2 Kings 3:4

4 Forsooth Mesha, king of Moab, nourished many beasts, and paid to the king of Israel an hundred thousand of lambs, and an hundred thousand wethers, with their fleeces.

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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

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

2 Kings 3:4 In-Context

2 and he did evil before the Lord, but not as his father and his mother (had done); for he took away the images of Baal, which his father had made,

3 nevertheless he cleaved to the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that made Israel to do sin (who made Israel to do sin); and he went not away from them.

4 Forsooth Mesha, king of Moab, nourished many beasts, and paid to the king of Israel an hundred thousand of lambs, and an hundred thousand wethers, with their fleeces.

5 And when Ahab was dead, he brake the bond of peace, which he had with the king of Israel. (But when Ahab died, he broke the covenant which he had with the king of Israel.)

6 Therefore king Joram went out of Samaria in that day, and numbered all Israel. (And King Joram went out of Samaria that day, and gathered together Israel's army.)