2 Kings 3:4

4 And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master, and he rendered to the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thousand rams, [with] wool,

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 and doth the evil thing in the eyes of Jehovah, only not like his father, and like his mother, and he turneth aside the standing-pillar of Baal that his father made;

3 only to the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat that he caused Israel to sin he hath cleaved, he hath not turned aside from it.

4 And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master, and he rendered to the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thousand rams, [with] wool,

5 and it cometh to pass at the death of Ahab, that the king of Moab transgresseth against the king of Israel.

6 And king Jehoram goeth out in that day from Samaria, and inspecteth all Israel,