms and went to the border to prepare for the battle. When they woke up in the morning the water they saw in the distance appeared to them to be pools and rivers of blood. Why would they make such an interpretation of the water?
We must remember two things. First, in II Chronicles 20, a few years before this event, the Moabites, Ammonites, and Mt. Seir went up to attack Jehoshaphat and Jerusalem. Instead of destroying Judah, however, the Lord caused the three armies to fight each other so that when Judah arrived on the battlefield, all the soldiers of the enemy armies were dead and Judah had nothing to do but carry away the spoil. Second, Judah, Israel, and Edom were known not to have been friends. They had fought with each other many times. The idea of these allies suddenly becoming enemies in the wilderness of Edom was easy for the Moabites to believe, especially when the same thing had happened to Moab just a few years prior.
For these reasons, when the Lord caused the Moabites to see the water as blood, they were convinced that the allies had turned on one another and a great victory was on the Moabites’ doorstep: “Moab, to the spoil!”
Those great works and miracles of the Lord that are used to the saving of many can often be used to the destruction of the enemies of the Lord. Many saw Lazarus raised from the dead in John 11 and went away to tell the Pharisees. The miracle of Christ that led to salvation for some and increase of faith for others also led to greater condemnation of the unbelievers present. They saw Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, and they rejected Him. The Lord used His great work in the wilderness of Edom to lead the Moabites to utter ruin. May we trust the Lord whose works are very great and tell of these works to the generation following.
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