Psalm 108:9

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 9. Moab, who had enticed Israel to impurity, is made a vessel for its purifying. Edom, descendant of him who despised his birthright, is deprived of his independence; -- for "flinging a shoe" was a sign of the transference of a prior claim on land. Ruth 4:7 . --William Kay.

Verse 9. Moab is my washpot. The office of washing the feet was in the East commonly performed by slaves, and the meanest of the family, as appears from what Abigail said to David when he took her to wife, "Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord", 1 Samuel 25:41 ; and from the fact of our Saviour washing his disciples' feet, to give them an example of humility, John 8:5 . The word nipthr, used in this last passage, signifies in general a washing pot, and is put for the word podoniptron, the term which the Greeks, in strict propriety of speech, applied to a vessel for washing the feet. As this office was servile, so the vessels employed for this purpose were a mean part of household stuff. Gataker and Le Clerc illustrate this text from an anecdote related by Herodotus, concerning Amasis, king of Egypt, who expressed the meanness of his own origin by comparing himself to a pot for washing the feet in, (Herod. Lib. 2. c. 172). When, therefore, it is said, "Moab is my washing pot", the complete and servile subjection of Moab to David is strongly marked. This is expressed, not by comparing Moab to a slave who performs the lowest offices, as presenting to his master the basin for washing his feet, but by comparing him to the mean utensil itself. See 2 Samuel 8:2 1 Chronicles 18:1-2 , 12-13. --James Anderson's Note to Calvin on Isaiah 60:1-12 .

Verse 9. Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast my shoe. This somewhat difficult expression may be thus explained. Moab and Edom were to be reduced to a state of lowest vassalage to the people of God. The one was to be like a pot or tub fit only for washing the feet in, while the other was to be like the domestic slave standing by to receive the sandals thrown to him by the person about to perform his ablutions, that he might first put them by in a safe place, and then come and wash his master's feet. -- "Rays from the East."

Verse 9. Over Edom will I cast my shoe. David overthrew their army in the "Valley of Salt", and his general, Joab, following up the victory, destroyed nearly the whole male population ( 1 Kings 11:15-16 ), and placed Jewish garrisons in all the strongholds of Edom ( 2 Samuel 8:13-14 ). In honour of that victory the Psalmist warrior may have penned the words in Psalms 60:8 , "Over Edom will I cast my shoe." - -J.L. Porter in, "Smith's Dictionary of the Bible."