Aroer - On the Arnon, due south of Dibon. If Dibon falls, the turn of Aroer will come next, and therefore its inhabitants are to be on the look out, asking for news.

O inhabitant of Aroer - See the note on Jeremiah 48:6 (note). This place, being at a greater distance, is counselled to watch for its own safety, and inquire of every passenger, What is done? that it may know when to pack up and be gone.

O inhabitant of Aroer,.... Another city that belonged to Moab, situated on the border of it towards Ammon, near the river Arnon; See Gill on Isaiah 17:2;

stand by the way, and espy; get to the road side where travellers pass, and look out for them:

ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth; whether man or woman you see fleeing, having escaped the army of the Chaldeans:

and say, what is done? by the Chaldeans; ask what cities they have taken; what progress they have made; what is done to their cities, that they flee from them? tell all the particulars of things.

O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and espy; ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?

inhabitant: Heb. inhabitress

19. Aroer-on the north bank of the Arnon, a city of Ammon (De 2:36; 3:12). As it was on "the way" of the Moabites who fled into the desert, its inhabitants "ask" what is the occasion of Moab's flight, and so learn the lot that awaits themselves (compare 1Sa 4:13, 16).

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.