Zephaniah 2:5

2:5 Those who live by the sea, the people who came from Crete, ¹  are as good as dead. ² 

The Lord has decreed your downfall, ³  Canaan, land of the Philistines:

“I will destroy everyone who lives there!” ⁴ 

Zephaniah 2:7

2:7 Those who are left from the kingdom of Judah ⁵  will take possession of it. ⁶ 

By the sea ⁷  they ⁸  will graze,

in the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down in the evening,

for the Lord their God will intervene for them ⁹  and restore their prosperity. ¹⁰ 

[2:5]  ¹ tn Heb “Kerethites,” a people settled alongside the Philistines in the coastal areas of southern Palestine (cf. 1 Sam 30:14; Ezek 25:16). They originally came from the island of Crete.

[2:5]  ² tn Heb “Woe, inhabitants of the coast of the sea, nation of Kerethites.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “ah, woe”), is used to mourn the dead and express outwardly one’s sorrow (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5). By using it here the prophet mourns in advance the downfall of the Philistines, thereby emphasizing the certainty of their demise (“as good as dead”). Some argue the word does not have its earlier connotation here and is simply an attention-getting interjection, equivalent to “Hey!”

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “the word of the Lord is against you.”

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will destroy you so there is no inhabitant [remaining].”

[2:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “the remnant of the house of Judah.”

[2:7]  ⁶ tn Or “the coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah.”

[2:7]  ⁷ tc Heb “on them,” but the antecedent of the masculine pronoun is unclear. It may refer back to the “pasture lands,” though that noun is feminine. It is preferable to emend the text from עֲלֵיהֶם (’alehem) to עַל־הַיָּם (’al-hayyam, “by the sea”) an emendation that assumes a misdivision and transposition of letters in the MT (cf. NEB “They shall pasture their flocks by the sea”). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 192.

[2:7]  ⁸ tn The referent of the pronominal subject (“they”) is unclear. It may refer (1) to the shepherds (in which case the first verb should be translated, “pasture their sheep,” cf. NEB), or (2) to the Judahites occupying the area, who are being compared to sheep (cf. NIV, “there they will find pasture”).

[2:7]  ⁹ tn Or “will care for them.”

[2:7]  ¹⁰ tn Traditionally, “restore their captivity,” i.e., bring back their captives, but it is more likely the expression means “restore their fortunes” in a more general sense (cf. NEB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).