The oracles in Isaiah 13-19 are geographically organized. The fist is Babylon, sometimes conceived as a “northern” nation (cf. Jeremiah 1). Philistia (14:28-32) is to the West, between Israel and the sea, and Moab and Syria (chs. 15-17) are on the east. Then Isaiah turns attention to the south, to Cush (ch, 18) and Egypt (chs. 19). North, west, east, south is the movement (compare Zephaniah 2).

The second collection of five oracles begins again with Babylon (21:9), moves east to Edom (21:11-12) and then south to Arabia (21:13-17), before returning to the northwest with Tyre (ch. 23).

Philistines and Moab often form a pair, sometimes two elements of a triad with Edom as the third (1 Samuel 12:9; 2 Samuel 8:12; Psalm 60:8; 108:9). They are a natural geographic pair, since they stand at the east and west of Israel’s land. This hints at several connections.

Philistia is west, toward the sea; Moab is east, across the river. “Between river and sea” is a common description of the land of Israel. We can say the same by talking about Israel standing between Philistia and Moab. River and sea are both Gentilic, watery environments, but they are not equivalent. Philistia toward the sea is the more purely Gentile nation. Moab is an in-between people.

Philistia is toward the sunset, Moab toward the sunrise. Philistia is evening, Moab is morning. To say that Israel sits between Moab and Philistia has a temporal dimension: Israel is set between evening and morning. It might be possible to see further connections in the imagery used to describe these two nations in Scripture. Is Philistia depicted as an “evening” people, and Moab as a “morning” people? In assessing this, we would have to recall that evening is the beginning of the day for ancient Israelites; hence, it’s not surprising that the oracle against Philistia comes before that of Moab in Isaiah 14. So, are the Philistines the Alpha enemy and Moab the Omega enemy?

We might also connect these geographic placements with the master geography laid out in the description of the Israelite camp in Numbers. Judah is the eastern tribe, and Aaron and his sons are the easternmost subclan of Levi. Ephraim is the western tribe, associated with the Gershonites. The links between Moab and Judah are many and significant: The ancestries of Moab and Judah begin in incest (Lot and his daughters; Judah with Tamar); within the narrative of Genesis, the birth of Moab and Ammon is a preview of the later children of Judah; Moab is the son of Lot’s firstborn daughter, and though Judah is not literally firstborn he becomes effectively firstborn after the fall of his older brothers Reuben, Levi, and Simeon; Moab is regularly associated with his half-brother Ammon, and Judah divides into the lines of Perez and Zerah; Ruth the Moabitess brings Moabite blood into Israel, and into the tribe of Judah in particular, becoming an ancestress of David and Jesus; Moabites and Ammonites are excluded from Israel to the tenth generation, as are bastards - like the sons of Judah. Moab is the Judah of non-Israelite nations.