2 Kings 3:25

25 And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land each man cast his stone and filled it, and they stopped all the fountains of water and felled all the good trees until they left their stones only in Kirharaseth, for the slingers went about it and smote 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 and they said, This is blood; the kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another. Now therefore, Moab, to the spoil.

24 But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites so that they fled before them, but they went forward smiting the Moabites, even in their country.

25 And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land each man cast his stone and filled it, and they stopped all the fountains of water and felled all the good trees until they left their stones only in Kirharaseth, for the slingers went about it and smote it.

26 And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was overcoming him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords to break through unto the king of Edom, but they could not.

27 Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation in Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land.