Armenia in comments -- Book: Zephaniah (tZeph) Սոփոնիա
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tZeph 2::8 I - Dionysius: "God, Who know all things, "I heard" that is, have known within Me, in My mind, not anew but from eternity, and now I shew in effect that I know it; wherefore I say that I hear, because I act after the manner of one who perceiveth something anew." I, the just Judge, heard (see Isa 16:6; Jer 48:39; Eze 35:12-13). He was present and "heard," even when, because He avenged not, He seemed not to hear, but laid it up in store with Him to avenge in the due time Deu 32:34-35.
The reproach of Moab and the reviling of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached My people - Both words, "reproached, reviled," mean, primarily, cutting speeches; both are intensive, and are used of blaspheming God as unable to help His people, or reviling His people as forsaken by Him. If directed against man, they are directed against God through man. So David interpreted the taunt of Goliah, "reviled the armies of the living God" (Sa1 17:26, Sa1 17:36, Sa1 17:45, coll. 10. 25), and the Philistine cursed David "by his gods" Sa1 17:43. In a Psalm David complains, "the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me" (Psa 69:10 (9)); and a Psalm which cannot be later than David, since it declares the national innocency from idolatry, connects with their defeats, the voice of him "that reproacheth and blasphemeth" (Psa 44:16 (17), joining the two words used here). The sons of Corah say, "with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, where is thy God?" Psa 42:10. So Asaph, "The enemy hath reproached, the foolish people hath blasphemed Thy Name" Psa 74:10, Psa 74:18; and, "we are become a reproach to our neighbors. Wherefore should the pagan say, where is their God? render unto our neighbors - the reproach wherewith they have reproached Thee, O Lord" Psa 79:4, Psa 79:10, Psa 79:12. And Ethan, "Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants - wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of Thine Anointed" Psa 89:50-51.
In history the repeated blasphemies of Sennacherib and his messengers are expressed by the same words. In earlier times the remarkable concession of Jephthah, "Wilt not thou possess what Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? so whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out before us, them will we possess" Jdg 11:24, implies that the Ammonites claimed their land as the gift of their god Chemosh, and that that war was, as that later by Sennacherib, waged in the name of the false god against the True.
The relations of Israel to Moab and Ammon have been so habitually misrepresented, that a review of those relations throughout their whole history may correct some wrong impressions. The first relations of Israel toward them were even tender. God reminded His people of their common relationship and forbade him even to take the straight road to his own future possessions, across their hand against their will. "Distress them not, nor contend with them," it is said of each, "for I will not give thee of their land for a possession, for I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession" Deu 2:9, Deu 2:19. Idolaters and hostile as they were, yet, for their father's sake, their title to their land had the same sacred sanction, as Israel's to his. "I," God says, "have given it to them as a possession." Israel, to their own manifest inconvenience, "went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, but came not within the border of Moab" Jdg 11:18. By destroying Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, Israel removed formidable enemies, who had driven Moab and Ammon out of a portion of the land which they had conquered from the Zamzummim and Anakim Deu 2:10, Deu 2:20-21, and who threatened the remainder, "Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites" Num 21:25, Num 21:31.
Heshbon, Dibon, Jahaz, Medeba, Nophah "were cities in the land of the Amorites, in" which "Israel dwelt." The exclusion of Moab and Ammon from the congregation of the Lord to the tenth generation Deu 23:3 was not, of course, from any national antipathy, but intended to prevent a debasing intercourse; a necessary precaution against the sensuousness of their idolatries. Moab was the first in adopting the satanic policy of Balaam, to seduce Israel by sensuality to their idolatries; but the punishment was appointed to the partners of their guilt, the Midianites Num 25:17; 31, not to Moab. Yet Moab was the second nation, whose ambition God overruled to chasten His people's idolatries. Eglon, king of Moab, united with himself Ammon and Amalek against Israel. The object of the invasion was, not the recovery of the country which Moab had lost to the Amorites but, Palestine proper.
The strength of Moab was apparently not sufficient to occupy the territory of Reuben. They took possession only of "the city of palm trees" Jdg 3:13; either the ruins of Jericho or a spot close by it; with the view apparently of receiving reinforcements or of securing their own retreat by the ford. This garrison enabled them to carry their forays over Israel, and to hold it enslaved for 18 years. The oppressiveness of this slavery is implied by the cry and conversion of Israel to the Lord, which was always in great distress. The memory of Eglon, as one of the oppressors of Israel, lived in the minds of the people in the days of Samuel Sa1 12:9. In the end, this precaution of Moab turned to its own destruction, for, after Eglon was slain, Ephraim, under Ehud, took the fords, and the whole garrison, 10,000 of Moab's warriors, "every strong man and every man of might" Jdg 3:29, were intercepted in their retreat and perished. For a long time after this, we hear of no fresh invasion by Moab. The trans-Jordanic tribes remained in unquestioned possession of their land for 300 years Judg. 40:26, when Ammon, not Moab, raised the claim, "Israel took away my land" Jdg 11:13, although claiming the land down to the Arnon, and already being in possession of the southernmost portion of that land, Aroer, since Israel smote him "from Aroer unto Minnith" Jdg 11:33. The land then, according to a law recognized by nations, belonged by a twofold right to Israel;
(1) that it had been won, not from Moab, but from the conquerors of Moab, the right of Moab having passed to its conquerors ;
(2) that undisputed and unbroken possession "for time immemorial" as we say, 300 years, ought not to be disputed .
The defeat by Jephthah stilled them for near 50 years until the beginning of Saul's reign, when they refused the offer of the "men of Jubesh-Gilead" to serve them, and, with a mixture of insolence and savagery, annexed as a condition of accepting that entire submission, "that I may thrust out all your right eyes, to lay it as a reproach to Israel" Sa1 11:1-2. The signal victory of Saul Sa1 11:11 still did not prevent Ammon, as well as Moab, from being among the enemies whom Saul "worsted" . The term "enemies" implies that "they" were the assailants. The history of Naomi shows their prosperous condition, that the famine, which desolated Judah Rut 1:1, did not reach them, and that they were a prosperous land, at peace, at that time, with Israel. If all the links of the genealogy are preserved Rut 4:21-22, Jesse, David's father, was grandson of a Moabitess, Ruth, and perhaps on this ground David entrusted his parents to the care of the king of Moab Sa1 22:3-4.
Sacred history gives no hint, what was the cause of his terrible execution upon Moab. But a Psalm of David speaks to God of some blow, under which Israel had reeled. "O God, Thou hast abhorred us, and broken us in pieces; Thou hast been wroth: Thou hast made the land to tremble and cloven it asunder; heal its breaches, for it shaketh; Thou hast showed Thy people a hard thing, Thou hast made it drink wine of reeling" Psa 60:3-5; and thereon David expresses his confidence that God would humble Moab, Edom, Philistia. While David then was engaged in the war with the Syrians of Mesopotamia and Zobah (Psa 60:1-12 title), Moab must have combined with Edom in an aggressive war against Israel. "The valley of salt" , where Joab returned and defeated them, was probably within Judah, since "the city of salt" Jos 15:62 was one of the six cities of the wilderness. Since they had defeated Judah, they must have been overtaken there on their return .
Yet this too was a religious war. "'Thou,'" David says "hast given a 'banner to them that fear Thee,' to be raised aloft because of the truth" Psa 60:4.
There is no tradition, that the kindred Psalm of the sons of Corah, Ps. 44 belongs to the same time. Yet the protestations to God of the entire absence of idolatry could not have been made at any time later than the early years of Solomon. Even were there Maccabee Psalms, the Maccabees were but a handful among apostates. They could not have pleaded the national freedom from unfaithfulness to God, nor, except in two subordinate and self-willed expeditions (1 Macc. 5:56-60, 67), were they defeated. Under the Persian rule, there were no armies nor wars; no immunity from idolatry in the later history of Judah. Judah did not in Hezekiah's time go out against Assyria; the one battle, in which Josiah was slain, ended the resistance to Egypt. Defeat was, at the date of this Psalm, new and surprising, in contrast with God's deliverances of old Psa 44:1-3; yet the inroad, by which they had suffered, was one of spoiling Psa 44:10, Psa 44:12, not of subdual. Yet this too was a religious war, from their neighbors. They were slain for the sake of God Psa 44:22, they were covered with shame on account of the reproaches and blasphemies Psa 44:13-14 of those who triumphed over God, as powerless to help; they were a scorn and derision to the petty nations around them. It is a Psalm of unshaken faith amid great prostration: it describes in detail what the lxth Psalm sums up in single heavy words of imagery; but both alike complain to God of what His people had to suffer for His sake.
The insolence of Ammon in answer to David's message of kindness to their new king, like that to the men of Jabesh Gilead, seems like a deliberate purpose to create hostilities. The relations of the previous king of Ammon to David, had been kind Sa2 10:2-3, perhaps, because David being a fugitive from Israel, they supposed him to be Saul's enemy. The enmity originated, not with the new king, but with "the princes of the children of Ammon" Sa2 10:3. David's treatment of these nations Sa2 8:2; Sa2 12:31 is so unlike his treatment of any others whom he defeated, that it implies an internecine warfare, in which the safety of Israel could only be secured by the destruction of its assailants.
Mesha king of Moab records one war, and alludes to others, not mentioned in Holy Scripture. He says, that before his own time, "Omri, king of Israel, afflicted Moab many days;" that "his son (Ahab) succeeded him, and he too said, 'I will afflict Moab.'" This affliction he explains to be that "Omri possessed himself of the land of Medeba" (expelling, it is implied, its former occupiers) "and that" (apparently, Israel) , "dwelt therein," "(in his days and in) the days of his son forty years." He was also in possession of Nebo, and "the king of Israel" (apparently Omri,) "buil(t) Jahaz and dwelt in it, when he made war with me" . Jahaz was near Dibon. In the time of Eusebius, it was still "pointed out between Dibon and Medeba" .
Mesha says, "And I took it to annex it to Dibon." It could not, according to Mesha also, have been south of the Arnon, since Aroer lay between Dibon and the Arnon, and Mesha would not have annexed to Dibon a town beyond the deep and difficult ravine of the Arnon, with Aroer lying between them. It was certainly north of the Arnon, since Israel was not permitted to come within the border of Moab, but it was at Jahaz that Sihon met them and fought the battle in which Israel defeated him and gained possession of his land, "from the Arnon to the Jabbok" Num 21:23-25. It is said also that "Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites from Aroer which is on the edge of the river Arnon" , and the city which is in the river unto Gilead Jos 13:16, Jos 13:18. Aroer on the edge of the river Arnon, and the city which is in the river" Arnon, again occur in describing the southern border of Reuben, among whose towns Jahaz is mentioned, with Beth-Baal-Meon and Kiriathaim, which have been identified.
The afflicting then of Moab by Omri, according to Mesha, consisted in this, that he recovered to Israel a portion of the allotment of Reuben, between 9 and 10 hours in length from north to south, of which, in the time of Israel's weakness through the civil wars which followed on Jeroboam's revolt, Moab must have dispossessed Reuben. Reuben had remained in undisturbed possession of it, from the first expulsion of the Amorites to the time at least of Rehoboam, about five hundred years. : "The men of Gad" still "dwelt in Ataroth," Mesha says, "from time immemorial."
The picture, which Mesha gives, is of a desolation of the southern portion of Reuben. For, "I rebuilt," he says, "Baal-Meon, Kiriathaim, Aroer, Beth-bamoth, Bezer, Beth-Diblathaim, Beth-baal-Meon." Of Beth-Bamoth, and probably of Bezer, Mesha says, that they had previously been destroyed . But Reuben would not, of course, destroy his own cities. They must then have been destroyed either by Mesha's father, who reigned before him, when invading Reuben, or by Omri, when driving back Moab into his own land, and expelling him from these cities. "Possibly" they were dismantled only, since Mesha speaks only of Omri's occupying Medeba, Ataroth, and Jahaz. He held these three cities only, leaving the rest dismantled, or dismantling them, unable to place defenders in them, and unwilling to leave them as places of aggression for Moab. But whether they ever were fortified towns at all, or how they were desolated, is mere conjecture. Only they were desolated in these wars.
But it appears from Mesha's own statement, that neither Omri nor Ahab invaded Moab proper. For in speaking of his successful war and its results, he mentions no town south of the Arnon. He must have been a tributary king, but not a foot of his land was taken. The subsequent war was not a mere revolt, nor was it a mere refusal to pay tribute, of which Mesha makes no complaint. Nor could the tribute have been oppressive to him, since the spoils, left in the encampment of Moab and his allies shortly after his revolt, is evidence of such great wealth. The refusal to pay tribute would have involved nothing further, unless Ahaziah had attempted to enforce it, as Hezekiah refused the tribute to Assyria, but remained in his own borders. But Ahaziah, unlike his brother Jehoram who succeeded him, seems to have undertaken nothing, except the building of some ships for trade Ch2 20:35-36. Mesha's war was a renewal of the aggression on Reuben.
Heshbon is not mentioned, and therefore must, even after the war, have remained with Reuben.
Mesha's own war was an exterminating war, as far as he records it. "I fought against the city," (Ataroth), he says, "and took it, and killed all the mighty of the city for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and of Moab;" "I fought against it (Nebo) from break of day until norm and took it, and slew all of it, 7,000 men; the ladies and maidens I devoted to Ashtar Chemosh;" to be desecrated to the degradations of that sensual idolatry. The words too "Israel perished with an everlasting destruction" stand clear, whether they express Mesha's conviction of the past or his hope of the future.
The war also, on the part of Moab, was a war of his idol Chemosh against God. Chemosh, from first to last, is the agent. "Chemosh was angry with his land;" "Chemosh (was pleased) with it in my days;" "I killed the mighty for the well-pleasing of Chemosh;" "I took captive thence all ( ...)and dragged it along before Chemosh at Kiriath;" "Chemosh said to me, Go and take Nebo against Israel;" "I devoted the ladies and maidens to Ashtar-Chemosh;" "I took thence the vessels of ihvh and dragged them before Chemosh;" "Chemosh drove him (the king of Israel) out before (my face);" "Chemosh said to me, Go down against Horonaim." "Chemosh ( ...)it in my days."
Contemporary with this aggressive war against Israel must have been the invasion by "the children of Moab and the children of Ammon, the great multitude from beyond the sea, from Syria" Ch2 20:1-2, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, which brought such terror upon Judah. It preceded the invasion of Moab by Jehoshaphat in union with Jehoram and the king of Edom. For the invasion of Judah by Moab and Ammon took place, while Ahab's son, Ahaziah, was still living. For it was after this, that Jehoshaphat joined with Ahaziah in making ships to go to Tarshish . But the expedition against Moab was in union with Jehoram who succeeded Ahaziah. The abundance of wealth which the invaders of Judah brought with them, and the precious jewels with which they had adorned themselves, show that this was no mere marauding expedition, to spoil; but that its object was, to take possession of the land or at least of some portion of it.
They came by entire surprise on Jehoshaphat, who heard of them first when they were at Hazazon-Tamar or Engedi, some 36 12 miles from Jerusalem . He felt himself entirely unequal to meet them, and cast himself upon God. There was a day of public humiliation of Judah at Jerusalem. "Out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord" Ch2 20:4. Jehoshaphat, in his public prayer, owned, "we have no might against this great company which cometh against us; neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon Thee" Ch2 20:13. He appeals to God, that He had forbidden Israel to invade Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, so that they turned away from them and destroyed them not; and now these rewarded them by "coming to cast us out of Thy possession which Thou hast given us to inherit" Ch2 20:10. One of the sons of Asaph foretold to the congregation, that they might go out fearlessly, for they should not have occasion to fight.
A Psalm, ascribed to Asaph, records a great invasion, the object of which was the extermination of Israel. "They have said; Come and let us cut them off from" being "a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance" Psa 83:4. It had been a secret confederacy. "They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people" Psa 83:3. It was directed against God Himself, that is, His worship and worshipers. "For they have taken counsel in heart together; against Thee do they make a covenant" Psa 83:5. It was a combination of the surrounding petty nations; Tyre on the north, the Philistines on the west; on the south the Amalekites, Ishmaelites, Hagarenes; eastward, Edom, Gebal, Moab, Ammon. But its most characteristic feature was, that Assur (this corresponds with no period after Jehoshaphat) occupies a subordinate place to Edom and Moab, putting them forward and helping "them." "Assur also," Asaph says, "is joined with them; they have become an arm to the children of Lot" Psa 83:8. This agrees with the description, "there is come against thee a great multitude from beyond the sea, from Syria."
Scripture does not record, on what ground the invasion of Moab by Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, with the tributary king of Edom, was directed against Moab proper; but it was the result doubtless of the double war of Moab against Reuben and against Judah. It was a war, in which the strength of Israel and Moab was put forth to the utmost. Jehoram had mustered all Israel Kg2 3:6; Moab had gathered all who had reached the age of manhood and upward, "everyone who girded on a girdle and upward" Kg2 3:21. The three armies, which had made a seven days' circuit in the wilderness, were on the point of perishing by thirst and falling into the hands of Moab, when Elisha in God's name promised them the supply of their want, and complete victory over Moab. The eager cupidity of Moab, as of many other armies, became the occasion of his complete overthrow. The counsel with which Elisha accompanied his prediction, "ye shall smite every fenced city and every choice city, and every good tree ye shall fell, and all springs of water ye shall stop up, and every good piece of land ye shall waste with stones" Kg2 3:19, was directed, apparently, to dislodge an enemy so inveterate. For water was essential to the fertility of their land and their dwelling there. We hear of no special infliction of death, like what Mesha records of himself. The war was ended by the king of Moab's sacrificing the heir-apparent of the king of Edom , which naturally created great displeasure against Israel, in whose cause Edom thus suffered, so that they departed to their own land and finally revolted.
Their departure apparently broke up the siege of Ar and the expedition. Israel apparently was not strong enough to carry on the war without Edom, or feared to remain with their armies away from their own land, as in the time of David, of which Edom might take the advantage. We know only the result.
Moab probably even extended her border to the south by the conquest of Horonaim .
After this, Moab is mentioned only on occasion of the miracle of the dead man, to whom God gave life, when cast into Elisha's sepulchre, as he came in contact with his bones. Like the Bedouin now, or the Amalekites of old, "the bands of Moab came into the land, as the year came" Kg2 13:20. Plunder, year by year, was the lot of Israel at the hands of Moab.
On the east of Jordan, Israel must have remained in part (as Mesha says of the Gadites of Arocr) in their old border. For after this, Hazael, in Jehu's reign, smote Israel "from Aroer which is by the river Arnon" Kg2 10:33; and at that time probably Amman joined with him in the exterminating war in Gilead, destroying life before it had come into the world, "that they might enlarge their border" . Jeroboam ii, 825 b.c.; restored Israel "to the sea of the plain" 2 Kings 16:25, that is, the dead sea, and, (as seems probable from the limitation of that term in Deuteronomy, 'under Ashdoth-Pisgah eastward,' Deu 3:17) to its northern extremity, lower in latitude than Heshbon, yet above Nebo and Medeba, lcaving accordingly to Moab all which it had gained by Mesha. Uzziah, a few years later, made the Ammonites tributaries Ch2 26:8 810 b.c. But 40 years later 771 b.c., Pul, and, after yet another 30 years, 740, Tiglath-pileser having carried away the trans-Jordanic tribes Ch1 5:26, Moab again possessed itself of the whole territory of Reuben. Probably before.
For 726 b.c., when Isaiah foretold that "the glory of Moab should be contemned with all that great multitude" Isa 16:14, he hears the wailing of Moab throughout all his towns, and names all those which had once been Reuben's and of whose conquest or possession Moab had boasted Isa 15:1-2, Isa 15:4, Nebo, Medeba, Dibon, Jahaz, Baiith; as also those not conquered then Isa 15:4-5, Isa 15:1, Heshbon, Elealeh; and those of Moab proper, Luhith, Horonaim, and its capitals, Ar-Moab and Kir-Moab. He hears their sorrow, sees their desolation and bewails with their weeping Isa 16:9. He had prophesied this before , and now, three years Isa 16:13-14 before its fulfillment by Tiglath-Pileser, he renews it. This tender sorrow for Moab has more the character of an elegy than of a denunciation; so that he could scarcely lament more tenderly the ruin of his own people.
He mentions also distinctly no sin there except pride. The pride of Moab seems something of common notoriety and speech. "We have heard" Isa 16:6. Isaiah accumulates words, to express the haughtiness of Moab; "the pride of Moab; exceeding proud; his pride and his haughtiness and his wrath," pride overpassing bounds, upon others. His words seem to be formed so as to keep this one bared thought before us, as if we were to say "pride, prideful, proudness, pridefulness;" and withal the unsubstantialness of it all, "the unsubstantiality of his lies." Pride is the source of all ambition; so Moab is pictured as retiring within her old bounds, "the fords of Arnon," and thence asking for aid; her petition is met by the counter-petition, that, if she would be protected in the day of trouble, the out-casts of Israel might lodge with her now: "be thou a covert to her from the face of the spoiler" Isa 16:4-5. The prophecy seems to mark itself out as belonging to a time, after the two and a half tribes had been desolated, as stragglers sought refuge in Moab, and when a severe infliction was to come on Moab: "the Isa 16:14 remnant" shall be "small, small not great."
Yet Moab recovered this too. It was a weakening of the nation, not its destruction. Some 126 years after the prophecy of Isaiah, 30 years after the prophecy of Zephaniah, Moab, in the time of Jeremiah, was in entire prosperity, as if no visitation had ever come upon her. What Zephaniah says of the luxuriousness of his people, Jeremiah says of Moab; "Moab is one at ease from his youth; he is resting on his lees; and he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity" Jer 48:11. They "say, We are mighty and strong men for the war" Jer 48:14. Moab was a "strong staff, a beautiful rod" Jer 48:17; "he magnified himself against the Lord" Jer 48:26; "Israel was a derision to him" Jer 48:27; "he skipped for joy" at his distress. Jeremiah repeats and even strengthens Isaiah's description of his pride; "his pride, proud" Jer 48:29, he repeats, "exceedingly; his loftiness," again "his pride, his arrogancy, and the haughtiness of his heart."
Its "strongholds" Jer 48:18 were unharmed; all its cities, "far and near," are counted one by one, in their prosperity Jer 48:1, Jer 48:3, Jer 48:5, Jer 48:21-24; its summer-fruits and vintage were plenteous; its vines, luxuriant; all was joy and shouting. Whence should this evil come? Yet so it was with Sodom and Gomorrah just before its overthrow. It was, for beauty, "a paradise of God; well-watered everywhere; as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt" Gen 13:10. In the morning "the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of the furnace" Gen 19:28. The destruction foretold by Jeremiah is far other than the affliction spoken of by Isaiah. Isaiah prophesies only a visitation, which should reduce her people: Jeremiah foretells, as did Zephaniah, captivity and the utter destruction of her cities. The destruction foretold is complete. Not of individual cities only, but of the whole he saith, "Moab is destroyed" Jer 48:4. "The spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape, and the valley shall perish and the high places shall be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoken" Jer 48:8.
Moab himself was to leave his land. "Flee, save your lives, and ye shall be like the heath in the wilderness. Chemosh shall go forth into captivity; his priests and his princes together. Give pinions unto Moab, that it may flee and get away, and her cities shall be a desolation, for there is none to dwell therein" Jer 17:6. It was not only to go into captivity, but its home was to be destroyed. "I will send to her those who shall upheave her, and they shall upheave her, and her vessels they shall empty, all her flagons" (all that aforetime contained her) "they shall break in pieces" Jer 48:12. Moab is destroyed and her cities" Jer 48:15; "the spoiler of Moab is come upon her; he hath destroyed the strongholds" Jer 48:18. The subsequent history of the Moabites is in the words, "Leave the cities and dwell in the rock, dwellers of Moab, and be like a dove which nesteth in the sides of the mouth of the pit" Jer 48:28. The purpose of Moab and Ammon against Israel which Asaph complains of, and which Mesha probably speaks of, is retorted upon her. "In Heshbon they have devised evil against it; come and let us cut it off from being a nation. Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against the Lord" Jer 48:2, Jer 48:42.
Whence should this evil come? They had, with the Ammonites, been faithful servants of Nebuchadnezzar against Judah Kg2 24:2. Their concerted conspiracy with Edom, Tyre, Zidon, to which they invited Zedekiah (Jer 27:2 following), was dissolved. Nebuchadnezzars march against Judaea did not touch them, for they "skipped with joy" Jer 48:27 at Israel's distresses. The connection of Baalis, king of the Ammonites, with Ishmael Jer 40:14; Jer 41:10 the assassin of Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land Kg2 25:22-26; Jer 40:6; Jer 41:1 out of their own people, probably brought down the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar. For Chald:aeans too were included in the slaughter Jer 41:3. The blow seems to have been aimed at the existence of the people, for the murder of Gedaliah followed upon the rallying of the Jews "out of all the places whither they had been driven" Jer 40:12. It returned on Ammon itself; and on Moab who probably on this, as on former occasions, was associated with it. The two nations, who had escaped at the destruction of Jerusalem, were warred upon and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar in the 23d year of his reign , the 5th after the destruction of Jerusalem.
And then probably followed that complete destruction and disgraced end, in which Isaiah, in a distinct prophecy, sees Moab trodden down by God as "the heap of straw is trodden down in the waters (the kethib) of the dunghill, and he (Moab) stretcheth forth his hands in the midst thereof, as the swimmer stretcheth forth his hands to swim, and He, God, shall bring down his pride with the treacheries of his hands" Isa 25:10-12. It speaks much of the continued hostility of Moab, that, in prophesying the complete deliverance for which Israel waited, the one enemy whose destruction is foretold, is Moab and those pictured by Moab. "We have waited for Him and He will save us - For in this mountain (Zion) shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under Him" Isa 25:9-10.
After this, Moab, as a nation, disappears from history. Israel, on its return from the captivity, was again enticed into idolatry by Moabite and Anmonite wives, as well as by those of Ashdod and others Neh 13:23-26, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Egyptians, Amorites Ezr 9:1. Sanballat also, who headed the opposition to the rebuilding of Jerusalem, was a Moabite Neh 2:10; Neh 4:1-8; Tobiah, an Ammonite Neh 4:2, Neh 4:9. Yet it went no further than intrigue and the threat of war. They were but individuals, who cherished the old hostility. In the time of the Maccabees, the Ammonites, not Moab, "with a mighty power and much people" were in possession of the Reubenite cities to Jazar (1 Macc. 5:6, 8). It was again an exterminating war, in which the Jews were to be destroyed (1 Macc. 5:9, 10, 27). After repeated defeats by Judas Maccabaeus, the Ammonites "hired the Arabians" (1 Macc. 5:39) (not the Moabites) to help them, and Judas, although victorious, was obliged to remove the whole Israelite population, "all that were in the land of Gilead, from the least unto the greatest, even their wives, and their children, and their stuff, a very great host, to the end they might come into the land of Judaea" (1 Macc. 5:45). The whole population was removed, obviously lest, on the withdrawal of Judas' army, they should be again imperiled. As it was a defensive war against Ammon, there is no mention of any city, south of the Arnon, in Moab's own territory. It was probably with the view to magnify descendants of Lot, that Josephus speaks of the Moabites as being "even yet a very great nation" . Justin's account, that there is "even now a great multitude of Ammonites," does not seem to me to imply a national existence. A later writer says , "not only the Edomites but the Ammonites and Moabites too are included in the one name of Arabians."
Some chief towns of Moab became Roman towns, connected by the Roman road from Damascus to Elath. Ar and Kir-Moab in Moab proper became Areopolis and Charac-Moab, and, as well as Medeba and Heshbon in the country which had been Reuben's, preserve traces of Roman occupancy. As such, they became Christian Sees. The towns, which were not thus revived as Roman, probably perished at once, since they bear no traces of any later building.
The present condition of Moab and Ammon is remarkable in two ways;
(1) for the testimony which it gives of its former extensive population;
(2) for the extent of its present desolation.
"How fearfully," says an accurate and minute observer , "is this residence of old kings and their land wasted!" It gives a vivid idea of the desolation, that distances are marked, not by villages which he passes but by ruins . : "From these ruined places, which lay on our way, one sees how thickly inhabited the district formerly was." Yet the ground remained fruitful.
It was partly abandoned to wild plants, the wormwood and other shrubs ; partly, the artificial irrigation, essential to cultivation in this land, was destroyed ; here and there a patch was cultivated; the rest remained barren, because the crops might become the prey of the spoiler , or the thin population had had no heart to cultivate it.
A list of 33 destroyed places which still retained their names, was given to Seetzen , "of which many were cities in times of old, and beside these, a great number of other wasted villages. One sees from this, that, in the days of old, this land was extremely populated and flourishing, and that destructive wars alone could produce the present desolation." And thereon he adds the names of 40 more ruined places. Others say : "The whole of the fine plains in this quarter" (the south of Moab) "are covered with sites of towns, on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one; and as all the land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be no doubt that this country, now so deserted, once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility." : "Every knoll" (in the highlands of Moab) "is covered with shapeless ruins. - The ruins consist merely of heaps of squared and well-fitting stones, which apparently were erected without mortar." : "One description might serve for all these Moabite ruins. The town seems to have been a system of concentric circles, built round a central fort, and outside the buildings the rings continue as terrace-walks, the gardens of the old city. The terraces are continuous between the twin hillocks and intersect each other at the foot" . Ruined villages and towns, broken walls that once enclosed gardens and vineyards, remains of ancient roads; everything in Moab tells of the immense wealth and population, which that country must have once enjoyed."
The like is observed of Ammon . His was direct hatred of the true religion. It was not mere exultation at the desolation of an envied people. It was hatred of the worship of God. "Thus saith the Lord God; "Because thou saidst, Aha, against My sanctuary, because it was profaned" Eze 25:3; and against the land of Israel, because it was desolated; and against the house of Judah, because they went into captivity." The like temper is shown in the boast, "Because that Moab and Seir do say; Behold the house of Judah is like unto the pagan" Eze 25:8, that is, on a level with them.
Forbearing and long-suffering as Almighty God is, in His infinite mercy, He does not, for that mercy's sake, bear the direct defiance of Himself. He allows His creatures to forget Him, not to despise or defy Him. And on this ground, perhaps, He gives to His prophecies a fulfillment beyond what the letter requires, that they may be a continued witness to Him. The Ammonites, some 1600 years ago, ceased to "be remembered among the nations." But as Nineveh and Babylon, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, by being what they are, are witnesses to His dealings, so the way in which Moab and Ammon are still kept desolate is a continued picture of that first desolation. Both remain rich, fertile; but the very abundance of their fertility is the cause of their desolation. God said to Ammon, as the retribution on his contumely: "therefore, behold, I give thee to the children of the East for a possession, and they shall set their encampments in thee, and place their dwellings in thee; "they" shall eat thy fruit and "they" shall drink thy milk; and I will make Rabbah a dwelling-place of camels, and the children of Ammon a couchingplace for flocks" Eze 25:4-5.
Of Moab He says also, "I will open the side of Moab from the cities, which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, unto the men of the East with the Ammonites" Eze 25:8, Eze 25:10. And this is an exact description of the condition of the land at this day. All travelers describe the richness of the soil. We have seen this as to Moab. But the history is one and the same. One of the most fertile regions of the world, full of ruined towns, destitute of villages or fixed habitations, or security of property, its inhabitants ground down by those, who have succeeded the Midianites and the Amalekites, "the children of the East." "Thou canst not find a country like the Belka," says the Arabic proverb , but "the inhabitants cultivate patches only of the best soil in that territory when they have a prospect of being able to secure the harvest against the invasion of enemies." "We passed many ruined cities," said Lord Lindsay , "and the country has once been very populous, but, in 35 miles at least, we did not see a single village; the whole country is one vast pasturage, overspread by the flocks and herds of the Anezee and Beni Hassan Bedouins."
The site of Rabbath Amman was well chosen for strength. Lying "in a long valley" through which a stream passed, "the city of waters" could not easily be taken, flor its inhabitants compelled to surrender from hunger or thirst. Its site, as the eastern bound of Peraea , "the last place where water could be obtained and a frontier fortress against the wild tribes beyond" , marked it for preservation. In Greek times, the disputes for its possession attest the sense of its importance. In Roman, it was one of the chief cities of the Decapolis, though its population was said to be a mixture of Egyptians, Arabians, Phoenicians . The coins of Roman Emperors to the end of the second century contain symbols of plenty, where now reigns utter desolation .
In the 4th century, it and two other now ruined places, Bostra and Gerasa, are named as "most carefully and strongly walled." It was on a line of rich commerce filled with strong places, in sites well selected for repelling the invasions of the neighboring nations . Centuries advanced. It was greatly beautified by its Roman masters. The extent and wealth of the Roman city are attested both by the remains of noble edifices on both sides of the stream, and by pieces of pottery, which are the traces of ancient civilized dwelling, strewed on the earth two miles from the city. : "At this place, Amman, as well as Gerasa and Gamala, three colonial settlements within the compass of a day's journey from one another, there were five magnificent theaters and one ampitheater, besides temples, baths, aqueducts, naumachia, triumphal arches." : "Its theater was the largest in Syria; its colonnade had at least 50 columns." The difference of the architecture shows that its aggrandizement must have been the work of different centuries: its "castle walls are thick, and denote a remote antiquity; large blocks of stone are piled up without cement and still hold together as well as if recently placed." It is very probably the same which Joab called David to take, after the city of waters had been taken; within it are traces of a temple with Corinthian columns, the largest seen there, yet "not of the best Roman times."
Yet Amman, the growth of centuries, at the end of our 6th century was destroyed. For "it was desolate before Islam, a great ruin." : "No where else had we seen the vestiges of public magnificence and wealth in such marked contrast with the relapse into savage desolation." But the site of the old city, so well adapted either for a secure refuge for its inhabitants or for a secure depository for their plunder, was, on that very ground, when desolated of its inhabitants, suited for what God, by Ezekiel, said it would become, a place, where the men of the East should stable their flocks and herds, secure from straying. What a change, that its temples, the center of the worship of its successive idols, or its theaters, its places of luxury or of pomp, should be stables for that drudge of man, the camel, and the stream which gave it the proud title of "city of waters" their drinking trough! And yet of the cities whose destruction is prophesied, this is foretold of Rabbah alone, as in it alone is it fulfilled! "Ammon," says Lord Lindsay , "was situated on both sides of the stream; the dreariness of its present aspect is quite indescribable. It looks like the abode of death; the valley stinks with dead camels; one of them was rotting in the stream; and though we saw none among the ruins, they were absolutely "covered" in every direction with their dung." "Bones and skulls of camels were mouldering there (in the area of the ruined theater) and in the vaulted galleries of this immense structure." "It is now quite deserted, except by the Bedouins, who water their flocks at its little river, descending to it by a "wady," nearly opposite to a theater (in which Dr. Mac Lennan saw great herds and flocks) and by the "akiba."
Re-ascending it, we met sheep and goats by thousands, and camels by hundreds." Another says , "The space intervening between the river and the western hills is entirely covered with the remains of buildings, now only used for shelter for camels and sheep." Buckingham mentions incidentally, that he was prevented from sleeping at night "by the bleating of flocks and the neighing of horses, barking of dogs etc." Another speaks of "a small stone building in the Acropolis now used as a shelter for flocks." While he was "traversing the ruins of the city, the number of goats and sheep, which were driven in among them, was exceedingly annoying, however remarkable, as fulfilling the prophecies" . "Before six tents fed sheep and camels" . "Ezekiel points just to these Eze 20:5, which passage Seetzen cites. And in fact the ruins are still used for such stalls."
The prophecy is the very opposite to that upon Babylon, though both alike are prophecies of desolation. Of Babylon Isaiah prophesies, "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it bedwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make fold there, but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and the ostriches shall dwell there, and the jackals shall cry in their desolate houses, and howling creatures in their pleasant palaces" Isa 13:20. And the ruins are full of wild beasts . Of Rabbah, Ezekiel prophesied that it should be "a possession for the men of the East, and I" Eze 25:4-5, God says, "will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couching-place for flocks;" and man's lawlessness fulfills the will and word of God. Zephaniah 2:9
tZeph 2::1 Call to conversion. - Zep 2:1. "Gather yourselves together, and gather together, O nation that dost not grow pale. Zep 2:2. Before the decree bring forth (the day passes away like chaff), before the burning wrath of Jehovah come upon you, before the day of Jehovah's wrath come upon you. Zep 2:3. Seek Jehovah, all ye humble of the land, who have wrought His right; seek righteousness, seek humility, perhaps ye will be hidden in the day of Jehovah's wrath." The summons in Zep 2:1 is addressed to the whole of Judah or Israel. The verb qōshēsh, possibly a denom. from qash, signifies to gather stubble (Exo 5:7, Exo 5:12), then generally to gather together or collect, e.g., branches of wood (Num 15:32-33; Kg1 17:10); in the hithpoel, to gather one's self together, applied to that spiritual gathering which leads to self-examination, and is the first condition of conversion. The attempts of Ewald and Hitzig to prove, by means of doubtful etymological combinations from the Arabic, that the word possesses the meanings, to grow pale, or to purify one's self, cannot be sustained. The kal is combined with the hiphil for the purpose of strengthening it, as in Hab 1:5 and Isa 29:9. Nikhsâph is the perf. nipahl in pause, and not a participle, partly because of the לא which stands before it (see however Ewald, 286, g), and partly on account of the omission of the article; and nikhsâph is to be taken as a relative, "which does not turn pale." Kâsaph has the meaning "to long," both in the niphal (vid., Gen 31:30; Psa 84:3) and kal (cf. Psa 17:12; Job 14:15). This meaning is retained by many here. Thus Jerome renders it, "gens non amabilis, i.e., non desiderata a Deo;" but this is decidedly unsuitable. Others render it "not possessing strong desire," and appeal to the paraphrase of the Chald:ee, "a people not wishing to be converted to the law." This is apparently the view upon which the Alex. version rests: ἔθνος ἀπαίδευτον. But although nikhsâph is used to denote the longing of the soul for fellowship with God in Psa 84:3, this idea is not to be found in the word itself, but simply in the object connected with it. We therefore prefer to follow Grotius, Gesenius, Ewald, and others, and take the word in its primary sense of turning pale at anything, becoming white with shame (cf. Isa 29:22), which is favoured by Zep 3:15. The reason for the appeal is given in Zep 2:2, viz., the near approach of the judgment. The resolution brings forth, when that which is resolved upon is realized (for yâlad in this figurative sense, see Pro 27:1). The figure is explained in the second hemistich. The next clause כּמוץ וגו does not depend upon בּטרם, for in that case the verb would stand at the head with Vav cop., but it is a parenthesis inserted to strengthen the admonition: the day comes like chaff, i.e., approaches with the greatest rapidity, like chaff driven by the wind: not "the time passes by like chaff" (Hitzig); for it cannot be shown that yōm was ever used for time in this sense. Yōm is the day of judgment mentioned in Zep 1:7, Zep 1:14-15; and עבר here is not to pass by, but to approach, to come near, as in Nah 3:19. For the figure of the chaff, see Isa 29:5. In the second בּטרם is strengthened by לא; and חרון אף, the burning of wrath in the last clause, is explained by יום אף יי, the day of the revelation of the wrath of God.
Zep 2:3
But because the judgment will so speedily burst upon them, all the pious especially - ‛anvē hâ'ârets, the quiet in the land, οι πραεῖς (Amo 2:7; Isa 11:4; Psa 37:11) - are to seek the Lord. The humble (‛ănâvı̄m) are described as those who do Jehovah's right, i.e., who seek diligently to fulfil what Jehovah has prescribed in the law as right. Accordingly, seeking Jehovah is explained as seeking righteousness and humility. The thought is this: they are to strive still more zealously after Jehovah's right, viz., righteousness and humility (cf. Deu 16:20; Isa 51:1, Isa 51:7); then will they probably be hidden in the day of wrath, i.e., be pardoned and saved (cf. Amo 5:15). This admonition is now still further enforced from Zep 2:4 onwards by the announcement of the coming of judgment upon all the heathen, that the kingdom of God may attain completion. Zephaniah 2:4 tZeph 2::8 The judgment upon Joab and Ammon. - Zep 2:8. "I have heard the abuse of Moab, and the revilings of the sons of Ammon, who have abused my nation, and boasted against its boundary. Zep 2:9. Therefore, as I live, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Yea, Moab shall become like Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrha, an inheritance of nettles and salt-pits, and desert for ever. The remnant of my nation will plunder them, the residue of my nation will inherit them. Zep 2:10. Such to them for their pride, that they have despised and boasted against the nation of Jehovah of hosts." The threat now turns from the Philistines in the west to the two tribes to the east, viz., the Moabites and Ammonites, who were descended from Lot, and therefore blood-relations, and who manifested hostility to Israel on every possible occasion. Even in the time of Moses, the Moabitish king Balak sought to destroy Israel by means of Balaam's curses (Numbers 22), for which the Moabites were threatened with extermination (Num 24:17). In the time of the judges they both attempted to oppress Israel (Jdg 3:12. and Jdg 10:7.; cf. Sa1 11:1-5 and 2 Samuel 10-12), for which they were severely punished by Saul and David (Sa1 14:47, and Sa2 8:2; Sa2 12:30-31). The reproach of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites, which Jehovah had heard, cannot be taken, as Jerome, Rashi, and others suppose, as referring to the hostilities of those tribes towards the Judaeans during the Chald:aean catastrophe; nor restricted, as v. Clln imagines, to the reproaches heaped upon the ten tribes when they were carried away by the Assyrians, since nothing is know of any such reproaches. The charge refers to the hostile attitude assumed by both tribes at all times towards the nation of God, which they manifested both in word and deed, as often as the latter was brought into trouble and distress. Compare Jer 48:26-27; and for giddēph, to revile or blaspheme by actions, Num 15:30; Eze 20:27; also for the fact itself, the remarks on Amos 1:13-2:3. יגדּילוּ על גב, they did great things against their (the Israelites') border (the suffix in gebhūlâm, their border, refers to ‛ammı̄, my people). This great doing consisted in their proudly violating the boundary of Israel, and endeavouring to seize upon Israelitish territory (cf. Amo 1:13). Pride and haughtiness, or high-minded self-exaltation above Israel as the nation of God, is charged against the Moabites and Ammonites by Isaiah and Jeremiah also, as a leading feature in their character (cf. Isa 16:6; Isa 25:11; Jer 48:29-30). Moab and Ammon are to be utterly exterminated in consequence. The threat of punishment is announced in Zep 2:8 as irrevocable by a solemn oath. It shall happen to them as to Sodom and Gomorrha. This simile was rendered a very natural one by the situation of the two lands in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. It affirms the utter destruction of the two tribes, as the appositional description shows. Their land is to become the possession of nettles, i.e., a place where nettles grow. Mimshâq, hap leg., from the root mâshaq, which was not used, but from which mesheq in Gen 15:2 is derived. Chârūl: the stinging nettle (see at Job 30:7), which only flourishes in waste places. Mikhrēh melach: a place of salt-pits, like the southern coast of the Dead Sea, which abounds in rock-salt, and to which there is an allusion in the threat of Moses in Deu 29:22. "A desert for ever:" the emphasis lies upon ‛ad ‛ōlâm (for ever) here. The people, however, i.e., the Moabites and Ammonites themselves, will be taken by the people of Jehovah, and be made their possession. The suffixes attached to יבזּוּם and ינחלוּם can only refer to the people of Moab and Ammon, because a land turned into an eternal desert and salt-steppe would not be adapted for a nachălâh (possession) for the people of God. The meaning is not, they will be their heirs through the medium of plunder, but they will make them into their own property, or slaves (cf. Isa 14:2; Isa 61:5). גּויי is גּוי with the suffix of the first person, only one of the two י being written. In Zep 2:10 the threat concludes with a repetition of the statement of the guilt which is followed by such a judgment.
The fulfilment or realization of the threat pronounced upon Philistia, Moab, and Ammon, we have not to look for in the particular historical occurrences through which these tribes were conquered and subjugated by the Chald:aeans, and to some extent by the Jews after the captivity, until they eventually vanished from the stage of history, and their lands became desolate, as they still are. These events can only come into consideration as preliminary stages of the fulfilment, which Zephaniah completely passes by, since he only views the judgment in its ultimate fulfilment. We are precluded, moreover, from taking the words as relating to that event by the circumstance, that neither Philistia on the one hand, nor Moabites and Ammonites on the other, were ever taken permanent possession of by the Jews; and still less were they ever taken by Judah, as the nation of God, for His own property. Judah is not to enter into such possession as this till the Lord turns the captivity of Judah (Zep 2:7); that is to say, not immediately after the return from the Babylonish captivity, but when the dispersion of Israel among the Gentiles, which lasts till this day, shall come to an end, and Israel, through its conversion to Christ, be reinstated in the privileges of the people of God. It follows from this, that the fulfilment is still in the future, and that it will be accomplished not literally, but spiritually, in the utter destruction of the nations referred to as heathen nations, and opponents of the kingdom of God, and in the incorporation of those who are converted to the living God at the time of the judgment, into the citizenship of the spiritual Israel. Until the eventual restoration of Israel, Philistia will remain an uninhabited shepherds' pasture, and the land of the Moabites and Ammonites the possession of nettles, a place of salt-pits and a desert; just as the land of Israel will for the very same time be trodden down by the Gentiles. The curse resting upon these lands will not be entirely removed till the completion of the kingdom of God on earth. This view is proved to be correct by the contents of Zep 2:11, with which the prophet passes to the announcement of the judgment upon the nations of the south and north. Zephaniah 2:11 tZeph 2::12 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; Zac 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 Chald:aeans, 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 yeshōrēr 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." Next: Zephaniah Chapter 3
tZeph 2::3
Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth,.... Or "of the land", of the land of Judea. In this time of great apostasy, there was a remnant according to the election of grace, whom the Lord reserved for himself, and bestowed his grace upon; and it is for the sake of these that the general exhortations to repentance and reformation are given out, to whom alone they were to be useful, that they might be protected and preserved from the general ruin; for such as are here described are persons the Lord takes great notice of; he gives them more grace; he lifts them up when bowed down; he beautifies them with salvation; he feeds them to full satisfaction; he teaches them his ways, his mind and will; he dwells with them here, and will cause them to inherit the new heaven and new earth hereafter: they are such who have a true sense of sin, and the exceeding sinfulness of it, which humbles them; and, conscious of the imperfection of their own righteousness, submit to the righteousness of Christ; acknowledge they are saved alone by the grace of God; and that all they have and expect to enjoy is owing to that; they are humble under the mighty hand of God, in every afflictive providence; patiently take all wrongs, abuses, and injuries done them by men; and not envious at the superior gifts, grace, and usefulness of others, but rejoice therein; have mean sentiments of themselves, and very high ones of others that excel in grace and holiness; these are truly gracious persons; and are like unto, and are followers of, the meek and lowly Jesus: and are here exhorted "to seek the Lord": that is, by prayer and supplication, to know more of his mind and will, and especially their duty in their present circumstances; implore his grace and mercy, protection and safety, in a day of common danger; and attend the public ordinances of his house, in order to enjoy his presence and communion with him: for to seek the Lord is to seek his face and favour, to have the light of his countenance, and the discoveries of his love; and to seek his honour and glory in all things: particularly the Lord Christ may be meant, who was to come in the flesh, and good men sought for before he came, and now he is come; and to him should men seek for righteousness and life; for peace and pardon; for grace, and all supplies of it: and for everlasting salvation; and all this before as well as since his coming: and such seek him aright, who seek him early, in the first place, and above all things; who seek him with their whole hearts, sincerely, diligently, and constantly; and where he is to be found, in the ministry of his word and ordinances: which have wrought his judgment: the judgment of the Lord; acted according to his mind and will, revealed in his word, which is the rule of judgment, both as to faith and practice; observed his laws and statutes; kept his ordinances, as they were delivered; and did works of righteousness from right principles, and with right views, as fruits of faith, and as meet for repentance: seek righteousness; not their own, and justification by that; for this would be doing what the carnal Jews did, and in vain, and is inconsistent with seeking the Lord, as before; but the righteousness of God, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, even the righteousness of Christ, who is God, and which only gives a right unto the kingdom of God or heaven: seeking this supposes a want of righteousness, which is in every man; a sense of that want, which only some have; a view of a righteousness without a man, in another, even in Christ; and of the glory, fulness, and excellency of his righteousness, which make it desirable, and worth seeking for; though this exhortation may also include in it a living to him soberly and righteously, as a fruit of divine grace, and to the glory of God, and according to his will, without trusting in it, and depending upon it, for life and salvation: seek meekness; even though they were meek ones already, yet it became them to seek after more of this grace of meekness, that they might increase therein, and abound in the exercise of it, and be careful that they failed not in it; since the enemy of souls often attacks the saints in that in which they most excel, and succeeds: so Moses, the meekest man on earth, being off of his guard, and provoked, spoke unadvisedly with his lips; and it went ill with him on that account, Num 12:3 besides, this exhortation, as well as the preceding, may have a respect to their concern with others; that they should study, as much as in them lay, not only to do righteousness and exercise meekness themselves, but to cultivate these among others; with which agrees Kimchi's note, "seek righteousness and meekness with others; as if it was said, study with all your might and main to return them to the right way:'' it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger; in the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chald:eans, when some were put to the sword, and others carried captive: now there was a possibility, yea, a probability, that such persons before described would be saved at this time from the general calamity; be hid, protected, and preserved, by the power and, providence of God, Jeremiah, Baruch, and others, were: this, though it is not said as a certain thing, because a corporeal blessing, which the people of God cannot always be assured of in a time of public distress; yet not expressed in a doubting manner, much less despairing; but rather as presuming, at least hoping it would be, being possible and probable; and so encouraging to the above exercises of religion; and such that have the grace of God, and seek him, and seek to Christ alone for righteousness and life, may depend upon it that they shall be hid, and be safe and secure, when the wrath of God at the last day comes upon an ungodly world, Isa 32:2. The Targum of the whole is, "seek the fear of the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, who do the judgments of his will; seek truth, seek meekness; it may be there will be a protection for you in the day of the Lord's anger.'' The Vulgate Latin version is, "seek the Lord--seek the just, seek the meek One"; as expressive of a person, even the Lord Christ, the just and Holy One, the meek and lowly Jesus. Zephaniah 2:4 tZeph 2::4
For Gaza shall be forsaken,.... Therefore seek the Lord; and not to the Philistines, since they would be destroyed, to whom Gaza, and the other cities later mentioned, belonged; so Aben Ezra connects the words, suggesting that it would be in vain to flee thither for shelter, or seek for refuge there; though others think that this and what follows is subjoined, either to assure the Jews of their certain ruin, since this would be the case of the nations about them; or to alleviate their calamity, seeing their enemies would have no occasion to insult them, and triumph over them, they being, or quickly would be, in the like circumstances. Gaza was one of the five lordships of the Philistines; a strong and fortified place, as its name signifies; but should be demolished, stripped of its fortifications, and forsaken by its inhabitants. It was smitten by Pharaoh king of Egypt; and was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 47:1 and afterwards taken by Alexander the great; and, having gone through various changes, was in the times of the apostles called Gaza the desert, Act 8:26. There is a beautiful play on words in the words, not to be expressed in an English translation (h). According to Strabo's account (i), the ancient city was about a mile from the haven, for which (he says) it was formerly very illustrious; but was demolished by Alexander, and remained a desert. And so Jerom (k) says, in his time, the place where the ancient city stood scarce afforded any traces of the foundations of it; for that which now is seen (adds he) was built in another place, instead of that which was destroyed: and which, he observes, accounts for the fulfilment of this prophecy: and so Monsieur Thevenot (l) says, the city of Gaza is about two miles from the sea; and was anciently very illustrious, as may be seen by its ruins; and yet, even this must be understood of new Gaza; so a Greek writer (m), of an uncertain age, observes this distinction; and speaks of this and the following places exactly in the order in which they are here, "after Rhinocorura lies new Gaza, which is the city itself; then "Gaza the desert" (the place here prophesied of); then the city Askelon; after that Azotus (or Ashdod); then the city Accaron'' (or Ekron): and Ashkelon a desolation; this was another lordship belonging to the Philistines, that suffered at the same time as Gaza did by Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 47:5. This place was ten miles from Gaza, as Mr. Sandys (n) says, and who adds, and now of no note; and Strabo (o) speaks of it in his time as a small city; indeed new Ashkelon is said by Benjamin of Tudela (p) to be a very large and beautiful city; but then he distinguishes it from old Ashkelon, here prophesied of; and which (he says) is four "parsoe", or sixteen miles, from the former, and now lies waste and desolate: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, that is, the Chald:eans shall drive out the inhabitants of Ashdod, another of the principalities of the Philistines; the same with Azotus, Act 8:40 "at noon day", openly and publicly, and with great ease; they shall have no occasion to use any secret stratagems, or to make night work of it; and which would be very incommodious and distressing to the inhabitants, to be turned out at noon day, and be obliged to travel in the heat of the sun, which in those eastern countries at noon day beats very strong. This place was distant from old Ashkelon four "parsae", or twenty four miles, as Benjamin Tudelensis (q) affirms; and with which agrees Diodorus Siculus (r), who says, that from Gaza to Azotus are two hundred and seventy furlongs, which make thirty four miles, ten from Gaza to Ashkelon, and twenty four from thence to Azotus or Ashdod. This place, according to the above Jewish traveller (s), is now called Palmis, which he says is the Ashdod that belonged to the Philistines, now waste and desolate; by which this prophecy is fulfilled. It was once a very large and famous city, strong and well fortified; and held out a siege of twenty nine years against Psamittichus king of Egypt, as Herodotus (t) relates, but now destroyed; see Isa 20:1, and Ekron shall be rooted up; as a tree is rooted up, and withers away, and perishes, and there is no more hope of it: this denotes the utter destruction of this place. There is here also an elegant allusion to the name of the place (u), not to be imitated in a version of it: this was another of the lordships of the Philistines, famous for the idol Beelzebub, the god of this place. Jerom (w) observes, that some think that Accaron (or Ekron) is the same with Strato's tower, afterwards called Caesarea; and so the Talmudists say (x), Ekron is Caesarea; which is not at all probable: he further observes, that there is a large village of the Jews, which in his days was called Accaron, and lay between Azotus and Jamnia to the east; but Breidenbachius (y) relates, that, in his time, Accaron was only a small cottage or hut, yet retaining its ancient name; so utterly rooted up is this place, which once was a considerable principality. Gath is not mentioned, which is the other of the five principalities, because it was now, as Kimchi says, in the hands of the kings of Judah. (h) . (i) Geograph. l. 16. p. 502. (k) De locis Hebraicis, fol. 91. K. (l) Travels, par. 1. B. 2. c. 36. p. 180. (m) Apud Reland. Palestina Illustrata, l. 2. p. 509. (n) Travels, p. 151. (o) Geograph. l. 16. p. 502. (p) Itinorarium, p. 51. (q) Ibid. (r) Bibliothec. l. 19. p. 723. (s) Itinerarium, p. 51. (t) Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 157. (u) . (w) De locis Heb. fol. 88. D. (x) T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 6. 1. (y) Apud Adrichom. Theatrum Terrae Sanctae, p. 20. Zephaniah 2:5 tZeph 2::7
And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah,.... The same tract of land become so desolate through the Chald:eans, should in future time, when those that remained of the Jews were returned from their captivity in Babylon, be inhabited by them. This was fulfilled in the times of the Maccabees, when the cities of Palestine, being rebuilt, were subdued by the Jews, and fell into their hands; and it is plain that in the times of the apostles those places were inhabited by the Jews, as Gaza, Ashdod, and others, Act 8:26 and perhaps will, have a further accomplishment in the latter day, when they shall be converted and return to their own land: they shall feed thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening; either the shepherds shall feed their flocks here, and cause them to lie down in the evening on the very spot of ground where the houses of Ashkelon stood. This place is very properly represented as on the sea coast; for so it was; Philo (s) says, who some time dwelt there, that it was a city of Syria by the sea: or rather the remnant of Israel shall feed and dwell here, and lie down in safety; and this was made good in a spiritual sense, when the apostles of Christ preached the Gospel in those parts, and were the instruments of converting many; and there they fed them with the word and ordinances, and caused them to lie down in green pastures, in great ease and security: for the Lord their God shall visit them: in a way of grace and mercy, bringing them out of Babylon into their own land, and enlarging their borders there; and especially by raising up Christ, the horn of salvation, for them; and by sending his Gospel to them, and making it effectual to their conversion and salvation: and turn away their captivity; in a literal sense from Babylon; and in a spiritual sense from sin, Satan, and the law; and may have a further respect to their present captivity in both senses. (s) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 8. p. 398. Zephaniah 2:8 tZeph 2::8
I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon,.... Two people that descended from Lot, through incest with his daughters; and are therefore mentioned together, as being of the same cast and complexion, and bitter enemies to the people of the Jews; whom they reproached and reviled, for the sake of their religion, because they adhered to the word and worship of God: this they did when the Jews were most firmly attached to the service of the true God; and the Lord heard it, and took notice of it; and put it down in the book of his remembrance, to punish them for it in due time; even he who hears, and sees, and knows all things: whereby they have reproached my people; whom he had chosen, and avouched to be his people; and who were called by his name, and called on his name, and worshipped him, and professed to be his people, and to serve and obey him; and as such, and because they were the people of God, they were reproached by them; and hence it was so resented by the Lord; and there being such a near relation between God and them, he looked upon the reproaches of them as reproaches of himself: and magnified themselves against their border; either they spoke reproachfully of the land of Israel, and the borders of it, and especially of the inhabitants of the land, and particularly those that bordered upon them; or they invaded the borders of their land, and endeavoured to add it to theirs; or as the Jews were carried captive by the Chald:eans, as they passed by the borders of Moab and Ammon, they insulted them, and jeered them, and expressed great pleasure and joy in seeing them in such circumstances; see Eze 25:3. Jarchi represents the case thus; when the children of Israel went into captivity to the land of the Chald:eans, as they passed by the way of Ammon and Moab, they wept, and sighed, and cried; and they distressed them, and said, what do you afflict yourselves for? why do ye weep? are not you going to the house of your father, beyond the river where your fathers dwelt of old? thus jeering them on account of Abraham's being of Ur of the Chald:ees. Zephaniah 2:9
tZeph 2::12
By my sword - The Chald:eans are called God's sword; because God employed them. Zephaniah 2:13
tZeph 2::4 The prophet here comes to foretel what share the neighbouring nations should have in the destruction made upon those parts of the world by Nebuchadnezzar and his victorious Chald:ees, as others of the prophets did at that time, which is designed, 1. To awaken the people of the Jews, by making them sensible how strong, how deep, how large, the inundation of calamities should be, that the day of the Lord, which was near, might appear the more dreadful, and they might thereby be quickened to prepare for it as for a general deluge. 2. To comfort them with this thought, that their case, though sad, should not be singular (Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris - The wretched find it consolatory to have companions of their woe), and much more with this, that though God had seemed to be their enemy, and to fight against them, yet he was still so far their friend, and an enemy to their enemies, that he resented, and would revenge, the indignities done them.
In these verses we have the doom of the Philistines, who were near neighbours, and old enemies, to the people of Israel. Five lordships there were in that country; only four are here named - Gaza and Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron; Gath, the fifth, is not named, some think because it was now subject to Judah. They were the inhabitants of the sea-coasts (Zep 2:5), for their country lay upon the Great Sea. The nation of the Cherethites is here joined with them, which bordered upon them (Sa1 30:14) and fell with them, as is foretold also, Eze 25:16. The Philistines' land is here called Canaan, for it belonged to that country which God gave to his people Israel, and was inserted in the grant made to them, Jos 13:3. This land is yet to be possessed (five lords of the Philistines), so that they wrongfully kept Israel out of the possession of it (Jdg 3:3), which is now remembered against them. For, though the rights of others may be long detained unjustly, the righteous God will at length avenge the wrong.
I. It is here foretold that the Philistines, the usurpers, shall be dispossessed and quite extirpated. In general, here is a woe to them (Zep 2:5), which, coming from God, denotes all misery: The word of the Lord is against them - the word of the former prophets, which, though not yet accomplished, will be in its season, Isa 14:31. This word, now by this prophet, is against them. Note, Those are really in a woeful condition that have the word of the Lord against them, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. Those that rebel against the precepts of God's word shall have the threatenings of the word against them. The effect will be no less than their destruction, 1. God himself will be the author of it: "I will even destroy thee, who can make good what I say and will." 2. It shall be a universal destruction; it shall extend itself to all parts of the land, both city and country: Gaza shall be forsaken, though now a populous city. It was foretold (Jer 47:6) that baldness should come upon Gaza; Alexander the Great razed that city, and we find (Act 8:26) that Gaza was a desert. Ashkelon shall be a desolation, a pattern of desolation. Ashdod shall be driven out at noon-day; in the extremity of the scorching heat they shall have no shade, no shelter to protect them; but then, when most incommoded by the weather, they shall be forced away into captivity, which will be an aggravating circumstance of it. Ekron likewise shall be rooted up, that had been long taking root. The land of the Philistines shall be dispeopled; there shall be no inhabitant, Zep 2:5. God made the earth to be inhabited (Isa 45:18), otherwise he would have made it in vain; but, if men do not answer the end of their creation in serving God, it is just with God that the earth should not answer the end of its creation in serving them for a habitation; man's sin has sometimes subjected it to this vanity. 3. It shall be an utter destruction. The sea-coast, which used to be a harbour for ships and a habitation for merchants, shall now be deserted, and be only cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks (Zep 2:6), and then perhaps put to better use than when it was possessed by the lords of the Philistines.
II. It is here foretold that the house of Judah, the rightful owners, shall recover the possession of it, Zep 2:7. The remnant of those that shall return out of captivity, when God visits them, shall be made to lie down in safety in the houses of Ashkelon, to lie down in the evening, when they are weary and sleepy. There they shall feed themselves and their flocks. Note, God will at length restore his people to their rights, though they may be long kept out from them. Zephaniah 2:8
tZeph 2::1
EXHORTATION TO REPENT BEFORE THE CHALD:EAN INVADERS COME. DOOM OF JUDAH'S FOES, THE PHILISTINES, MOAB, AMMON, WITH THEIR IDOLS, AND ETHIOPIA AND ASSYRIA. (Zep 2:1-15)Gather yourselves--to a religious assembly, to avert the judgment by prayers (Joe 2:16) [GROTIUS]. Or, so as not to be dissipated "as chaff" (Zep 2:2). The Hebrew is akin to a root meaning "chaff." Self-confidence and corrupt desires are the dissipation from which they are exhorted to gather themselves [CALVIN]. The foe otherwise, like the wind, will scatter you "as the chaff." Repentance is the gathering of themselves meant. nation not desired--(Compare Ch2 21:20), that is, not desirable; unworthy of the grace or favor of God; and yet God so magnifies that grace as to be still solicitous for their safety, though they had destroyed themselves and forfeited all claims on His grace [CALVIN]. The Margin from Chald:ee Version has, "not desirous," namely of returning to God. MAURER and GESENIUS translate, "Not waxing pale," that is, dead to shame. English Version is best.
Zephaniah 2:2 tZeph 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 Chald:eans), 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.
Zephaniah 2:14