Text -- Zephaniah 2:11-15 (NET)

2:11 The Lord will terrify them, for he will weaken all the gods of the earth. All the distant nations will worship the Lord in their own lands. 2:12 “You Ethiopians will also die by my sword!” 2:13 The Lord will attack the north and destroy Assyria. He will make Nineveh a heap of ruins; it will be as barren as the desert. 2:14 Flocks and herds will lie down in the middle of it, as well as every kind of wild animal. Owls will sleep in the tops of its support pillars; they will hoot through the windows. Rubble will cover the thresholds; even the cedar work will be exposed to the elements. 2:15 This is how the once-proud city will end up– the city that was so secure. She thought to herself, “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live! Everyone who passes by her taunts her and shakes his fist.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Zep 2:11

Take away all their sacrifices and drink-offerings.

Wesley: Zep 2:11

Idols of those lands.

Wesley: Zep 2:11

Not only at Jerusalem, but every where.

Wesley: Zep 2:12

The Chaldeans are called God's sword; because God employed them.

Wesley: Zep 2:13

God.

Wesley: Zep 2:13

Assyria, which lay northward of Judea, and due north from Babylon.

Wesley: Zep 2:14

All sorts of beasts which are found in those countries.

Wesley: Zep 2:14

A bird that delights in desolate places.

Wesley: Zep 2:15

So the prophet triumphs over her.

Wesley: Zep 2:15

None like me, or that can contend with me.

JFB: Zep 2:11

Bring low by taking from the idols their former fame; as beasts are famished by their food being withheld. Also by destroying the kingdoms under the tutelage of idols (Psa 96:4; Isa 46:1).

JFB: Zep 2:11

Who have their existence only on earth, not in heaven as the true God.

JFB: Zep 2:11

Each in his own Gentile home, taught by the Jews in the true religion: not in Jerusalem alone shall men worship God, but everywhere (Psa 68:29-30; Mal 1:11; Joh 4:21; 1Co 1:2; 1Ti 2:8). It does not mean, as in Isa 2:2; Mic 4:1-2; Zec 8:22; Zec 14:16 that they shall come from their several places to Jerusalem to worship [MAURER].

JFB: Zep 2:11

That is, all the maritime regions, especially the west, now being fulfilled in the gathering in of the Gentiles to Messiah.

JFB: Zep 2:12

Fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar (God's sword, Isa 10:5) conquered Egypt, with which Ethiopia was closely connected as its ally (Jer 46:2-9; Eze 30:5-9).

JFB: Zep 2:12

Literally, "They." The third person expresses estrangement; while doomed before God's tribunal in the second person, they are spoken of in the third as aliens from God.

JFB: Zep 2:13

Here he passes suddenly to the north. Nineveh was destroyed by Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, 625 B.C. The Scythian hordes, by an inroad into Media and thence in the southwest of Asia (thought by many to be the forces described by Zephaniah, as the invaders of Judea, rather than the Chaldeans), for a while interrupted Cyaxares' operations; but he finally succeeded. Arbaces and Belesis previously subverted the Assyrian empire under Sardanapalus (that is, Pul?),877 B.C.

JFB: Zep 2:14

Of sheep; answering to "beasts" in the parallel clause. Wide pastures for sheep and haunts for wild beasts shall be where once there was a teeming population (compare Zep 2:6). MAURER, needlessly for the parallelism, makes it "flocks of savage animals."

JFB: Zep 2:14

That is, beasts of the earth (Gen 1:24). Not as ROSENMULLER, "all kinds of beasts that form a nation," that is, gregarious beasts (Pro 30:25-26).

JFB: Zep 2:14

Rather, the "pelican" (so Psa 102:6; Isa 34:11, Margin).

JFB: Zep 2:14

(Isa 14:23). MAURER translates, "the hedgehog"; HENDERSON, "the porcupine."

JFB: Zep 2:14

Rather, "the capitals of her columns," namely, in her temples and palaces [MAURER]. Or, "on the pomegranate-like knops at the tops of the houses" [GROTIUS].

JFB: Zep 2:14

The desert-frequenting birds' "voice in the windows" implies desolation reigning in the upper parts of the palaces, answering to "desolation . . . in the thresholds," that is, in the lower.

JFB: Zep 2:14

Laying the cedar wainscoting on the walls, and beams of the ceiling, bare to wind and rain, the roof being torn off, and the windows and doors broken through. All this is designed as a consolation to the Jews that they may bear their calamities patiently, knowing that God will avenge them.

JFB: Zep 2:15

Nothing then seemed more improbable than that the capital of so vast an empire, a city sixty miles in compass, with walls one hundred feet high, and so thick that three chariots could go abreast on them, and with fifteen hundred towers, should be so totally destroyed that its site is with difficulty discovered. Yet so it is, as the prophet foretold.

JFB: Zep 2:15

This peculiar phrase, expressing self-gratulation as if peerless, is plainly adopted from Isa 47:8. The later prophets, when the spirit of prophecy was on the verge of departing, leaned more on the predictions of their predecessors.

JFB: Zep 2:15

In astonishment at a desolation so great and sudden (1Ki 9:8); also in derision (Job 27:23; Lam 2:15; Eze 27:36).

Clarke: Zep 2:11

He will famish all the gods of the earth - They shall have no more sacrifices; their worship shall be entirely destroyed. Idolaters supposed that their gods actually fed on the fumes and spirituous exhalations that arose from the burnt-offerings which they made unto their idols. It is in reference to this opinion that the Lord says, "He will famish all the gods of the land."

Clarke: Zep 2:12

Ye Ethiopians also - Nebuchadnezzar subdued these. See Jer 46:2, Jer 46:9; Eze 30:4, Eze 30:10. See also on Amo 9:7 (note).

Clarke: Zep 2:13

He will - destroy Assyria - He will overthrow the empire, and Nineveh, their metropolitan city. See on Jonah and Nahum.

Clarke: Zep 2:14

And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her - Nineveh was so completely destroyed, that its situation is not at present even known. The present city of Mossoul is supposed to be in the vicinity of the place where this ancient city stood

The cormorant קאת kaath ; and the bittern, קפד kippod . These Newcome translates, "The pelican and the porcupine.

Clarke: Zep 2:14

Their voice shall sing in the windows - The windows shall be all demolished; wild fowl shall build their nests in them, and shall be seen coming from their sills, and the fine cedar ceilings shall be exposed to the weather, and by and by crumble to dust. See the note on Isa 34:11-14 (note), where nearly the same terms are used

I have in another place introduced a remarkable couplet quoted by Sir W. Jones from a Persian poet, which speaks of desolation in nearly the same terms

"The spider holds the veil in the palace of Caesar

The owl stands sentinel in the watchtower of Afrasiab."

Clarke: Zep 2:15

This is the rejoicing city - The city in which mirth, jocularity, and pleasure, reigned without interruption

Clarke: Zep 2:15

And wag his hand - Will point her out as a mark and monument of Divine displeasure.

Calvin: Zep 2:11

He proceeds with the same subject,—that God would show his power in aiding his people. But he calls him a terrible God, who had for a time patiently endured the wantonness of his enemies, and thus became despised by them: for the ungodly, we know, never submit to God unless they are constrained by his hand; and then they are not bent so as willingly to submit to his authority; but when forced they are silent. ¹⁰⁰ This is what the Prophet means in these words; as though he had said, that the wicked now mock God, as they disregard his power, but that they shall find how terrible an avenger of his people he is, so that they would have to dread him. And then he compares the superstitions of the nations with true religion; as though he had said, that this would be to the Jews as a reward for their piety, inasmuch as they worshipped the only true God, and that all idols would be of no avail against the help of God. And this was a necessary admonition; for the ungodly seemed to triumph for a time, not only over a conquered people, but over God himself, and thus gloried in their superstitious and vain inventions. The Prophet, therefore, confirms their desponding minds; for God, he says, will at length consume all the gods of the nations

The verb רזה , reze, means strictly to make lean or to famish, but is to be taken here metaphorically, as signifying to consume. God then will famish all the inventions of the nations: and he alludes to that famine which idols had occasioned through the whole world; as though he had said, that God’s glory would shortly appear, which would exterminate whatever glory the false gods had obtained among them, so that it would melt away like fatness.

He at last adds, that the remotest nations would become suppliants to God; for by saying, adore him shall each from his place, ¹⁰¹ he doubtless means, that however far off the countries might be, the distance would be no hindrance to God’s name being celebrated, when his power became known to remote lands. And, for the same reason, he mentions the islands of the nations, that is, countries beyond the sea: for the Hebrews, as it has been elsewhere observed, call those countries islands which are far distant, and divided by the sea. ¹⁰² In short, the Prophet shows, that the redemption of the people would be so wonderful, that the fame of it would reach the farthest bounds of the earth, and constrain foreign nations to give glory to the true God, and that it would dissipate all the mists of superstition, so that idols would be exposed to scorn and contempt. It follows—

Calvin: Zep 2:12

The Prophet extends farther the threatened vengeance, and says, that God would also render to the Ethiopians the reward which they deserved; for they had also harassed the chosen people. But if God punished that nation, how could Ammon and Moab hope to escape? For how could God spare so great a cruelty, since he would visit with punishment the remotest nations? For the hatred of the Moabites and of the Ammonites, as we have said, was less excusable, because they were related to the children of Abraham. They ought, on this account, to have mitigated their fierceness: besides, vicinity ought to have rendered them more humane. But as they exceeded other nations in cruelty, a heavier punishment awaited them. Now this comparison was intended for this end—that the Jews might know that God would be inexorable towards the Moabites, by whom they had been so unjustly harassed, since even the Ethiopians would be punished, who yet were more excusable on account of their distance.

As to the words, some regard the demonstrative pronoun המה , eme, they, as referring to the Babylonians, and others, to the Moabites. I prefer to understand it of the Moabites, if we read, like them, or with them, as these interpreters consider it: for they regard the particle את , at, with, or כ , caph, like, to be understood, Ye Ethiopians shall be slain by my sword like them, or with them. It would in this case doubtless apply to the Moabites. But it seems to me that the sentence is irregular, even ye Ethiopians, and then, they shall be slain by any sword. The Prophet begins the verse in the second person, summoning the Ethiopians to appear before God’s tribunal; he afterwards adds in the third person, they shall be slain by my sword. ¹⁰³

God calls whatever evils were impending over the Ethiopians his sword; for though they were destroyed by the Chaldeans yet it was done under the guidance of God himself. The Chaldeans made war under his authority, as the Assyrians did, who had been previously employed by him to execute his vengeance. It follows—

Calvin: Zep 2:13

The Prophet proceeds here to the Assyrians, whom we know to have been special enemies to the Church of God. For the Moabites and the Ammonites were fans only, as we have elsewhere seen, as they could not do much harm by their own strength. Hence they stirred up the Assyrians, they stirred up the Ethiopians and remote nations. The meaning, then, is, that no one of all the enemies of the Church would be left unpunished by God, as every one would receive a reward for his cruelty. He speaks now of God in the third person; but in the last verse God himself said, that the Ethiopians would be slain by his sword. The Prophet adds here, He will extend his hand to the north; that is, God will not complete his judgments on the Ethiopians; but he will go farther, even to Nineveh and to all the Assyrians.

Nineveh, we know, was the metropolis of the empire, before the Assyrians were conquered by the Babylonians. Thus Babylon then recovered the sovereignty which it had lost; and Nineveh, though not wholly demolished, was yet deprived of its ruling power, and gradually lost its name and its wealth, until it was reduced into a waste; for the building of Ctesiphon, as we have elsewhere seen, proved its ruin. But the Prophet, no doubt, proceeds here to administer comfort to the Jews, lest they should despair, while the Lord did not interfere. And the extension of the hand means as though he said, that his own time is known to the Lord, and that he would put forth his power when needful. Assyria was north as to Judea: hence he says, to the north will the Lord extend his hand, and will destroy Assyria; he will make Nineveh a desolation, that it may be like the desert. It follows—

Calvin: Zep 2:14

The Prophet describes here the state of the city and the desolation of the country. He says, that the habitations of flocks would be in the midst of the city Nineveh. The city, we know, was populous; but while men were so many, there was no place for flocks, especially in the middle of a city so celebrated. Hence no common change is here described by the Prophet, when he says, that flocks would lie down in the middle of Nineveh; and he adds, all wild beasts. For beasts, which seek seclusion and shun the sight of men, are wont to come forth, when they find a country desolate and deserted; and they range then at large, as it is the case after a slaughter in war; and when any region is emptied of its inhabitants, the wolves, the lions, and other wild beasts, roam here and there at full liberty. So the Prophet says, that wild beasts would come from other parts and remote places, and find a place where Nineveh once stood. ¹⁰⁴ He adds that the bitterns, or the storks or the cuckoos, and similar wild birds would be there. ¹⁰⁵ As to their various kinds, I make no laborious research; for it is enough to know the Prophet’s design: besides, the Jews themselves, who boldly affirm that either the bittern or the stork is meant, yet adduce nothing that is certain. What, in short, this description means, is—that the place, which before a vast multitude of men inhabited, would become so forsaken, that wild beasts and nocturnal birds would be its only inhabitants.

But we must bear in mind what I have stated, that all these things were set before the Jews, that they might patiently bear their miseries, understanding that God would become their defender. For this is the only support that remains for us under very grievous evils, as Paul reminds us in the first chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians; for he says, that the time will come when the Lord shall give to us relief and refreshment, and that he will visit our adversaries with punishment 2Th 1:6.

The Prophet mentions especially Nineveh, that the Jews might know that there is nothing so great and splendid in the world which God does not esteem of less consequence than the salvation of his Church, as it is said in Isaiah, I will give Egypt as thy ransom. So God threatens the wealthiest city, that he might show how much he loved his chosen people. And the Jews could not have attributed this to their own worthiness; but the cause of so great a love depended on their gratuitous adoption. It afterwards follows—

Calvin: Zep 2:15

He seems to have added this by way of anticipation, lest the magnificent splendor of the city Nineveh should frighten the Jews, as though it were exempt from all danger. The Prophet therefore reminds them here, that though Nineveh was thus proud of its wealth, it could not yet escape the hand of God; nay, he shows that the greatness, on account of which Nineveh extolled itself, would be the cause of its ruin; for it would cast itself down by its own pride: as a wall, when it swells, will not long stand; so also men, when they inwardly swell, and vent their own boastings, burst; and though no one pushes them down, they fall of themselves. Such a destruction the Prophet denounces on the Ninevites and the Assyrians.

This, he says, is the exulting city, which sat in confidence. Isaiah reprobates in nearly the same words the pride of Babylon: but what Isaiah said of Babylon our Prophet justly transfers here to Nineveh. But he no doubt had respect to the Jews, and exhibits Nineveh in its state of ruin, lest the power of that city should dazzle their eyes; for we are seized with wonder, when anything grand and splendid presents itself to us. Here then Zephaniah makes a representation of Nineveh and sets it before the Jews: Behold, he says, ye see this city full of exultation; ye also see that it rests as in a state of safety; for it is conscious of no fear; it regards itself exempt from the common lot of men, as though it was built in the clouds. This city, he says, is above all others celebrated; but let not frail and evanescent splendor terrify you; for God will doubtless in his own time overthrow it and reduce it to nothing.

Let us also in the meantime observe what I have lately referred to,—that the cause of the ruin of Nineveh is described, which was, that it had promised to itself a perpetuity in the world. But let us remember, that in this city is presented to us an example, which belongs in common to all nations,—that God cannot endure the presumption of men, when inflated by their own greatness and power, they do not think themselves to be men, nor humble themselves in a way suitable to the condition of men, but forget themselves, as though they could exalt themselves above the heavens.

But it is necessary to examine the words: Nineveh said in her heart, I, and besides me no other. By these words the Prophet means, that Nineveh was so blinded by its splendor that it now defied every change of fortune. Had Babylon spoken thus, it would have been no wonder, for it had taken from Nineveh its sovereignty. But we see that the same pride infatuates people as well as superior kings; for each thinks himself to be great alone, and when he compares himself with others, he looks on them as far below him, as though they were placed beneath his feet. Thus then the Prophet shows in few words what was the cause of the ruin of Nineveh: it thought that its condition on the earth was fixed and perpetual. If then we desire to be protected by God’s hand, let us bear in mind what our condition is, and daily, yea, hourly prepare ourselves for a change, except God be pleased to sustain us. Our stability is to depend only on the aid of God, and from consciousness of our infirmity, to tremble in ourselves, lest a forgetfulness of our state should creep in.

He afterwards adds, How has it become a desolation? The Prophet accommodates his words to the capacities of men: for the ruin of Nineveh might have appeared incredible. Hence the Prophet by a question rouses the minds of the faithful, that they might not doubt the truth of what God declared, for he would work in an extraordinary manner. This how then intimates, that the Jews ought not to be incredulous, while thinking that Nineveh was on all sides fortified, so as to prevent the occurrence of anything disastrous: for God would, in a wonderful manner and beyond what is usual, overthrow it. How, then, has it become a desolation, a resting-place for beasts?

He then subjoins, Every one who passes by will hiss and shake his hand. The Prophet seems to point out the future reproach of Nineveh, and to confirm also by a different mode of speaking what he had before said, that its ruin would be wonderful; for the shaking of the hand and hissing are marks of reproach: Behold Nineveh, which so much flattered itself! we now see only its sad ruins. The Prophet, I have no doubt, means here by hissing and the shaking of the hind, that Nineveh would become an ignominious spectacle to all people: and the same mode of speaking often occurs in the Prophets. All shall hiss at thee; that is, I will make thee a reproach and a disgrace. Then the Prophet, as I have already said, still declares the same truths that the ruin of Nineveh would be like a miracle; for all those who pass by would be amazed; as though he had said, Behold, they will hiss—What is this? and then they will shake the hand—What can be firm in this world? We see the principal seat of empire demolished, and differing nothing from a desert. We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet.

As this doctrine is also necessary for us at this day, we must notice the circumstances to which we have referred. If, then, our enemies triumph now, and their haughtiness is intolerable, let us know, that the sooner the vengeance of God will overtake them; if they are become insensible in their prosperity, and secure, and despise all dangers, they thus provoke God’s wrath, and especially if to their pride and hardness they add cruelty, so as basely to persecute the Church of God, to spoil, to plunder, and to slay his people, as we see them doing. Since then our enemies are so wanton, we may see as in a mirror their near destruction, such as is foretold by the Prophet: for he spoke not only of his own age, but designed to teach us, by the prophetic spirit, how dear to God is the safety of his Church; and the future lot of the ungodly till the end of the world will no doubt be such as Nineveh is described here to have been that though they swell with pride for a time, and promise themselves every success against the innocent, God will yet put a stop to their insolence and check their cruelty, when the proper time shall come. I shall not today begin the third chapter, for it contains a new subject.

Defender: Zep 2:13

Mighty Assyria and its magnificent capital of Nineveh, the greatest in the world for many years, were still powerful in the time of Zephaniah. God, however, soon used Babylon - allied with the Medes and Scythians - to destroy it, just as Zephaniah had prophesied. The region has been "dry like a wilderness" ever since. The entire book of Nahum was likewise directed against Assyria."

TSK: Zep 2:11

for : Deu 32:38; Hos 2:17; Zec 13:2

famish : Heb. make lean

and men : Psa 2:8-12, Psa 22:27-30, Psa 72:8-11, Psa 72:17, Psa 86:9, Psa 97:6-8, Psa 117:1, Psa 117:2, Psa 138:4; Isa 2:2-4, Isa 11:9, Isa 11:10; Mic 4:1-3; Zec 2:11, Zec 8:20,Zec 8:23, Zec 14:9-21; Mal 1:11; Joh 4:21-23; 1Ti 2:8; Rev 11:15

the isles : Gen 10:5; Isa 24:14-16, Isa 42:4, Isa 42:10, Isa 49:1

TSK: Zep 2:12

Ethiopians : Isa 18:1-7, Isa 20:4, Isa 20:5, Isa 43:3; Jer 46:9, Jer 46:10; Eze 30:4-9

my : Psa 17:13; Isa 10:5, Isa 13:5; Jer 47:6, Jer 47:7, Jer 51:20-23

TSK: Zep 2:13

he will : Psa 83:8, Psa 83:9; Isa 10:12, Isa 10:16, Isa 11:11; Ezek. 31:3-18

will make : Nah 1:1, Nah 2:10,Nah 2:11, Nah 3:7, Nah 3:15, Nah 3:18, Nah 3:19; Zec 10:10,Zec 10:11

TSK: Zep 2:14

flocks : Zep 2:6; Isa 13:19-22, Isa 34:11-17; Rev 18:2

cormorant : or, pelican

upper lintels : or, knops, or chapiters, Amo 9:1

for he shall uncover : or, when he hath uncovered

the cedar : Jer 22:14

TSK: Zep 2:15

the rejoicing : Isa 10:12-14, Isa 22:2, Isa 47:7; Rev 18:7-10

I am : Isa 47:8; Eze 28:2, Eze 28:9, Eze 29:3

how is : Isa 14:4, Isa 14:5; Lam 1:1, Lam 2:1; Rev 18:10-19

every : 1Ki 9:7, 1Ki 9:8; Job 27:23; Psa 52:6, Psa 52:7; Lam 2:15; Eze 27:36; Nah 3:19; Mat 27:39

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Zep 2:11

The Lord will be terrible unto - (upon) them that is, upon Moab and Ammon, and yet not in themselves only, but as instances of His just judgment. Whence it follows, "For He will famish all the gods of the earth"(Rup.). Miserable indeed, to whom the Lord is terrible! Whence is this? Is not God by Nature sweet and pleasurable and serene, and an Object of longing? For the Angels ever desire to look into Him, and, in a wonderful and unspeakable way, ever look and ever long to look. For miserable they, whose conscience makes them shrink from the face of Love. Even in this life they feel this shrinking, and, as if it were some lessening of their grief, they deny it, as though this could destroy the truth, which they ‘ hold down in unrighteousness.’ "Rom 1:18.

For He will famish all the gods of the earth - Taking away "the fat of their sacrifices, and the wine of their drink-offerings"Deu 32:38. Within 80 years from the death of our Lord , the governor of Pontus and Bithynia wrote officially to the Roman Emperor, that "the temples had been almost left desolate, the sacred rites had been for a long time intermitted, and that the victims had very seldom found a purchaser,"before the persecution of the Christians, and consulted him as to the amount of its continuance. Toward the close of the century, it was one of the Pagan complaints, which the Christian Apologist had to answer "they are daily melting away the revenues of our temples."The prophet began to speak of the subdual of Moab and Ammon; he is borne on to the triumphs of Christ over all the gods of the Pagan, when the worship of God should not be at Jerusalem only, but "they shall worship Him, every one from his place."

Even all the isles of the pagan - For this is the very note of the Gospel, that, Cyril: "each who through faith in Christ was brought to the knowledge of the truth, by Him, and with Him, "worshipeth from his place"God the Father; and God is no longer known in Judaea only, but the countries and cities of the Pagan, though they be separated by the intervening sea from Judaea, no less draw near to Christ, pray, glorify, thank Him unceasingly. For formerly "His name"was "great in Israel"Psa 76:1, but now He is well known to all everywhere; earth and sea are full of His glory, and so every one ‘ worshipeth Him from his place;’ and this is what is said, ‘ As I live, saith the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord’ Num 14:21.""The isles"are any distant lands on the seashore (Jer 25:22, following; Eze 26:15, following; Psa 72:10), especially the very distant Isa 66:19; but also Asia Minor Dan 11:1, Dan 11:8 and the whole coast of Europe, and even the Indian Archipelago , since the ivory and ebony came from its "many isles."

Zephaniah revives the term, by which Moses had spoken of the dispersion of the sons of Japhet: "By these were the ‘ isles of the Gentiles’ divided in their lands, every one after his tongue"Gen 10:5. He adds the word, "all;"all, wherever they had been dispersed, every one from his place, shall worship God. One universal worship shall ascend to God from all everywhere. So Malachi prophesied afterward; "From the rising up of the sun even to the going down of the same My Name shall be great among the Gentiles, and "in every place"incense shall be offered unto God and a pure offering, for My Name shall be great among the pagan, saith the Lord of hosts"Mal 1:11. Even a Jew says here: "This, without doubt, refers to the time to come, when all the inhabitants of the world shall know that the Lord is God, and that His is the greatness and power and glory, and He shall be called the God of the whole earth."The "isles"or "coasts of the sea"are the more the emblem of the Church, in that, Cyril: "lying, as it were, in the sea of this world and encompassed by the evil events in it, as with bitter waters, and lashed by the most vehement waves of persecutions, the Churches are yet founded, so that they cannot fall, and rear themselves aloft, and are not overwhelmed by afflictions. For, for Christ’ s sake, the Churches cannot be shaken, and ‘ the gates of hell shall not prevail against them’ Mat 16:18."

Barnes: Zep 2:12

Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by My sword - Literally, "Ye Ethiopians also, the slain of My sword are they."Having summoned them to His throne, God speaks of them, not to them anymore; perhaps in compassion, as elsewhere in indignation . The Ethiopians were not in any direct antagonism to God and His people, but allied only to their old oppressor, Egypt. They may have been in Pharaoh Necho’ s army, in resisting which, as a subject of Assyria, Josiah was slain: they are mentioned Jer 46:9 in that army which Nebuchadnezzar smote at Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim. The prophecy of Ezekiel implies rather, that Ethiopia should be involved in the calamities of Egypt, than that it should be itself invaded. "Great terror shall be in Ethiopia, ‘ when the slain shall fall in Egypt’ Eze 30:4.""Ethiopia and Lybia and Lydia etc. and all the men of the land that is in league, shall fall ‘ with these,’ by the sword"Eze 30:5. "They also that ‘ uphold Egypt’ shall fall"Eze 30:6.

Syene, the frontier-fortress over against Ethiopia, is especially mentioned as the boundary also of the destruction. "Messengers"God says, "shall go forth from Me to make the careless Ethiopians afraid"Eze 30:9, while the storm was bursting in its full desolating force upon Egypt. All the other cities, whose destruction is foretold, are cities of lower or upper Egypt .

But such a blow as that foretold by Jeremiah and Ezekiel must have fallen heavily upon the allies of Egypt. We have no details, for the Egyptians would not, and did not tell of the calamities and disgraces of their country. No one does. Josephus, however, briefly but distinctly says , that after Nebuchadnezzar had in the 23rd year of his reign, the 5th after the destruction of Jerusalem, "reduced into subjection Moab and Ammon, he invaded Egypt, with a view to subdue it,""killed its then king, and having set up another, captured for the second time the Jews in it and carried them to Babylon."The memory of the devastation by Nebuchadnezzar lived on apparently in Egypt, and is a recognized fact among the Muslim historians, who had no interest in the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, of which it does not appear that they even knew.

Bokht-nasar (Nebuchadnezzar), they say , "made war on the son of Nechas (Necho), slew him and ruined the city of Memphis"and many other cities of Egypt: he carried the inhabitants captive, without leaving one, so that Egypt remained waste forty years without one inhabitant."Another says , The refuge which the king of Egypt granted to the Jews who fled from Nebuchadnezzar brought this war upon it: for he took them under his protection and would not give them up to their enemy. Nebuchadnezzar, in revenge, marched against the king of Egypt and destroyed the country.""One may be certain,"says a good authority , "that the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar was a tradition generally spread in Egypt and questioned by no one."

Ethiopia was then involved, as an ally, and as far as its contingent was concerned, in the war, in which Nebuchadnezzar desolated Egypt for those 40 years. But, although this fulfilled the prophecy of Ezekiel, Isaiah, some sixty years before Zephaniah, prophesied a direct conquest of Ethiopia. I "have given,"God says, "Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee"Isa 43:3. It lay in God’ s purpose, that Cyrus should restore His own people, and that his ambition should find its vent and compensation in the lands beyond. It may be that, contrary to all known human policy, Cyrus restored the Jews to their own land, willing to bind them to himself, and to make them a frontier territory toward Egypt, not subject only but loyal to himself. This is quite consistent with the reason which he assigns; "The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem which is in Judah"Ezr 1:2-3; and with the statement of Josephus, that he was moved thereto by "reading the prophecy which Isaiah left, 210 years before."

It is, alas! nothing new to Christians to have mixed motives for their actions: the exception is to have a single motive, "for the glory of God."The advantage to himself would doubtless flash at once on the founder of a great empire, though it did not suggest the restoration of the Jews. Egypt and Assyria had always, on either side, wished to possess themselves of Palestine, which lay between them. Anyhow, one Persian monarch did restore the Jews; his successor possessed himself of "Egypt, and part, at least, of Ethiopia."Cyrus wished, it is related , "to war in person against Babylon, the Bactrians, the Sacae, and Egypt."He perished, as is known, before he had completed the third of his purposed conquests. Cambyses, although after the conquest of Egypt he planned ill his two more distant expeditions, reduced "the Ethiopians bordering upon Egypt"( "lower Ethiopia and Nubia"), and these "brought gifts"permanently to the Persian Sovereign. Even in the time of Xerxes, the Ethiopians had to furnish their contingent of troops against the Greeks. Herodotus describes their dress and weapons, as they were reviewed at Doriscus . Cambyses, then, did not lose his hold over Ethiopia and Egypt, when forced by the rebellion of Pseudo-Smerdis to quit Egypt.

Barnes: Zep 2:13

Zephaniah began by singling out Judah amid the general destruction, "I will also stretch out My Hand upon Judah"Zep 1:4; he sums up the judgment of the world in the same way; "He will stretch out, or, Stretch He forth, "His Hand against the north and destroy Asshur, and make Nineveh a desolation."Judah had, in Zephaniah’ s time, nothing to fear from Assyria. Isaiah Isa 39:6 and Micah Mic 4:10 had already foretold, that the captivity would be to Babylon. Yet of Assyria alone the prophet, in his own person, expresses his own conformity with the mind of God. Of others he had said, "the word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, and I will destroy thee; As I live, saith the Lord, Moab shall be as Sodom. Ye also, O Ethiopians, the, slain of My sword are they."Of Assyria alone, by a slight inflection of the word, he expresses that he goes along with this, which he announces.

He does not say as an imprecation, "May He stretch forth His hand;"but gently, as continuing his prophecies, "and,"joining on Asshur with the rest; only instead of saying "He will stretch forth,"by a form almost insulated in Hebrew, he says, "And stretch He forth His Hand."In a way not unlike, David having declared God’ s judgments, "The Lord trieth the righteous; and the wicked and the lover of violence doth His soul abhor, subjoineth, On the wicked rain He snares,"signifying that he (as all must be in the Day of judgment), is at one with the judgment of God. This is the last sentence upon Nineveh, enforcing that of Jonah and Nahum, yet without place of repentance now. He accumulates words expressive of desolateness. It should not only be a "desolation"Zep 2:4, Zep 2:9, as he had said of Ashkelon, Moab and Amman, but a dry, parched , unfruitful Isa 53:2 land. As Isaiah, under the same words, prophesies that the dry and desolate land should, by the Gospel, be glad, so the gladness of the world should become dryness and desolation. Asshur is named, as though one individual , implying the entireness of the destruction; all shall perish as one man; or as gathered into one and dependent upon one, its evil King. "The north"is not only Assyria, in that its armies came upon Judah from the north, but it stands for the whole power of evil (see Isa 14:13), as Nineveh for the whole beautiful, evil, world. The world with "the princes of this world"shall perish together.

Barnes: Zep 2:14

And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her - No desolation is like that of decayed luxury. It preaches the nothingness of man, the fruitlessness of his toils, the fleetingness of his hopes and enjoyments, and their baffling when at their height. Grass in a court or on a once beaten road, much more, in a town, speaks of the passing away of what has been, that man was accustomed to be there, and is not, or is there less than he was. It leaves the feeling of void and forsakenness. But in Nineveh not a few tufts of grass here and there shall betoken desolation, it shall be one wild rank pasture, where "flocks"shall not feed only, but "lie down"as in their fold and continual resting place, not in the outskirts only or suburbs, but in the very center of her life and throng and busy activity, "in the midst of her,"and none shall fray them away. So Isaiah had said of the cities of Aroer, "they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down and none shall make them afraid"Isa 17:2, and of Judah until its restoration by Christ, that it should be "a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks"(Isa 32:14, compare Jer 6:2). And not only those which are wont to be found in some connection with man, but "all the beasts of a nation", the troops of wild and savage and unclean beasts which shun the dwellings of man or are his enemies, these in troops have their lair there.

Both the cormorant and the bittern - They may be the same. The pelican retires inland to consume its food. Tristram, Houghton, in Smith’ s Bible Dictionary, "Pelican"note. It could be a hedgehog.

Shall lodge in the upper lintels of it. - The "chapiters"(English margin) or capitals of the pillars of the temples and palaces shall lie broken and strewn upon the ground, and among those desolate fragments of her pride shall unclean animals haunt. The pelican has its Hebrew name from vomiting. It vomits up the shells which it had swallowed whole, after they had been opened by the heat of the stomach, and so picks out the animal contained in them , the very image of greediness and uncleanness. It dwells also not in deserts only but near marshes, so that Nineveh is doubly waste.

A voice shall sing in the windows - In the midst of the desolation, the muteness of the hedgehog and the pensive loneliness of the solitary pelican, the musing spectator is even startled by the gladness of a bird, joyous in the existence which God has given it. Instead of the harmony of music and men-singers and women-singers in their palaces shall be the sweet music of some lonely bird, unconscious that it is sitting "in the windows"of those, at whose name the world grew pale, portions of the outer walls being all which remain of her palaces. "Desolation"shall be "in the thresholds,"sitting, as it were, in them; everywhere to be seen in them; the more, because unseen. Desolation is something oppressive; we "feel"its presence. There, as the warder watch and ward at the empty portals, where once was the fullest throng, shall "desolation sit,"that no one enter. "For He shall uncover (hath uncovered, English margin) the cedar-work:"in the roofless palaces, the carved "cedar-work"shall be laid open to wind and rain. Any one must have noticed, how piteous and dreary the decay of any house in a town looks, with the torn paper hanging uselessly on its walls. A poet of our own said niche beautiful ruins of a wasted monastery:

"For the gay beams of lightsome day

Gild, but to flout the ruins gray."

But at Nineveh it is one of the mightiest cities of the world which thus lies waste, and the bared "cedar-work"had, in the days of its greatness, been carried off from the despoiled Lebanon or Hermon .

Barnes: Zep 2:15

This utter desolation is "the rejoicing city"(so unlike is it, that there is need to point out that it is the same); this is she, who was full of joy, exulting exceedingly, but in herself, not in God; "that dwelt carelessly,"literally, "securely,"and so carelessly; saying "Peace and safety"1Th 5:3, as though no evil would come upon her, and so perishing more certainly and miserably (see Jdg 18:27) "That said in her heart,"this was her inmost feeling, the moving cause of all her deeds; "I am and there is none beside me;"literally , "and there is no I beside,"claiming the very attribute of God (as the world does) of self-existence, as if it alone were "I,"and others, in respect of her, were as nothing. Pantheism, which denies the being of God, as Author of the world, and claims the life in the material world to be God, and each living being to be a part of God, is only this self-idolatry, reflected upon and carried out in words. All the pride of the world, all self-indulgence which says, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,"all covetousness which ends in this world, speaks this by its acts, "I and no I beside."

How is she become a desolation - Has passed wholly into it, exists only as a desolation, "a place for beasts to lie down in,"a mere den for "the wild beasts. Every one that passeth by her shall hiss"in derision, "and wag"(or wave) "his hand"in detestation, as though putting the hand between them and it, so as not to look at it, or, as it were, motioning it away. The action is different from that of "clapping the hands in exultation"Nah 3:19.

"It is not difficult,"Jerome says, "to explain this of the world, that when the Lord hath stretched forth His Hand over the north and destroyed the Assyrian, the Prince of this world, the world also perishes together with its Princes, and is brought to utter desolation, and is pitied by none, but all hiss and shake their hands at its ruin. But of the Church it seems, at first sight, blasphemous to say that it shall be a pathless desert, and wild beasts shall dwell in her, and that afterward it shall be said insultingly over her; ‘ This is the city given up to ill, which "dwelt carelessly and said in her heart, I and none beside."’ But whoso should consider that of the Apostle, wherein he says, "in the last days perilous times shall come"2Ti 3:1-5, and what is written in the Gospel, that "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold"Mat 24:12, so that then shall that be fulfilled, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith on the earth?"he will not marvel at the extreme desolation of the Church, that, in the reign of antichrist, it shall be reduced to a desolation and given over to beasts, and shall suffer whatever the prophet now describes.

For if for unbelief "God spared not the natural branches,"but "brake them off,"and "turned rivers into a wilderness and the water-springs into a dry ground,"and "a fruitful land into barrenness, for the iniquity of them that dwell therein,"why not as to those of whom He had said, "He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into water-springs, and there He maketh the hungry to dwell"Psa 107:33-36; and as to those whom "out of the wild olive He hath grafted into the good olive tree,"why, if forgetful of this benefit, they depart from their Maker and worship the Assyrian, should He not undo them and bring them to the same thirst wherein they were before? Which, whereas it may be understood generally of the coming of antichrist or of the end of the world, yet it may, day by day, be understood of those who feign to be of the Church of God, and "in works deny it, are hearers of the word not doers,"who in vain boast in an outward show, whereas herds that is, troops of vices dwell in them, and brute animals serving the body, and all the beasts of the field which devour their hearts (and pelicans, that is, gluttons , whose ‘ god is their belly’ ) and hedgehogs, a prickly animal full of spikes which pricketh whatever it toucheth.

After which it is subjoined, that the Church shall therefore suffer this, or hath suffered it, because it lifted itself up proudly and raised its head like a cedar, given up to evil works, and yet promising itself future blessedness, and despising others in its heart, nor thinking that there is any other beside itself, and saying, "I am, and there is no other beside me,"how is it become a solitude, a lair of beasts! For where before, dwelt the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and Angels presided over its ministries, there shall beasts dwell. And if we understand that, every one that passeth by shall hiss, we shall explain it thus; when Angels shall pass through her, and not remain in her, as was their wont, they shall be amazed and marvel, and shall not support and bear her up with their hand, when falling, but shall lift up the hands and shall pass by. Or they shall make a sound as those who mourn. But if we understand this of the devil and his angels, who destroyed the vine also that was brought out of Egypt, we shall say, that through the soul, which before was the temple of God and hath ceased so to be, the serpent passeth, and hisseth and spitteth forth the venom of his malice in her, and not this only, but setteth in motion his works which figuratively are called hands."

Rup.: "The earlier and partial fulfillment of prophecy does not destroy, it rather confirms, the entire fulfillment to come. For whoso heareth of the destruction of mighty cities, is constrained to believe the truth of the Gospel, that the fashion of this world passeth away, and that, after the likeness of Nineveh and Babylon, the Lord will in the end judge the whole world also."

Poole: Zep 2:11

The Lord will be terrible or, the Lord, who is to be feared, is against or above them, and will make it appear that he is terrible in his doings.

Unto them Moabites and Ammonites, and their gods, of whom they gloried.

He will famish starve; though now their altars are filled with sacrifices, and their bowls run over, as if they designed to make their gods fat; but they shall want their sacrifices and drink offerings, these shall be few or quite cease, and their priests grow lean. There shall be a consumption among them all.

All the gods idols, heathen gods,

of the earth of those lands, Dagon, Chemosh, Molech, &c., that are gods no where else but on earth, and among the deceived; or gods of the earth., as sons of the earth, vile, spurious gods.

Men shall worship him men of that country whose gods are undone, or all men, shall know, own, and worship the God of Israel.

Every one from his place where he dwelleth, not only at Jerusalem, or in this mount, but every where.

All the isles either literally, as we now see it fulfilled, or as the Jews interpret isles to be transmarine places. So they wait for his law, as foretold Isa 42:4 .

Of the heathen of all nations in all parts of the world. This is eminently fulfilled by the prevailing of the gospel.

Poole: Zep 2:12

The prophet doth not speak of the African Ethiopians, south of Egypt, but of the Arabian Ethiopians, much nearer to Canaan, whose country was called Cusaea, with the addition Ethiopia Cusaea. See Hab 3:7 .

Ye shall be slain punished by war, and your people cut off,

by my sword Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldeans, called here God’ s sword, for God employed and prospered them.

Poole: Zep 2:13

And he the Lord God of Israel, or the Chaldean monarch as God’ s servant herein,

will stretch out his hand engage all his power, and use it to the utmost, against the north, i.e. as follows, Assyria, which lay northward of Judea, but more due north from Babylon, if I mistake not.

Destroy Assyria overthrow that great and ancient kingdom of Assyria. of which more at large in Nahum. Nineveh; chief city of that kingdom. See Nah 1:1 . A desolation; most desolate, Nah 3:10-12 .

And dry like a wilderness will turn those well-watered places into dry, thirsty, and barren land, as a wilderness.

Poole: Zep 2:14

Nineveh shall be so razed that flocks of cattle shall lie down in the midst of it, as before of the Philistines, Zep 2:6 .

All the beasts of the nations all sorts of beasts which are found in those countries, the tame under the girard of watching shepherds, and wild ones seeking their prey, will attend about those places.

The cormorant and the bittern birds that are solitary, and delight in desolate places, in reedy fens, where they seek their food, and are looked on as unlucky birds.

Shall lodge in the upper lintels shall either make their nests there, or seek and choose their lodging there; they shall roost there in the night upon the pillars, or turrets, or pinnacles.

Their voice shall sing in the windows these doleful creatures shall make a more doleful noise, that shall be all the music to be heard in their desolate windows.

Desolation shall be in the thresholds the lowest part of their houses; from top to bottom nothing but wastes and ruin; instead of beautiful ladies looking out at windows and doors and singing, now cormorants and bitterns, and their doleful notes.

For he shall uncover the cedar work or, when the Babylonian hath burnt the houses, or beat down the curious roofs and coverings of cedar, the beauty and the defence of their houses.

Poole: Zep 2:15

This is the rejoicing city: we may suppose the prophet, or the Jews, or all passengers, standing still and wondering, nay, upbraiding Nineveh, all mirth and jollity once, but now all sorrow and grief.

That dwelt carelessly in so great confidence and security, as if it had been impossible she should ever have fallen from her glory.

That said in her heart persuaded herself into an opinion very ill becoming any but God himself.

There is none beside me none that can contend with me, that will be so hardy as to attempt against me, none able to overthrow me. Somewhat like Tyre, Eze 28:12 , &o.

How is she become a desolation! she thought none was like her in glory, power, and wealth. now there is none like her indeed, but it is for misery and desolations. It may be either the speech of one that laments and wonders at it, or of one that rejoiceth at it.

A place for beasts to lie down in: where palaces for princes stood, now are places for beasts; where nobles dwelt, now do ignoble cattle couch.

Shall hiss and wag his hand deride their arrogancy, and condemn their ungodly pride and security, yet with some pity toward this desolate city.

Haydock: Zep 2:11

Own place. The Jewish religion could be practised only at Jerusalem, so that this is one of the most striking predictions of the conversion of the world. The Jews in vain attempt to restrain it to the captives returning. See St. Jerome. (Calmet) ---

They shall inform many of the truth, and be the means of their conversion. (Haydock) ---

But God shall be adored in every place. (Menochius)

Haydock: Zep 2:12

Ethiopians. Hebrew Cushim, denotes also the Arabs, &c., who fell a prey to the Chaldeans. (Calmet)

Haydock: Zep 2:13

The beautiful city. Ninive, which was destroyed soon after this, viz., in the sixteenth year of the reign of Josias. (Challoner) (the year of the world 3378.) ---

Hebrew, "he shall make Ninive desolate." (Haydock) ---

This famous and potent city was at last destroyed. (Worthington) See Jonas iii. 4. (Calmet)

Haydock: Zep 2:14

Bittern and the urchin. Hebrew kaath and kippod, are terms to us (Haydock) unknown. ---

Threshold. Hebrew, "the pomegranates," supposed to be an ornament of the doors. ---

Raven. Septuagint also read arb better than choreb, "the desolation or the sword." See Isaias xxxiv. 11. (Calmet) ---

Chereb has both meanings, "a raven, or sword." (St. Jerome) ---

I will. Hebrew, "he has uncovered her cedar," (Calmet) her fine palaces and apartments. Septuagint, "for the cedar is its height, (or pride) this is the city given to evils, that," &c. (Haydock)

Haydock: Zep 2:15

Beside, or equal. This was true, Jonas i. 2. (Calmet) ---

The founder intended that no city should ever equal it. (Diodorus ii.) St. Jerome applies what is here said of Ninive to the Church in the times of antichrist, (Rondet.) or to a fallen soul. Any nation may abandon the faith: but the whole Church cannot fail. [Matthew 16:18] (Haydock)

Gill: Zep 2:11

The Lord will be terrible unto them,.... To the Moabites and Ammonites in the execution of his judgments upon them, and make their proud hearts tremble; for with him is terrible majesty; he is terrible to the kings of the earth, and cuts off the spirit of princes, Job 37:22 or, as Kimchi observes, this may be understood of the people of God reproached by the Moabites and Ammonites, by whom the Lord is to be feared and reverenced with a godly and filial fear: so it may be rendered, "the Lord is to be feared by them" ^e; and to this inclines the Targum,

"the fear of the Lord is to redeem them;''

for he will famish all the gods of the earth; particularly of those countries mentioned in the context, the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Ethiopians, and Assyrians; as Dagon, Chemosh, Molech, Bel, and others; called "gods of the earth", in distinction from the God of heaven, to whom they are opposed; and because made of earthly matter, and worshipped by earthly and carnal men; these the Lord, who is above them, and can destroy them at pleasure, threatens to "famish"; or to bring "leanness" ^f upon them, as the word signifies; to bring them into a consumption, and cause them to pine away gradually, by little and little, till they are no more; and that by reducing the number of their worshippers, so that they shall not have the worship and honour paid them, nor the sacrifices offered to them, supposed by the heathens to be the food of their gods; and, this being the case, their priests would be starved and become lean, who used to be fat and plump. The Septuagint version renders it, "he will destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth"; which is approved of by Noldius, and preferred by him to other versions. This had its accomplishment in part, when these nations were subdued by Nebuchadnezzar; for idols were usually demolished when a kingdom was taken; and more fully when the Gospel was spread in the Gentile world by the apostles of Christ, and first ministers of the word; whereby the oracles of the heathens were struck dumb, and men were turned everywhere from the worship of idols; the idols themselves were destroyed, and their temples demolished, or converted to better uses; and will have a still greater accomplishment in the latter day, at the conversion of the Jews, and the bringing in the fulness of the Gentiles, when the worship of idols will cease everywhere. The Syriac version renders it, "all the kings of the earth"; very wrongly:

and men shall worship him, everyone from his place; or, "in his place" ^g; that is, every man shall worship the true God in the place where he is; he shall not go up to Jerusalem to worship, but in every place lift up holy bands to God, pray unto him, praise and serve him; the worship of God will be universal; he will be King over all the earth, and his name and service one, and shall not be limited and confined to any particular place, Mal 1:11,

even all the isles of the heathen; or "Gentiles"; not only those places which are properly isles, as ours of Great Britain and Ireland; though there may be a particular respect had to such, and especially to ours, who have been very early and long favoured with the Gospel, and yet will be; but all places beyond the seas, or which the Jews went to by sea, they called isles.

Gill: Zep 2:12

Ye Ethiopians also,.... Or, "as for ye Ethiopians also" ^h; not the Ethiopians in Africa beyond Egypt, at a distance from the land of Israel, and the countries before mentioned; but the inhabitants of Arabia Chusea, or Ethiopia, which lay near to Moab and Ammon; these should not escape, but suffer with their neighbours, who sometimes distressed the people of the Jews, and made war with them, being nigh them; see 2Ch 14:9,

ye shall be slain by my sword; or, "the slain of my sword are they" ⁱ; R. Japhet thinks here is a defect of the note of similitude "as", which should be supplied thus, "ye" are, or shall be, "the slain of my sword", as they; as the Moabites and Ammonites; that is, these Ethiopians should be slain as well as they by the sword of Nebuchadnezzar; which is called the sword of God, because he was an instrument in the hand of God for punishing the nations of the earth. This was fulfilled very probably when Egypt was subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, with whom Ethiopia was confederate, as well as near unto it, Jer 46:1. The destruction of these by the Assyrians is predicted, Isa 20:4.

Gill: Zep 2:13

And he will stretch out his hand against the north,.... Either the Lord, or Nebuchadnezzar his sword; who, as he would subdue the nations that lay southward, he would lead his army northward against the land of Assyria, which lay to the north of Judea, as next explained:

and destroy Assyria; that famous monarchy, which had ruled over the kingdoms of the earth, now should come to an end, and be reduced to subjection to the king of Babylon:

and will make Nineveh a desolation; which was the capital city, the metropolis of the Assyrian monarchy: Nahum prophesies at large of the destruction of this city:

and dry like a wilderness; which before was a very watery place, situated by rivers, particularly the river Tigris; so that it was formerly like a pool of water, Nah 2:6 but now should be dry like a heath or desert, Dr. Prideaux places the destruction of Nineveh in the twenty ninth year of Josiah's reign; but Bishop Usher earlier, in the sixteenth year of his reign; and, if so, then Zephaniah, who here prophesies of it, must begin to prophesy in the former part of Josiah's reign.

Gill: Zep 2:14

And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her,.... In the midst of the city of Nineveh; in the streets of it, where houses stood, and people in great numbers walked; but now only should be seen the cottages of shepherds, and flocks of sheep feeding or lying down, as is before observed of the sea coast of the Philistines, Zep 2:6,

all the beasts of the nations; that is, all sorts of beasts, especially wild beasts, in the several parts of the world, should come and dwell here; instead of kings and princes, nobles, merchants, and the great men thereof, who once here inhabited, now there should be beasts of prey, terrible to come nigh unto; for these are to be understood properly and literally, and not figuratively, of men, for their savageness and cruelty, comparable to beasts:

both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; of the doors of the houses in Nineveh: or, "on its pomegranates" ^k; the figures of these being often put on chapiters, turrets, pinnacles, pillars, and posts in buildings, and over porches of doors; and on these those melancholy and doleful creatures here mentioned, which delight in solitary places, should take up their abode. The "cormorant" is the same with the "corvus aquaticus", or "sea raven", about the size of a goose; it builds not only among rocks, but often on trees: what is called the "shagge" is a species of it, or the lesser cormorant, a water fowl common on our northern coasts; is somewhat larger than a common duck, and builds on trees as the common cormorant ^l. Bochart ^m takes it to be the "pelican" which is here meant; and indeed, whatever bird it is, it seems to have its name from vomiting; and this is what naturalists ⁿ observe of the pelican, that it swallows down shell fish, which, being kept awhile in its stomach, are heated, and then it casts them up, which then open easily, and it picks out the flesh of them: and it seems to delight in desolate places, since it is called the pelican of the wilderness, Psa 102:6. Isidore says ^o it is an Egyptian bird, dwelling in the desert by the river Nile, from whence it has its name; for it is called "canopus Aegyptus"; and the Vulgate Latin version renders the word here "onocrotalus", the same with the pelican; and Montanus translates it the "pelican"; and so do others. The "bittern" is a bird of the heron kind; it is much the size of a common heron; it is usually found in sedgy and reedy places near water, and sometimes in hedges; it makes a very remarkable noise, and, from the singularity of it, the common people imagine it sticks its beak in a reed or in the mud, in order to make it; hence it is sometimes called the "mire drum" ^p. It is said it will sometimes make a noise like a bull, or the blowing of a horn, so as to be heard half a German mile, or one hour's journey; hence it is by some called "botaurus", as if "bootaurus", because it imitates the bellowing of a bull ^q. The Tigurine version renders it the "castor" or "beaver" ^r; but Bochart ^s takes it to be the "hedgehog"; and so the word is rendered in the Vulgate Latin, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and by others: which is a solitary creature, and drives away all other animals from society with it by its prickles:

their voice shall sing in the windows: of desolate houses, the inhabitants being gone who used to be seen looking out of them; but now these creatures before named should dwell here, and utter their doleful sounds, who otherwise would not have come near them:

desolation shall be in the thresholds; there being none to go in and out over them. The Septuagint version, and which is followed by the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions, render it, "the ravens shall be in its gates": mistaking הדב, "desolation", for ערב, "a raven":

for he shall uncover the cedar work; the enemy Nebuchadnezzar, or Nabopolassar, when he should take the city, would unroof the houses panelled with cedar, and expose all the fine cedar work within to the inclemencies of the air, which would soon come to ruin. All these expressions are designed to set forth the utter ruin and destruction of this vast and populous city; and which was so utterly destroyed, as Lucian says, that there is no trace of it to be found; and, according to modern travellers, there are only heaps of rubbish to be seen, which are conjectured to be the ruins of this city; See Gill on Nah 1:8.

Gill: Zep 2:15

This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly,.... Once exceeding populous, and the inhabitants full of mirth and gaiety, abounding with wealth and riches, and indulging themselves in all carnal delights and pleasures; and, being well fortified, thought themselves out of all danger, and were careless and unconcerned, not fearing any enemy that should attack them; imagining their city was impregnable and invincible: these are the words of the prophet, concluding his prophecy concerning the destruction of this city, and having, by a spirit of prophecy, a foresight of its ruin and desolation; or of passengers, and what they should say when they saw it lie in its ruins:

that said in her heart, I am, and there is none besides me; or, "is there any besides me?" ^t there is none, no city in the world to be compared to it for the largeness of the place, the strength of its walls, the number of its inhabitants, its wealth and riches: at least so she thought within herself, and was elated with these things; and concluded it would never be otherwise with her; "I am", and shall always continue so:

how is she become a desolation! what a desolate place is this! its walls broken down, its houses demolished, its wealth and riches plundered, its inhabitants destroyed; and now the hold and habitation of beasts of prey, and hateful birds:

a place for beasts to lie down in! and not for men to dwell in: this is said, either as wondering, or as rejoicing at it, as follows:

everyone that passeth by her; and sees her in this ruinous condition:

shall hiss, and wag his hand; in scorn and derision, as pleased with the sight, and having no pity and compassion for her, remembering her cruelty to and oppression of others, when in her prosperity; see Nah 3:19.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Zep 2:11

¹ tn Heb “will be awesome over [or, “against”] them.”

² tn Or “certainly.”

³ tn The meaning of this rare Hebrew word is unclear. If the meaning is indeed “weaken,” then this line may be referring to the reduction of these gods’ territory through conquest (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 110-11). Cf. NEB “reduce to beggary”; NASB “starve”; NIV “when he destroys”; NRSV “shrivel.”

⁴ tn Heb “and all the coastlands of the nations will worship [or, “bow down”] to him, each from his own place.”

NET Notes: Zep 2:12

¹ sn Though there is no formal introduction, these words are apparently spoken by the Lord (note my sword).

² tn Heb “Cushites.” This is traditionally assumed to refer to people from the region south of Egypt, i.e., Nubia or northern Sudan, referred to as “Ethiopia” by classical authors (not the more recent Abyssinia).

³ tn Heb “Also you Cushites, who lie dead by my sword.”

NET Notes: Zep 2:13

¹ tn Heb “He”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “he will stretch out his hand against the north.”

³ tn Or “dry.”

NET Notes: Zep 2:14

¹ tn Heb “flocks.” The Hebrew word can refer to both flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.

² tn Heb “[and] all the wild animals of a nation.” How גוֹי (goy, “nation”) relates to what precedes is unclear. It may be a corruption of another word. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 193.

³ tn The Hebrew text reads here גַּם־קָאַת גַּם־קִפֹּד (gam-qa’at gam-qippod). The term קָאַת refers to some type of bird (see Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (Isa 34:11); one of the most common translations is “owl” (cf. NEB “horned owl”; NIV, NRSV “desert owl”; contra NASB “pelican”). The term קִפֹּד may also refer to a type of bird (cf. NEB “ruffed bustard”; NIV, NRSV “screech owl”). Some suggest a rodent may be in view (cf. NASB “hedgehog”); this is not unreasonable, for a rodent or some other small animal would be able to sleep in the tops of pillars which would be lying in the ruins of the fallen buildings.

⁴ tn Heb “a sound will sing in the window.” If some type of owl is in view, “hoot” is a more appropriate translation (cf. NEB, NRSV).

⁵ tn Heb “rubble [will be] on the threshold.” “Rubble” translates the Hebrew word חֹרֶב (khorev, “desolation”). Some emend to עֹרֵב (’orev, “raven”) following the LXX and Vulgate; Adele Berlin translates, “A voice shall shriek from the window – a raven at the sill” (Zephaniah [AB 25A], 104).

⁶ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word translated “cedar work” (so NASB, NRSV) is unclear; NIV has “the beams of cedar.”

⁷ tn Heb “one will expose.” The subject is probably indefinite, though one could translate, “for he [i.e., God] will lay bare.”

NET Notes: Zep 2:15

¹ tn Heb “this is the proud city.”

² tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”

³ tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”

⁴ tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”

⁵ tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”

⁶ sn Hissing (or whistling) and shaking the fist were apparently ways of taunting a defeated foe or an object of derision in the culture of the time.

Geneva Bible: Zep 2:11

The LORD [will be] terrible unto them: ^{( g )} for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and [men] shall worship him, every one from his place, [even] all the isles of the heathen.

^{( g )} When he will deliver his people and destroy their enemies and idols, his glory will shine throughout all the world.

Geneva Bible: Zep 2:14

And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the ^{( h )} cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; [their] voice shall sing in the windows; desolation [shall be] in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work.

^{( h )} Read (Isa 34:11)

Geneva Bible: Zep 2:15

This [is] the ^{( i )} rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I [am], and [there is] none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, [and] wag his hand.

^{( i )} Meaning, Nineveh, which rejoicing so much of her strength and prosperity, should be thus made waste, and God's people delivered.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Zep 2:1-15

1 An exhortation to repentance.

4 The judgment of the Philistines,

8 of Moab and Ammon,

12 of Ethiopia,

13 and of Assyria.

MHCC: Zep 2:4-15

Those are really in a woful condition who have the word of the Lord against them, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. God will restore his people to their rights, though long kept from them. It has been the common lot of God's people, in all ages, to be reproached and reviled. God shall be worshipped, not only by all Israel, and the strangers who join them, but by the heathen. Remote nations must be reckoned with for the wrongs done to God's people. The sufferings of the insolent and haughty in prosperity, are unpitied and unlamented. But all the desolations of flourishing nations will make way for the overturning Satan's kingdom. Let us improve our advantages, and expect the performance of every promise, praying that our Father's name may be hallowed every where, over all the earth.

Matthew Henry: Zep 2:8-11

The Moabites and Ammonites were both of the posterity of Lot; their countries joined, and, both adjoining to Israel, they are here put together in the prophecy against them.

I. They are both charged with the same crime, and that was reproaching and reviling the people of God and triumphing in their calamities (Zep 2:8): They have reproached my people; while God's people kept close to their duty it is probable that they reproached them for the singularities of their religion; and now that they had revolted from God, and fallen under his displeasure, they reproached them for that too. It has been the common lot of God's people in all ages to be reproached and reviled upon one account or other. Thus the old serpent spits his venom; and pride is at the bottom of it; it is in their pride that they have magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts, thinking themselves as good as they, as great, and every way as happy. It is the comtempt of the proud that God's people are filled with, Psa 123:4. They have spoken big (so some read it, magna locuti sunt - they have spoken great things ) against their border (Zep 2:8), against those of them that bordered upon their country, whom upon all occasions they insulted, or against the property they claimed, which they disputed, or the protection they boasted of, which they ridiculed; they spoke big against the people of the Lord of hosts as a deserted abandoned people. Great swelling words of vanity are the genuine language of the church's enemies. "But I have heard them "(says God), "and will let you know that I have heard them. I have heard, and I will reckon for them,"Jud 1:15. And, if God hears the reproaches and revilings we are under, it is a good reason why we should be as a deaf man that hears not, Psa 38:14, Psa 38:15. Nay, God not only takes notice of, but interests himself in the reproaches cast on his people, because they are his; and it is certain that those who look with disdain upon the people of the Lord of hosts thereby dishonour the Lord of hosts himself. See this very thing charged on Moab and Ammon, Eze 25:3, Eze 25:8.

II. They are both laid under the same doom. Associates in iniquity may expect to be such in desolation. See with what solemnity sentence is pronounced upon them, Zep 2:9. It is the Lord of hosts, the sovereign Lord of all, who has authority to pass this sentence and ability to execute it; it is the God of Israel, who is jealous for their honour; it is he that has said it, nay, he has sworn it, As I live, saith the Lord. The sentence is, 1. That the Moabites and Ammonites shall be quite destroyed; they shall be as Sodom and Gomorrah, the marks of whose ruins in the Dead Sea lay near adjoining to the countries of Moab and Ammon; they shall, though not by the same means (even fire from heaven), Yet almost in the same manner, be laid waste; not again to be inhabited, or not of a long time. The country shall produce nothing but nettles, instead of corn; and there shall be brine-pits, instead of the pleasant fountains of water with which the country had abounded. 2. That Israel shall be too hard for them, shall spoil them of their goods and possess their country by lawful war. Note, Proud men sometimes, by the just judgment of God, fall under the mortification of being trampled upon themselves by those whom once they haughtily trampled upon. And this shall they have for their pride.

III. Other nations shall in like manner be humbled, that the Lord alone may be exalted (Zep 2:11): The Lord will be terrible unto the Moabites and Ammonites in particular, who have made themselves a terror to his Israel. For, 1. Heathen gods must be abolished. They have long had possession, and their worshippers have both glorified them and gloried in them. But the Lord will famish all the gods of the earth, will starve them out of their strong-holds. The Pagans had a fond conceit that their idols were regaled by their offerings, and did eat the fat of their sacrifices, Deu 32:38. Omnia comesta à Belo - Bel has eaten all. But it is here promised that when the Christian religion is set up in the world men shall be turned from the service of these dumb idols, shall forsake their altars, and bring no more sacrifices to them, and thus they shall be famished, or made lean (as the word is), their priests shall. This intimates the vanity of those idols; it lies in the power of their worshippers to famish them; whereas the true God says, If I were hungry, I would not tell thee. It intimates also the victory of the God of Israel over them. Now know we that he is greater than all gods. 2. Heathen nations must be converted; when the gospel gets ground, by it men shall be brought to worship him who lives for ever (for that is the command of the everlasting gospel, Rev 14:7), every one from his place; they shall not need to go up to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel, but wherever they are, they may have access to him. I will that men pray every where. God shall be worshipped, not only by all the tribes of Israel and the strangers who join themselves to them, but by all the isles of the heathen. This is a promise which looks favourably upon our native country, for it is one of the most considerable of the isles of the Gentiles, by which God will be glorified.

Matthew Henry: Zep 2:12-15

The cup is going round, when Nebuchadnezzar is going on conquering and to conquer; and not only Israel's near neighbours, but those that lay more remote, must be reckoned with for the wrongs they have done to God's people; the Ethiopians and the Assyrians are here taken to task. 1. The Ethiopians, or Arabians, that had sometimes been a terror to Israel (as in Asa's time, 2Ch 14:9), must now be reckoned with: They shall be slain by my sword, Zep 2:12. Nebuchadnezzar was God's sword, the instrument in his hand with which these and other enemies were subdued and punished, Psa 17:14. 2. The Assyrians, and Nineveh the head city of their monarchy, are next set to the bar, to receive their doom: He that is God's sword will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and make himself master of it. Assyria had been the rod of God's anger against Israel, and now Babylon is the rod of God's anger against Assyria, Isa 10:5. He will make Nineveh a desolation, as was lately and largely foretold by the prophet Nahum. Observe, (1.) How flourishing Nineveh's state had formerly been (Zep 2:15): This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly. Nineveh was so strong that she feared no evil, and therefore dwelt carelessly and set danger at defiance; she was so rich that she thought herself sure of all good, and therefore was a rejoicing city, full of mirth and gaiety; and she had such a dominion that she admitted no rival, but said in her heart, " I am, and there is none besides me that can compare with me, no city in the world that can pretend to be equal with me."God can with his judgments frighten the most secure, humble the most haughty, and mar the mirth of those that most laugh now. (2.) How complete Nineveh's ruin shall now be; it shall be made a desolation, Zep 2:13. Such a heap of ruins shall this once pompous city be that it shall be, [1.] A receptacle for beasts, such a wilderness that flocks shall lie down in it; nay, such a waste, desolate, frightful place, that wild beasts, shall take up their abode there; the melancholy birds, as the cormorant and bittern, shall make their nests in what remains of the houses, as they sometimes do in old ruinous buildings that are uninhabited and unfrequented. The lintels, or chapiters of the pillars, the windows and thresholds, and all the fine cedar-work curiously engraven, shall lie exposed; and on them these rueful ominous birds shall perch, and their voice shall sing. How are the songs of mirth turned into hideous horrid noises! What little reason have men to be proud of stately buildings, and rich furniture, when they know not what all the pomp of them may come to at last! [2.] A derision to travellers. Those that had come from far, to gratify their curiosity with the sight of Nineveh's splendour, shall now look on her with as much contempt as ever they looked upon her with admiration (Zep 2:15): Every one that passes by shall hiss at her, and wag his hand, making light of her desolations, nay, and making sport with them - "There is an end of proud Nineveh."They shall not weep, and wring their hands (the adversities of those are unpitied and unlamented who were insolent and haughty in their prosperity), but they shall hiss and wag their hands, forgetting that perhaps their own ruin is not far off.

Keil-Delitzsch: Zep 2:11

"Fearful is Jehovah over them, for He destroyeth all the gods of the earth; that all the islands of the nations, every one from its place, may worship Him." Whilst עליהם refers to what precedes, the next clause in the reason assigned points to the announcement of judgment upon the remaining nations of the earth in Zep 2:12.; so that Zep 2:11 cannot be taken either as the conclusion of the previous threat, or as the commencement of the following one, but leads from the one to the other. Jehovah is terrible when He reveals Himself in the majesty of Judge of the world. The suffix appended to עליהם does not refer to עם יהוה , but to the להם in Zep 2:10, answering to the Moabites and Ammonites. Jehovah proves Himself terrible to these, because He has resolved to destroy all the gods of the earth. Râzâh , to make lean; hence to cause to vanish, to destroy. He causes the gods to vanish, by destroying the nations and kingdoms who relied upon these gods. He thereby reveals the nothingness of the gods, and brings the nations to acknowledge His sole deity (Mic 5:12). The fall of the false gods impels to the worship of the one true God. וישׁתּחווּ לו is the consequence, the fruit, and the effect of Jehovah's proving Himself terrible to the nations and their gods. איּי הגּוים , islands of the Gentiles, is an epithet taken from the islands and coastlands of Europe, to denote the whole of the heathen world (see at Isa 41:1). The distributive עישׁ ממּקומו refers to haggōyı̄m as the principal idea, though not in the sense of "every nation,"but in that of every individual belonging to the nations. Mimm^e qōmō , coming from his place: the meaning is not that the nations will worship Jehovah at their own place, in their own lands, in contradistinction to Mic 4:1; Zec 14:16, and other passages, where the nations go on pilgrimage to Mount Zion (Hitzig); but their going to Jerusalem is implied in the min (from), though it is not brought prominently out, as being unessential to the thought. With regard to the fulfilment, Bucer has correctly observed, that "the worship of Jehovah on the part of the heathen is not secured without sanguinary wars, that the type may not be taken for the fact itself, and the shadow for the body .... But the true completion of the whole in the kingdom of Christ takes place here in spirit and in faith, whilst in the future age it will be consummated in all its reality and in full fruition."Theodoret, on the other hand, is too one-sided in his view, and thinks only of the conversion of the heathen through the preaching of the gospel. "This prophecy,"he says, "has received its true fulfilment through the holy apostles, and the saints who have followed them; ... and this takes place, not by the law, but by the teaching of the gospel."

Keil-Delitzsch: Zep 2:12-15

After this statement of the aim of the judgments of God, Zephaniah mentions two other powerful heathen nations as examples, to prove that the whole of the heathen world will succumb to the judgment. Zep 2:12. "Ye Cushites also, slain of my sword are they. Zep 2:13. And let him stretch out his hand toward the south, and destroy Asshur; and make Nineveh a barren waste, a dry place, like the desert. Zep 2:14. And herds lie down in the midst of it, all kinds of beasts in crowds: pelicans also and hedgehogs will lodge on their knobs; the voice of the singer in the window; heaps upon the threshold: for their cedar-work hath He made bare. Zep 2:15. This the city, the exulting one, the safely dwelling one, which said in her heart, I, and no more: how has she become a desolation, a lair of beasts! Every one that passeth by it will hiss, swing his hand." As a representative of the heathen dwelling in the south, Zephaniah does not mention Edom, which bordered upon Judah, or the neighbouring land of Egypt, but the remote Ethiopia, the furthest kingdom or people in the south that was known to the Hebrews. The Ethiopians will be slain of the sword of Jehovah. המּה does not take the place of the copula between the subject and predicate, any more than הוּא in Isa 37:16 and Ezr 5:11 (to which Hitzig appeals in support of this usage: see Delitzsch, on the other hand, in his Comm. on Isaiah, l.c. ), but is a predicate. The prophecy passes suddenly from the form of address (in the second person) adopted in the opening clause, to a statement concerning the Cushites (in the third person). For similar instances of sudden transition, see Zep 3:18; Zec 3:8; Eze 28:22.

(Note: Calvin correctly says: "The prophet commences by driving them, in the second person, to the tribunal of God, and then adds in the third person, 'They will be,' etc.")

חללי חרבּי is a reminiscence from Isa 66:16 : slain by Jehovah with the sword. Zephaniah says nothing further concerning this distant nation, which had not come into any hostile collision with Judah in his day; and only mentions it to exemplify the thought that all the heathen will come under the judgment. The fulfilment commenced with the judgment upon Egypt through the Chaldaeans, as is evident from Eze 30:4, Eze 30:9, as compared with Josephus, Ant. x. 11, and continues till the conversion of that people to the Lord, the commencement of which is recorded in Act 8:27-38. The prophet dwells longer upon the heathen power of the north, the Assyrian kingdom with its capital Nineveh, because Assyria was then the imperial power, which was seeking to destroy the kingdom of God in Judah. This explains the fact that the prophet expresses the announcement of the destruction of this power in the form of a wish, as the use of the contracted forms yēt and yâsēm clearly shows. For it is evident that Ewald is wrong in supposing that ויט stands for ויּט , or should be so pointed, inasmuch as the historical tense, "there He stretched out His hand,"would be perfectly out of place. נטה יד (to stretch out a hand), as in Zep 1:4. ‛al tsâphōn , over (or against) the north. The reference is to Assyria with the capital Nineveh. It is true that this kingdom was not to the north, but to the north-east, of Judah; but inasmuch as the Assyrian armies invaded Palestine from the north, it is regarded by the prophets as situated in the north. On Nineveh itself, see at Jon 1:2 (p. 263); and on the destruction of this city and the fall of the Assyrian empire, at Nah 3:19 (p. 379). Lishmâmâh is strengthened by the apposition tsiyyâh kammidbâr .

Nineveh is not only to become a steppe, in which herds feed (Isa 27:10), but a dry, desolate waste, where only desert animals will make their home. Tsiyyâh , the dry, arid land - the barren, sandy desert (cf. Isa 35:1). בּתוכהּ , in the midst of the city which has become a desert, there lie flocks, not of sheep and goats ( צאן , Zep 2:6; cf. Isa 13:20), but כּל־חיתו־גוי , literally of all the animals of the (or a) nation. The meaning can only be, "all kinds of animals in crowds or in a mass." גּוי is used here for the mass of animals, just as it is in Joe 1:6 for the multitude of locusts, and as עם is in Prov. 30:35-36 for the ant-people; and the genitive is to be taken as in apposition. Every other explanation is exposed to much greater objections and difficulties. For the form חיתו , see at Gen 1:24. Pelicans and hedgehogs will make their homes in the remains of the ruined buildings (see at Isa 34:11, on which passage Zephaniah rests his description). בּכפתּריה , upon the knobs of the pillars left standing when the palaces were destroyed ( kaphtōr ; see at Amo 9:1). The reference to the pelican, a marsh bird, is not opposed to the tsiyyâh of Zep 2:13, since Nineveh stood by the side of streams, the waters of which formed marshes after the destruction of the city. קול ישׁורר cannot be rendered "a voice sings,"for shōrēr , to sing, is not used for tuning or resounding; but y^e shōrēr is to be taken relatively, and as subordinate to קול , the voice of him that sings will be heard in the window. Jerome gives it correctly: vox canentis in fenestra . There is no necessity to think of the cry of the owl or hawk in particular, but simply of birds generally, which make their singing heard in the windows of the ruins. The sketching of the picture of the destruction passes from the general appearance of the city to the separate ruins, coming down from the lofty knobs of the pillars to the windows, and from these to the thresholds of the ruins of the houses. Upon the thresholds there is chōrebh , devastation (= rubbish), and no longer a living being. This is perfectly appropriate, so that there is no necessity to give the word an arbitrary interpretation, or to alter the text, so as to get the meaning a raven or a crow. The description closes with the explanatory sentence: "for He has laid bare the cedar-work,"i.e., has so destroyed the palaces and state buildings, that the costly panelling of the walls is exposed. 'Arzâh is a collective, from 'erez , the cedar-work, and there is no ground for any such alteration of the text as Ewald and Hitzig suggest, in order to obtain the trivial meaning "hews or hacks in pieces,"or the cold expression, "He destroys, lays bare."In Zep 2:15 the picture is rounded off. "This is the city,"i.e., this is what happens to the exulting city. עלּיזה , exulting, applied to the joyful tumult caused by the men - a favourite word with Isaiah (cf. Isa 22:2; Isa 23:7; Isa 24:8; Isa 32:13). The following predicates from היּושׁבת to עוד are borrowed from the description of Babel in Isa 47:8, and express the security and self-deification of the mighty imperial city. The Yod in 'aphsı̄ is not paragogical, but a pronoun in the first person; at the same time, 'ephes is not a preposition, "beside me,"since in that case the negation "not one"could not be omitted, but "the non-existence,"so that אפסי = איני , I am absolutely no further (see at Isa 47:8). But how has this self-deifying pride been put to shame! איך , an expression of amazement at the tragical turn in her fate. The city filled with the joyful exulting of human beings has become the lair of wild beasts, and every one that passes by expresses his malicious delight in its ruin. Shâraq , to hiss, a common manifestation of scorn (cf. Mic 6:16; Jer 19:8). היניע יד , to swing the hand, embodying the thought, "Away with her, she has richly deserved her fate."

Constable: Zep 1:2--3:9

II. The day of Yahweh's judgment 1:2--3:8

Zephaniah's prophecies are all about "the day of the LORD." He revealed two things about this "day," first, that it would involve judgment (1:2-3:8) and, second, that it would eventuate in blessing (3:9-20). The judgment portion is the larger of the two sections. This judgment followed by blessing motif is common throughout the Prophets. Zephaniah revealed that judgment would come from Yahweh on the whole earth, Judah, Israel's neighbors, Jerusalem, and all nations. The arrangement of this judgment section of the book is chiastic.

A Judgment on the world 1:2-3

B Judgment on Judah 1:4-2:3

C Judgment on Israel's neighbors 2:4-15

B' Judgment on Jerusalem 3:1-7

A' Judgment on the all nations 3:8

Constable: Zep 2:4-15

C. judgment on Israel's neighbors 2:4-15

Since all people need to seek the Lord (v. 3), Zephaniah revealed that judgment was headed for the nations around Judah as well as for Judah. He selected nations that lived in four directions from Judah to represent all the nations. Philistia lay west of Judah, Moab and Ammon east, Ethiopia south, and Assyria north.

"He [God] would also judge nations that were near as well as nations that were far away. Those near would be plundered and possessed by Judah. Those far away would simply be destroyed by the Lord."²²

Zephaniah prophesied to the people of Judah about these nations rather than to these nations themselves, though they might have heard about Zephaniah's prophecies. His prophecies about the nations reminded the Judeans that Yahweh was sovereign over all the earth and that He was not just singling out Judah for punishment.

Constable: Zep 2:8-11

2. Judgment coming on Moab and Ammon 2:8-11

2:8 Probably Zephaniah linked Moab and Ammon because both nations descended from Lot (Gen. 19:30-38) as well as because both lay to Judah's east. Both nations had taunted and reviled the Israelites from their earliest history. They had repeatedly lifted themselves up as enemies of God's chosen people (cf. Num. 22; 24:17; Judg. 3:12-14; 10:7-9; 11:4-6; 1 Sam. 11:1-11; 2 Sam. 10:1-14; 2 Kings 3).

2:9 Because of their hostility toward the Israelites, almighty Yahweh, Israel's God, would definitely destroy these nations as He had Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Isa. 15-16; Jer. 48:1-49:22; Ezek. 25:1-14; 35; Amos 1:11-2:3). God had completely destroyed these cities that stood in the territory later occupied by Moab shortly before either of these nations came into existence (Gen. 19:23-29). Sodom and Gomorrah had become a notorious perpetual desolation, a place of salt pits where nothing but nettles grew (cf. Jer. 48:9), and that would be what Yahweh would make of Moab and Ammon. The remnant of Israelites would plunder these neighbors and take over their territory as an inheritance from their God (cf. Isa. 11:14).

2:10 Yahweh of armies would bring this fate on these nations because of their pride and arrogant ridicule of His people Israel (cf. Isa. 16:6; Jer. 48:26, 29; Ezek. 25:5-6, 8).

2:11 The Lord would terrify them. He would remove the inhabitants of these nations from the face of the earth so they would not be able to offer sacrifices to their pagan gods. As a result, these gods would starve. What kind of a god needs the sacrifices of mortals to sustain it? People from all the nations, pictured as living on the coastlands of the world, would worship Yahweh (cf. Mal. 1:11). This part of the prophecy awaits future fulfillment.

Constable: Zep 2:12

3. Judgment coming on Ethiopia 2:12

Zephaniah's oracle against Ethiopia is very brief (cf. Isa. 18-20; Jer. 46; Ezek. 29-32).²³ Biblical Ethiopia occupied the territory now held by southern Egypt, Sudan, and northern Ethiopia. The Ethiopians were the southernmost (really southwesternmost) people known to the Judeans. God promised to send His sword against this nation. His instrument of judgment proved to be Nebuchadnezzar who defeated Ethiopia shortly after overrunning all of Judah in 586 B.C. (cf. Ezek. 30:4-5, 9, 24-25). The prophet gave no reason for this overthrow, though it must be that Ethiopia shared the same disregard for Yahweh and His people that the other nations he condemned did.

Constable: Zep 2:13-15

4. Judgment coming on Assyria 2:13-15

2:13 Zephaniah also prophesied the destruction of Assyria to Judah's north (really northeast) and her capital Nineveh (cf. Isa. 13:1-14:27; 21:1-10; Jer. 50-51). Since Nineveh fell to the combined forces of Babylonia, Media, and Scythia in 612 B.C. we know that Zephaniah uttered this prophecy before that date. The Lord would make Nineveh a parched desolation (cf. Nah. 3). Until her fall Nineveh had much water surrounding and circulating through it, but in the future she would be dry (cf. Nah. 1:8; 2:6, 8).

2:14 Beautiful Nineveh would become a dwelling place for wild animals and birds rather than populated with multitudes of sophisticated citizens. The very idea must have seemed incredible in Zephaniah's day because Nineveh was the greatest city in the ancient Near East.²⁴

2:15 In Zephaniah's day Nineveh was proud, carefree, and apparently impregnable. Its residents boasted of being citizens of the most important city in the world (cf. Isa. 10:12). Yet in the future it would become a desolate place for beasts rather than barons. Passersby would ridicule the pride of Nineveh verbally by reviling it and bodily by shaking their fists at it after its fall (cf. Nah. 3:19).

Guzik: Zep 2:1-15

Zephaniah 2 - Judgment Against the Nations

A. The last chance.

1. (1-2) Repent while there is still time.

Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, O undesirable nation, before the decree is issued, or the day passes like chaff, before the Lord's fierce anger comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you!

a. Gather yourselves together: The idea is gathering together in a solemn demonstration of national mourning and repentance.

b. Before the decree is issued: All the announcement of judgment in the previous chapter is understood as a warning and as an invitation to repentance. The often-unwritten theme behind most every prophecy of judgment is, "This is what will happen if you do not repent." Here the prophet pleads with the nation to repent before it is too late.

c. Before the day passes like chaff: Here the prophet calls for a sense of urgency in repentance. Each day passes like chaff, and there is nothing to show for the day if we neglect what is most important: getting right and staying right with God.

i. How easy it is to let the days pass like chaff, and never get right with God! Often the devil's most powerful lie isn't that there is no God, or no Bible, or no truth - often his most powerful lie is that there is no hurry. Nevertheless, today is the day of salvation.

2. (3) The last chance.

Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth, who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger.

a. Seek the LORD, all you meek: Even the righteous must take heed to this warning. It would do them no good to say, "The LORD speaks to my wicked neighbor and not to me." At a critical moment of national danger, even the righteous must seek the LORD.

b. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger: In more than one place, God promises to hide His righteous in the day of great judgment. This is especially relevant to the time of the Great Tribulation, when Jesus warned us to Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. (Luke 21:36)

B. Judgment against the nations.

1. (4-7) Judgment against the Philistines.

For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon desolate; they shall drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron shall be uprooted. Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Cherethites! The word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines: "I will destroy you; so there shall be no inhabitant." The seacoast shall be pastures, with shelters for shepherds and folds for flocks. The coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed their flocks there; in the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening. For the LORD their God will intervene for them, and return their captives.

a. For Gaza shall be forsaken: Judgment will come against an unrepentant Judah, but it will also come against the pagan nations neighboring Judah. God promises to destroy the cities of the Philistines and give their land as pasture for the remnant of the house of Judah.

b. The name Cherethites is "a reference to their early geographical links with Crete." (Baker)

2. (8-11) Judgment against the Moabites and Ammonites.

"I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the people of Ammon, with which they have reproached My people, and made arrogant threats against their borders. Therefore, as I live," says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Surely Moab shall be like Sodom, and the people of Ammon like Gomorrah; overrun with weeds and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation. The residue of My people shall plunder them, and the remnant of My people shall possess them." This they shall have for their pride, because they have reproached and made arrogant threats against the people of the LORD of hosts. The LORD will be awesome to them, for He will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth; people shall worship Him, each one from his place, indeed all the shores of the nations.

a. I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the people of Ammon: First God looked to the west and saw the Philistines; now He looks to the east and sees the Moabites and the Ammonites. God promises to judge these peoples and bring them to perpetual desolation.

i. "The comparison of Moab and Ammon to Sodom and Gomorrah is not surprising in view of their origin: Moab and Ammon were the offspring of the incestuous relations of Lot's daughters with their drunk father after he fled the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah." (Walker)

b. The LORD will be awesome to them, for He will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth; people shall worship Him: God will glorify Himself among the nations, and one way He will do it is to bring the idols of the nations low. All will see that their idols are vain and that the LORD alone is God.

3. (12) Judgment against Ethiopia.

"You Ethiopians also, you shall be slain by My sword."

a. You Ethiopians also: Now God looks to the south, announcing judgment against the Ethiopians.

4. (13-15) Judgment against Assyria.

And He will stretch out His hand against the north, destroy Assyria, and make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as the wilderness. The herds shall lie down in her midst, every beast of the nation. Both the pelican and the bittern shall lodge on the capitals of her pillars; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be at the threshold; for He will lay bare the cedar work. This is the rejoicing city that dwelt securely, that said in her heart, "I am it, and there is none besides me." How has she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down! Everyone who passes by her shall hiss and shake his fist.

a. And He will stretch out His hand against the north: God completes the circle of judgment against Israel's neighbors by looking at Assyria and her capital city of Nineveh, which will be made a desolate city fit only for the habitation of animals and birds.

b. This is the rejoicing city that dwelt securely: Nineveh felt strong and confident, but God knew how to bring her low. Here the Lord fulfills the principle of James 4:6: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

c. Zephaniah never mentions why the nations are ripe for judgment. Perhaps he assumes we've already read Amos and Isaiah and Nahum, which do detail the sins of these neighboring nations.

© 2001 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

ZEPHANIAH, ninth in order of the minor prophets, prophesied "in the days of Josiah" (Zep 1:1), that is, between 642 and 611 B.C. The name means "Jehovah hath guarded," literally, "hidden" (Psa 27:5; Psa 83:3). The specification in the introductory heading, of not only his father, but also his grandfather, and great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, implies that the latter were persons of note, or else the design was to distinguish him from another Zephaniah of note at the time of the captivity. The Jews' supposition, that persons recorded as a prophet's ancestors were themselves endowed with the prophetic spirit, seems groundless. There is no impossibility of the Hezekiah, who was Zephaniah's great-great-grandfather, being King Hezekiah as to the number of generations; for Hezekiah's reign of twenty-nine years, and his successor's reign of fifty-five years, admit of four generations interposing between. Yet the omission of the designation, "king of Judah," is fatal to the theory (compare Pro 25:1; Isa 38:9).

He must have flourished in the earlier part of Josiah's reign. In Zep 2:13-15 rhe foretells the doom of Nineveh, which happened in 625 B.C.; and in Zep 1:4 he denounces various forms of idolatry, and specially that of Baal. Now Josiah's reformation began in the twelfth and was completed in the eighteenth year of his reign. Zephaniah, therefore, in denouncing Baal worship, co-operated with that good king in his efforts, and so must have prophesied somewhere between the twelfth and eighteenth years of his reign. The silence of the historical books is no argument against this, as it would equally apply against Jeremiah's prophetical existence at the same time. Jewish tradition says that Zephaniah had for his colleagues Jeremiah, whose sphere of labor was the thoroughfares and market places, and Huldah the prophetess, who exercised her vocation in the college in Jerusalem. The prophecy begins with the nation's sin and the fearful retribution coming at the hands of the Chaldeans. These are not mentioned by name, as in Jeremiah; for the prophecies of the latter, being nearer the fulfilment, become more explicit than those of an earlier date. The second chapter dooms the persecuting states in the neighborhood as well as Judea itself. The third chapter denounces Jerusalem, but concludes with the promise of her joyful re-establishment in the theocracy.

The style, though not generally sublime, is graphic and vivid in details (compare Zep 1:4-12). The language is pure, and free from Aramaisms. There are occasional coincidences with former prophets (compare Zep 2:14, with Isa 34:11; Zep 2:15, with Isa 47:8; Zep 3:10, with Isa 18:1; Zep 2:8, with Isa 16:6; also Zep 1:5, with Jer 8:2; Zep 1:12, with Jer 48:11). Such coincidences in part arise from the phraseology of Hebrew prophetic poetry being the common language of the inspired brotherhood. The New Testament, at Rom 15:6, seems to refer to Zep 3:9.

JFB: Zephaniah (Outline)

• GOD'S SEVERE JUDGMENT ON JUDAH FOR ITS IDOLATRY AND NEGLECT OF HIM: THE RAPID APPROACH OF THE JUDGMENT, AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF ESCAPE. (Zep. 1:1-18)
• EXHORTATION TO REPENT BEFORE THE CHALDEAN INVADERS COME. DOOM OF JUDAH'S FOES, THE PHILISTINES, MOAB, AMMON, WITH THEIR IDOLS, AND ETHIOPIA AND ASSYRIA. (Zep 2:1-15)
• RESUMPTION OF THE DENUNCIATION OF JERUSALEM, AS BEING UNREFORMED BY THE PUNISHMENT OF OTHER NATIONS: AFTER HER CHASTISEMENT JEHOVAH WILL INTERPOSE FOR HER AGAINST HER FOES; HIS WORSHIP SHALL FLOURISH IN ALL LANDS, BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM, WHERE HE SHALL BE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE, AND SHALL MAKE THEM A PRAISE IN ALL THE EARTH. (Zep. 3:1-20)

TSK: Zephaniah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Zep 2:1, An exhortation to repentance; Zep 2:4, The judgment of the Philistines, Zep 2:8, of Moab and Ammon, Zep 2:12. of Ethiopia, Zep 2:13. and of Assyria.

Poole: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

THE ARGUMENT

This prophet, by a somewhat larger account of his pedigree, gives us ground to guess of what family he might be; the last named may possibly be the good king Hezekiah; the names are the same in Zep 1:1 , and 2Ki 18:1 . By his freedom with princes and the king’ s children, reproving them and threatening them, Zep 1:8 , with the loftiness of his style, may fairly be admitted a conjecture at somewhat more than ordinary in his descent: but whether of royal blood or not, he came with a Divine warrant, and with a prophetic spirit, sharply reproving all ranks of men for their sins; of which in particular idolatry, apostacy, and neglect to inquire for the true religion and the true God, and the sinful fashions as of great ones in their habits, and the violent oppression of the great ones, are named, Zep 1:5,6,8,9 ; which sins, and many others which then abounded amongst them, are threatened with severe punishments, and with utter desolation, which had already befallen some of the neighbouring nations named; and proposed as examples to the Jews, to move them to consider, repent, amend, and prevent the threatened judgments, which, unless they repent, will come suddenly. The prophet therefore affectionately exhorteth and presseth them to repentance, Zep 2 , by examples of those he mentioneth, whose impenitence, added to their sins, ruined them. By promises, and encouragements to expect mercy upon their hearkening to his counsel, he foretells the coming of the Messiah, the calling of the Gentiles, the preserving of a remnant of them amidst all the troubles and wasting judgments that should follow them, and a return out of captivity, with the re-establishing them as the church and people of God; which promise closeth his prophecy, and for which he calls on them to be thankful to and rejoice in their God, who in the midst of their sins, and his wrath for those sins, yet remembered his own mercies and covenant for them.

The time when Zephaniah prophesied, Zep 1:1 . God’ s severe judgment against Judah for divers sins, Zep 1:2-18 .

Poole: Zephaniah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 2

An exhortation to repentance, Zep 2:1-3 . The judgment of the Philistines, Zep 2:4-7 of Moab and Ammon, Zep 2:8-11, of Ethiopia, Zep 2:12 , and Assyria, Zep 2:13-15 .

MHCC: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

Zephaniah excites to repentance, foretells the destruction of the enemies of the Jews, and comforts the pious among them with promises of future blessings, the restoration of their nation, and the prosperity of the church in the latter days.

MHCC: Zephaniah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

(Zep 2:1-3) An exhortation to repentance.

(Zep 2:4-15) Judgments upon other nations.

Matthew Henry: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Prophecy of Zephaniah

This prophet is placed last, as he was last in time, of all the minor prophets before the captivity, and not long before Jeremiah, who lived at the time of the captivity. He foretels the general destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and sets their sins in order before them, which had provoked God to bring their ruin upon them, calls them to repentance, threatens the neighbouring nations with the like destructions, and gives encouraging promises of their joyful return out of captivity in due time, which have a reference to the grace of the gospel. We have, in the first verse, an account of the prophet and the date of his prophecy, which supersedes our enquiry concerning them here.

Matthew Henry: Zephaniah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter we have, I. An earnest exhortation to the nation of the Jews to repent and make their peace with God, and so to prevent the judgments threatened before it was too late (Zep 2:1-3), and this inferred from the revelation of God's wrath against them in the foregoing chapter. II. A denunciation of the judgments of God against several of the neighbouring nations that had assisted, or rejoiced in, the calamity of Israel. 1. The Philistines (Zep 2:4-7). 2. The Moabites and Ammonites (Zep 2:8-11). 3. The Ethiopians and Assyrians (Zep 2:12-15). All these shall drink of the same cup of trembling that is put into the hands of God's people, as was also foretold by other prophets before and after.

Constable: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Writer

The title of the book comes from the name of its writer.

"Zephaniah" means "Yahweh hides [or has hidden]," "Yahweh's watchman," or "Yahweh treasured." The uncertainty arises over the etymology of the prophet's name, which scholars dispute. I prefer "Yahweh hides."

Zephaniah was the great-great-grandson of Hezekiah (1:1), evidently King Hezekiah of Judah.¹ If he was indeed a descendant of the king, this would make him the writing prophet with the most royal blood in his veins, except for David and Solomon. Apart from the names of his immediate forefathers we know nothing more about him for sure, though it seems fairly sure where he lived. His references to Judah and Jerusalem (1:10-11) seem to indicate that he lived in Jerusalem, which would fit a king's descendant.

Unity

Criticism of the unity of Zephaniah has not had great influence. Zephaniah's prediction of Nineveh's fall (2:15; 612 B.C.) led critics who do not believe that the prophets could predict the future to date the book after that event. Differences in language and style led some critics to divide the book up and identify its various parts with diverse sources. Yet the unity of the message and flow of the entire book, plus ancient belief in its unity, have convinced most conservative scholars to regard Zephaniah as the product of one writer.²

Date

Zephaniah ministered during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (640-609 B.C.; 1:1). Scholars debate just when during his reign Zephaniah wrote, before or after his reforms, which began in 622 B.C.³ Zephaniah made no explicit reference to Josiah's reforms, and the evidence is really insufficient to settle the debate.

Zephaniah's reference to the future destruction of Nineveh (2:13) definitely fixed his writing before that event in 612 B.C. So the prophet ministered between 640 and 612 B.C. His contemporaries were Nahum, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah, though Jeremiah's ministry continued beyond the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C..

Place of Composition

References to Jerusalem in 1:10-11 seem to indicate that Zephaniah knew Jerusalem well. Since he ministered to the Southern Kingdom, it is likely that he lived in Judah and probably in Jerusalem.

Audience and Purpose

The fact that Yahweh's word came to Zephaniah during Josiah's reign (640-609 B.C.) means that he could not have ministered to the Northern Kingdom because it fell in 722 B.C. Thus Zephaniah's audience consisted of the people of Judah, the surviving southern kingdom.

The political situation in Judah during Josiah's reign was fairly peaceful. Following Assyria's capture of Samaria in 722 B.C., the Assyrian Empire began to decline. With its decline, Nabopolassar, the first of the Neo-Babylonian kings (626-605 B.C.), began to push Babylonia forward. Assyria declined and Babylonia advanced until Babylonia, with the Medes and Scythians, destroyed Nineveh in 612 B.C. and a few years later replaced Assyria as the dominant power in the ancient Near East. This happened in 605 B.C. when the Babylonians defeating the Assyrians and Egyptians at Carchemish. Judah benefited during this transitional period in Near Eastern politics. Josiah was able to get rid of some Assyrian religious practices, and he extended Judah's territory north into Naphtali.⁴

Josiah's evil predecessors, Manasseh (695-642 B.C.) and Amon (642-640 B.C.), had encouraged the people of Judah to depart from the Lord for over 50 years, so wickedness had become ingrained in them. In the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (622 B.C.) Hilkiah the priest discovered the Law of Moses in the temple, and when Josiah read it he instituted major reforms throughout Judah. Josiah's reforms were good because they were official. He eliminated much of the display of idolatry in the land and revived the celebration of the Passover, among other things.⁵ But unfortunately his reforms did not change the hearts of most of the people, as Jeremiah revealed in his earlier prophecies. So the people to whom Zephaniah ministered had a long history of formal religion without much real commitment to Yahweh.

God sent a prophetic word to Zephaniah because the Judeans of his day still needed to get right with Him in their hearts. The prophet announced that God was going to send judgment on Judah for her wickedness. He also assured the godly few in the nation, the remnant, that the Lord would preserve them and remain true to His promises concerning ultimate worldwide blessing for Israel in the future. Perhaps 1:7 summarizes what the book is all about better than any other single verse: "Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the LORD is near."

". . . Zephaniah's purpose was to announce coming judgment on Judah in the Day of the Lord. However, he said that judgment would extend to all the nations of the earth, indicating that the Day of the Lord would also bring deliverance for Israel and the Gentiles."⁶

Literary form

"Zephaniah's style is chiefly characterized by a unity and harmony of composition plus energy of style. Rapid and effective alternations of threats and promises also characterize his style."⁷

"Zephaniah can hardly be considered great as a poet. He does not rank with Isaiah, nor even with Hosea in this particular. . . . He had an imperative message to deliver and proceeded in the most direct and forceful way to discharge his responsibility. What he lacked in grace and charm, he in some measure atoned for by the vigour and clarity of his speech. He realised the approaching terror so keenly that he was able to present it vividly and convincingly to his hearers. No prophet has made the picture of the day of Yahweh more real."⁸

Distinctive features

The Book of Zephaniah has been called "a compendium of the oracles of the prophets."⁹ This is true for two reasons. First, Zephaniah's general message is similar to that of most of the other writing prophets. Second, he used the same terms as several of the other prophets (cf. 1:7 and Hab. 2:20; 1:7 and Joel 1:15; 1:7 and Isa. 34:6; 2:14 and Isa. 13:21; 34:11; 2:15 and Isa. 47:8).

Zephaniah contains more references to "the day of the LORD" than any other Old Testament book. This phrase sometimes refers to the past, sometimes to the near future, sometimes to the distant future, and sometimes to the far distant, eschatological future. The phrase always refers to some period of time in which God is working in the world in a recognizable way. It usually refers to a time of blasting, but it also sometimes refers to blessing.

Zephaniah 1:14-18 has been called "emergent apocalyptic."¹⁰ This pericope contains material that would one day become prominent in Jewish apocalyptic literature.¹¹

Theologically, Zephaniah stressed the sovereign justice of Yahweh (1:2-3, 7, 14-18; 3:8) and His willingness to receive the repentant (2:1-2). He also emphasized the wickedness of man (1:3-6, 17; 3:1, 4). The theme of Yahweh's relationship to Jerusalem is prominent in Zephaniah as well (1:4-13; 3:1-7, 11-17).

Message¹²

The key to the Book of Zephaniah is the phrase "the day of the Lord." This phrase appears in most of the prophetic literature of the Old Testament. As we saw in Joel, "the day of the Lord" can be a past day, a day in the relatively near future, or a day in the far distant, eschatological future. It is any day in which God is dynamically at work in human affairs.

Wherever we find the phrase "the day of the Lord," it always suggests a contrast with the day of man. The day of man is any day when man appears to be in control of human affairs. It is a day of God's patience. The day of the Lord is any day when God is clearly in control of human affairs. It is a day of God's judgment. The phrase "the day of the Lord" is by no means unique to Zephaniah, but it is the key to the message of this book. Zephaniah used it more frequently than any other prophet. It was his burden. And he explained the meaning of this phrase more than any other prophet.

Zephaniah ministered during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (1:1). It is rather remarkable that the prophet did not refer to Josiah's reforms, which were his great spiritual contribution to the history of Judah. Probably the reason for the lack of mention is that Josiah's reforms were a result of his personal dedication to Yahweh rather than the result of a revival of spiritual life among the Judahites generally. Huldah's prophecy reflects this difference (2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chron. 34:22-28). Zephaniah took no note of Josiah's good heart but addressed the spiritual need of the Judahites. The contrast between this king and his subjects is striking.

The day of the Lord that Zephaniah predicted was an eschatological day in which God would judge the people of Judah and Jerusalem. This judgment will take place during the first part of the eschatological day of the Lord, the period we refer to as the Tribulation. Zephaniah also predicted restoration following judgment (ch. 3). This refers to the second part of the eschatological day of the Lord, the period we refer to as the Millennium. But Zephaniah also had in mind an eschatological day of the Lord even after the Millennium. This seems clear from the extent of devastation he described and the picture of restoration he painted. That day of the Lord will be the judgment of the Lord at the end of the Millennium including the destruction of the present earth and heavens, which will be followed by the creation of new heavens and a new earth. Other revelation helps us see that there are in fact two periods of future judgment followed by restoration, not just one, which we might conclude if all we had was Zephaniah's prophecy (cf. Rev.).

The permanent value of the Book of Zephaniah is its unveiling of the day of the Lord. The book does not reveal exactly when that day will come. The only chronological reference in the book is in the first verse that locates Zephaniah's ministry in history. The book pictures God judging in the undefined future. This is not judgment through armies of invading soldiers or through any human instrumentality. It is direct judgment from God Himself.

There are three things that this book reveals about this coming day of the Lord: its content, its extent, and its intent.

The content of the day of the Lord is clear from 1:2-3. God will visit earth with direct and positive retribution, not in the general administrative sense of bringing people to account eventually but in the narrower sense of executing vengeance on humanity in cataclysmic judgment (1:14-16). This judgment will fall in spite of human unbelief (1:12). When people will be disregarding God, He will break into human history dynamically, supernaturally to judge. Peter's description of the day of the Lord is remarkably similar (2 Pet. 3:1-10). People today are saying what these two prophets said they would say so long ago. They are saying that God will never intervene in judgment this way. The great statement of the Book of Zephaniah is that God will indeed do this in a day yet future.

What will be the extent of this judgment? Zephaniah reveals that it will be discriminating. His people will be the special target of this judgment, though all humanity will also suffer (1:12). As we can see from this verse, the last stages of sin are complacency and indifference. It is an interesting fact of history that complacency and indifference have frequently preceded the destruction of great empires of the past. Assyria fell to Babylonia because she was complacent and indifferent (Nahum). Remember the fall of the Babylonian Empire that we read of in Daniel 5. The Roman Empire fell to the Visigoths from the north because it had become complacent and indifferent. And earlier the Northern Kingdom of Israel and later the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Assyria and Babylonia respectively for the same reasons. The spirit that produces these conditions is disregard for God and His Word (3:2). The result of such a spirit is that the leaders of the people forsake their proper servant role and turn to abusing the people to fatten themselves (3:3-4).

Reading Zephaniah is somewhat like watching a science fiction movie about a nuclear disaster that leaves nothing but a sterile, uninhabited, windswept landscape with no life, no flowers, no fruit, and no beauty. What produces this horrible condition? The reason is people who are complacent and indifferent, who disregard and ignore God. They do not obey God's voice, receive His correction, trust in Him, or draw near to Him. They are materialized, self-centered, living in luxury oblivious to their danger. So God steps in and turns their complacency into chaos, disorganizes their orderly lives, and purges them in their indifference. All that is left is a wind-swept desert.

What is the intent of this terrible activity? It is the creation of a new order with God Himself enthroned among His creatures (3:17). Chapter 3 of this prophecy is such a different picture of the future from what we have in chapters 1 and 2 that some commentators have said that a different person must have written it. Chapter 3 describes songs instead of sorrow, service instead of selfishness, and solidarity instead of scattering. That is the intent of this judgment. Marvelous restoration will follow devastating judgment.

The living message of this book is twofold. We can rejoice in the assurance of this coming judgment followed by restoration, and we have a responsibility in view of this coming judgment followed by restoration.

It is our privilege to "rejoice in the hope of the glory of God" that will be manifested at the end of God's judgment (Rom. 5:2b). Even though the day of the Lord will involve the destruction of all things that destroy, it will also begin a new era of singing, service, and solidarity. That era will be the millennial reign of Christ first and then the eternal state.

It is also our responsibility to live holy and godly lives as we anticipate the coming of "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will dwell" (2 Pet. 3:11-13). We need to be diligent to be found at peace with God, "spotless and blameless" in our lives (2 Pet. 3:14). We need to be on guard that we do not fall away from our own faithfulness because of the prevalent "error of unprincipled people" (i.e., complacency and indifference; 2 Pet. 3:17). And we need to continue to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 3:18). Rejoicing and responsible living: these characteristics need to mark the lives of people who anticipate the day of the Lord.

We could state the message of the book as follows. God will intervene in history catastrophically to judge humanity's complacency and indifference and to restore His people to the conditions of blessing that He originally intended for them to enjoy.

Constable: Zephaniah (Outline)

Outline

I. Heading 1:1

II. The day of Yahweh's judgment 1:2-3:8

A. Judgment on the world 1:2-3

B. Judgment on Judah 1:4-2:3

1. The cause for Judah's judgment 1:4-6

2. The course of Judah's judgment 1:7-13

3. The imminence and horrors of Judah's judgment 1:14-18

4. A call to repentance 2:1-3

C. Judgment on Israel's neighbors 2:4-15

1. Judgment coming on Philistia 2:4-7

2. Judgment coming on Moab and Ammon 2:8-11

3. Judgment coming on Ethiopia 2:12

4. Judgment coming on Assyria 2:13-15

D. Judgment on Jerusalem 3:1-7

E. Judgment on all nations 3:8

III. The day of Yahweh's blessing 3:9-20

A. The purification of the nations 3:9

B. The transformation of Israel 3:10-20

1. Israel's purification 3:10-13

2. Israel's and Yahweh's rejoicing 3:14-17

3. Israel's regathering 3:18-20

Constable: Zephaniah

Zephaniah

Bibliography

Chisholm, Robert B., Jr. "A Theology of the Minor Prophets." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 397-433. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Christensen, Duane L. "Zephaniah 2:4-15: A Theological Basis for Josiah's Program of Political Expansion." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 46 (1984):669-82.

Craigie, Peter C. Twelve Prophets. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985.

Dyer, Charles H., and Eugene H. Merrill. The Old Testament Explorer. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

Feinberg, Charles Lee. Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi. The Major Messages of the Minor Prophets series. New York: American Board of Missions to the Jews, 1951.

Hannah, John D. "Zephaniah." In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, pp. 1523-35. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1985.

Henry, Mattthew. Commentary on the Whole Bible. Edited by Leslie F. Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961.

Keil, Carl Friedrich. The Twelve Minor Prophets. 2 vols. Translated by James Martin. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949.

Laetsch, T. The Minor Prophets. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956.

Patterson, Richard D. Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary sereis. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Smith, J. M. P. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Zephaniah and Nahum, International Critical Commentaries series. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1911.

Walker, Larry Lee. "Zephaniah." In Daniel-Minor Prophets. Vol. 7 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and Richard P. Polcyn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985.

Wilson, M. R. "Nineveh." In Major Cities of the Biblical World. Edited by R. K. Harrison. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF SOPHONIAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Sophonias, whose name, saith St. Jerome, signifies "the watchman of the Lord," or "the hidden of the Lord," prophesied in the beginning of the reign of Josias. He was a native of Sarabatha, and of the tribe of Simeon, according to the more general opinion. He prophesied the punishments of the Jews, for their idolatry and other crimes; also the punishments that were to come on divers nations; the coming of Christ, the conversion of the Gentiles, the blindness of the Jews, and their conversion towards the end of the world. (Challoner) --- Some editions read, Ezechias. (Haydock) --- But this opinion is not well grounded no more than that of the Jews, who assert (Calmet) that all the ancestors mentioned by the prophets were endued with the prophetic spirit, for which reason Amos specifies none, as he was not the son of a prophet, Amos vii. 14. (St. Jerome) --- Sophonias appeared a little before Jeremias, Ezechiel, Baruch, and Daniel, foretelling the captivity and return of the two tribes, the destruction of various nations, the conversion of the Gentiles, and of the Jews also towards the end of the world. (Worthington) --- Many of the promises regard only the Christian Church. (Calmet)

Gill: Zephaniah (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO ZEPHANIAH

This book in some Hebrew copies is called "Sepher Zephaniah", the Book of Zephaniah. Its title, in the Vulgate Latin version, is, the Prophecy of Zephaniah; and, in the Syriac version, the Prophecy of the Prophet Zephaniah; and so the Arabic version calls him a prophet; and he is the last of the minor prophets that prophesied before the Babylonish captivity. The time of his prophesying, as well as his, parentage, are expressed Zep 1:1, and therefore need not be inquired into; only the sad mistake of Hobbes ^a may be observed, who makes him to be the most ancient of the prophets, and to be contemporary with Amaziah and Uzziah, kings of Judah, when he is expressly said to prophesy in the days of Josiah. Pseudo-Epiphanius ^b calls him a prophet of Sarabatha, of a mountain of that name, and says he was of the tribe of Simeon; and in this Isidore ^c agrees with him; and both affirm that he died and was buried in his own native place; but the author of the Cippi Hebraici ^d says he was buried at Geba, in Mount Lebanon, in the midst of a cave shut up, where his school continues; and from which place the clouds never depart, and where also are flowing fountains. His name, according to Jerom, signifies either "the Lord's watch tower", or "watchman"; or else "the secret of the Lord"; or, "his hidden one"; deriving his name, either from hpu, which signifies to "look out", as a watchman from his tower; or from Npu, "to hide"; which latter derivation is best; and some interpret it "a revealer of the secrets", or "hidden things, of the Lord"; and take it to be much the same with Zaphnathpaaneah, the name given to Joseph by Pharaoh, Gen 41:45, and is of the same signification: but Hillerus ^e interprets the name of Zephaniah, "the Lord hid himself"; which agrees with the times in which he lived. That this prophecy was wrote by himself, there need be no doubt of; nor of the authenticity of it, being always received by the Jewish synagogue as authentic; and as it appears to be from its style and manner of composition; from the subject matter of it agreeing with other parts of Scripture, especially with Jeremiah and Ezekiel; and from the accomplishment of various prophecies in it. There are indeed some spurious things which have been ascribed to him, as the "analepsis" or assumption of Zephaniah the prophet, and the prophecy of Zephaniah, consisting of six hundred verses; but these are apocryphal, and have no likeness to this prophecy; in which he foretells the destruction of the Jews by the Chaldeans for their sins, which he inveighs against, and calls them to repentance for them, as also the ruin of many other nations, all which came to pass; as well as he prophesies of the calling of the Gentiles, and the conversion of the Jews, and of the comfortable state of the church in Gospel times, and especially in the latter day.

Gill: Zephaniah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO ZEPHANIAH 2

In this chapter the prophet exhorts the Jews to repentance; and foretells the destruction of several neighbouring nations. The body of the people of the Jews in general are first called upon to gather together and humble themselves, who were a people neither desirable, nor deserving of the favours of God, nor desirous of them, Zep 2:1 and to this they are pressed, from the consideration of God's decree of vengeance being ready to bring forth and break forth upon them, Zep 2:2 and then the few godly among them are exhorted to seek the Lord, and what is agreeable to him; since there was at least a probability of their being protected by him in a time of general calamity, Zep 2:3 and that the destruction of this people might appear the more certain, and that they might have no dependence on their neighbours, the prophet proceeds to predict the ruin of several of them, particularly the Philistines; several places belonging to them are by name mentioned, and the whole land threatened with desolation; the maritime part of it to be only inhabited by shepherds and their flocks; and afterwards the coast possessed by the Jews, on their return from their captivity, Zep 2:4. Next the Moabites and Ammonites are prophesied of; whose destruction should come upon them for their pride, and for their contempt and reviling of the people of God; and which should be like that of Sodom and Gomorrah; and would issue in the abolition of idolatry, and the setting up of the worship of God in their country, and elsewhere, Zep 2:8. As for the Ethiopians, they should be slain with the sword, Zep 2:12 and the whole monarchy of Assyria, with Nineveh the metropolis of it, should be utterly laid waste, and become a desolation, and a wilderness; and the habitation, not only of flocks, but of beasts and birds of prey, Zep 2:13.