2 Kings 3:25

25 They destroyed the cities, and each of them threw stones to cover every good piece of land. They stopped up every spring of water and cut down every good tree. In the end, only the buildings of Kir-hareseth were left. Then men with slings surrounded [the city] and attacked it.

2 Kings 3:25 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 3:25

And they beat down the cities
Demolished the walls of them, and houses in them, wherever they came:

and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled
it;
which they had taken out of the walls and houses they pulled down; or which they picked up in the highway, as they passed along, being a stony country; or which being laid in heaps, gathered out of the fields, they took and scattered them all over them:

and they stopped all the wells of water;
with stones and dirt:

and felled all the good trees;
fruit bearing ones; (See Gill on 2 Kings 3:19),

only in Kirharaseth left they the stones thereof;
not able to demolish it, it being a strong fortified city, the principal of the kingdom, and into which the king of Moab had thrown himself, and the remains of his forces; of which see ( Isaiah 16:7 Isaiah 16:10 ) ,

howbeit, the slingers went about it, and smote it;
smote the soldiers that appeared upon the walls of it; though Kimchi, and other Jewish writers, understand it of engineers, who cast out large stones from a sort of machines then in use, to batter down and break through the walls of cities.

2 Kings 3:25 In-Context

23 "This is blood!" they exclaimed. "The kings have clashed swords and killed each other. So, to the spoil, Moab!"

24 However, when the Moabites came to Israel's camp, the Israelites attacked them, and they fled from them. So Israel went into the land and struck down the Moabites.

25 They destroyed the cities, and each of them threw stones to cover every good piece of land. They stopped up every spring of water and cut down every good tree. In the end, only the buildings of Kir-hareseth were left. Then men with slings surrounded [the city] and attacked it.

26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took 700 swordsmen with him to try to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not do it.

27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to become king in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the city wall. Great wrath was on the Israelites, and they withdrew from him and returned to their land.