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Isaiah 16 · a question people ask

Who sends the lambs in 16:1, and to whom?

In the text

The verse doesn't say who sends them: "Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion" (16:1). It says they are sent "for the ruler of the land", and where they go, "to the mountain of the daughter of Zion", but it doesn't name the ruler. These notes don't answer what the verse leaves open. Selah in 16:1 is a place; in Hebrew it is Sela, the name of the place in "took Sela by war" (2 Kings 14:7), which Brown-Driver-Briggs lists as a place "in Edom". The chapter doesn't say more.

The verses

“Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.”
Isaiah 16:1 · World English Bible
“He killed ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt, and took Sela by war, and called its name Joktheel, to this day.”
2 Kings 14:7 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 16

Isaiah 16: A harp for Moab

In 16:9-10 the battle shout that falls on Moab's harvest and the shouting that stops in its wine presses are one Hebrew word, heidad. And when the one who speaks says, "my heart sounds like a harp for Moab" (16:11), heart is me'eh, the inward parts, not lev, the usual word, which Jeremiah 48:36 has in nearly the same line.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions