2 Kings 3:4

4 King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder. He used to pay the king of Israel an annual tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.

2 Kings 3:4 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 3:4

And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep master
With which his country abounded; he kept great numbers of them, and shepherds to take care of them; he traded in them, and got great riches by them; his substance chiefly consisted in them:

and rendered unto the king of Israel:
either as a present, or as an annual tribute:

an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool;
that is, upon them, unshorn, and so the more valuable; and it was usual for tributary nations to pay their tribute to those to whom they were subject in such commodities which they most abounded with; so the Cappadocians, as Strabo ^F3 relates, used to pay, as a tribute to the Persians, every year, 1500 horses and 2000 mules, and five myriads of sheep, or 50,000; and formerly, Pliny ^F4 says, the only tribute was from the pastures.

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 Geograph. l. 11. p. 362.
F4 Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 3.

2 Kings 3:4 In-Context

2 He did what was evil in the LORD ’s sight, but not to the same extent as his father and mother. He at least tore down the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had set up.

3 Nevertheless, he continued in the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had committed and led the people of Israel to commit.

4 King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder. He used to pay the king of Israel an annual tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.

5 But after Ahab’s death, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

6 So King Joram promptly mustered the army of Israel and marched from Samaria.