seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Zephaniah 2:1 Gather together, gather yourselves together,
you shameful nation,
2 before the decree takes effect
and that day passes like windblown chaff,
before the Lord’s fierce anger
comes upon you,
before the day of the Lord’s wrath
comes upon you.
3 Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
you shameful nation,
2 before the decree takes effect
and that day passes like windblown chaff,
before the Lord’s fierce anger
comes upon you,
before the day of the Lord’s wrath
comes upon you.
3 Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
4 Gaza will be abandoned
and Ashkelon left in ruins.
At midday Ashdod will be emptied
and Ekron uprooted.
5 Woe to you who live by the sea,
you Kerethite people;
the word of the Lord is against you,
Canaan, land of the Philistines.
He says, “I will destroy you,
and none will be left.”
6 The land by the sea will become pastures
having wells for shepherds
and pens for flocks.
7 That land will belong
to the remnant of the people of Judah;
there they will find pasture.
In the evening they will lie down
in the houses of Ashkelon.
The Lord their God will care for them;
he will restore their fortunes.[a]
and Ashkelon left in ruins.
At midday Ashdod will be emptied
and Ekron uprooted.
5 Woe to you who live by the sea,
you Kerethite people;
the word of the Lord is against you,
Canaan, land of the Philistines.
He says, “I will destroy you,
and none will be left.”
6 The land by the sea will become pastures
having wells for shepherds
and pens for flocks.
7 That land will belong
to the remnant of the people of Judah;
there they will find pasture.
In the evening they will lie down
in the houses of Ashkelon.
The Lord their God will care for them;
he will restore their fortunes.[a]
8 “I have heard the insults of Moab
and the taunts of the Ammonites,
who insulted my people
and made threats against their land.
9 Therefore, as surely as I live,”
declares the Lord Almighty,
the God of Israel,
“surely Moab will become like Sodom,
the Ammonites like Gomorrah—
a place of weeds and salt pits,
a wasteland forever.
The remnant of my people will plunder them;
the survivors of my nation will inherit their land.”
and the taunts of the Ammonites,
who insulted my people
and made threats against their land.
9 Therefore, as surely as I live,”
declares the Lord Almighty,
the God of Israel,
“surely Moab will become like Sodom,
the Ammonites like Gomorrah—
a place of weeds and salt pits,
a wasteland forever.
The remnant of my people will plunder them;
the survivors of my nation will inherit their land.”
10 This is what they will get in return for their pride,
for insulting and mocking
the people of the Lord Almighty.
11 The Lord will be awesome to them
when he destroys all the gods of the earth.
Distant nations will bow down to him,
all of them in their own lands.
for insulting and mocking
the people of the Lord Almighty.
11 The Lord will be awesome to them
when he destroys all the gods of the earth.
Distant nations will bow down to him,
all of them in their own lands.
12 “You Cushites,[b] too,
will be slain by my sword.”
will be slain by my sword.”
13 He will stretch out his hand against the north
and destroy Assyria,
leaving Nineveh utterly desolate
and dry as the desert.
14 Flocks and herds will lie down there,
creatures of every kind.
The desert owl and the screech owl
will roost on her columns.
Their hooting will echo through the windows,
rubble will fill the doorways,
the beams of cedar will be exposed.
15 This is the city of revelry
that lived in safety.
She said to herself,
“I am the one! And there is none besides me.”
What a ruin she has become,
a lair for wild beasts!
All who pass by her scoff
and shake their fists.
and destroy Assyria,
leaving Nineveh utterly desolate
and dry as the desert.
14 Flocks and herds will lie down there,
creatures of every kind.
The desert owl and the screech owl
will roost on her columns.
Their hooting will echo through the windows,
rubble will fill the doorways,
the beams of cedar will be exposed.
15 This is the city of revelry
that lived in safety.
She said to herself,
“I am the one! And there is none besides me.”
What a ruin she has become,
a lair for wild beasts!
All who pass by her scoff
and shake their fists.
a. Zephaniah 2:7 Or will bring back their captives
b. Zephaniah 2:12 That is, people from the upper Nile region
I'll start with the easy English site this morning.
The LORD is saying to people, ‘Come back to me, before I punish you.’ The dead part of a plant is sometimes called ‘chaff’. The wind easily blows it away. ‘Humble’ people means ‘people who do not think that they are very important’. Only God is very, very good. ‘Try to do what is very, very good’ means ‘try to be like God’.
Verses 4-7 are about the people called Philistines. They lived to the west of Judah. They lived between Judah and the Mediterranean Sea. Their important cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron. Canaan was an old name for all the country where the Jews lived. Chereth may be another name for the country where the people called Philistines lived. Or it may be a name for a country that we do not know about. The Hebrew word for ‘pull out’ in verse 4 is what you do to a weed. You pull it out from the ground so that it dies. In verse 7, there is the word ‘remnant’. A remnant is a small bit of something much bigger. It is a special Bible word. Isaiah often used it. It means a small number of God’s people. They remain after the enemy has killed all the other people. Zephaniah does not say who the enemy will be. ‘They’ in verse 7 may mean the sheep in verse 6. The place where the people called Philistines lived will be grass. Enemies will destroy their houses so only animals can live in them. But ‘they’ may be God’s people. At the end of verse 7, there are some important words:
1) visit: Here this means more than ‘come to see’. It means that God himself will do something special to make his people safe.
2) give them back what is valuable: This also may have another meaning. Bible students do not agree how to translate these Hebrew words. But many say that it means ‘turn away their captivity’. This also may mean two things!
a) bring the Jews back from exile. The exile was when the Babylonians took the Jews from Judah to Babylon. This happened in 586 B.C. They were in prison in Babylon, or ‘in captivity’ until 536 B.C.
b) bring all God’s people back from a bad world to a good world. This will happen when Jesus returns to the earth.
Verses 8-11 are about Moab and Ammon. They were countries to the east of Judah. Sodom and Gomorrah were cities that God destroyed. He destroyed them because the people in them did not obey his rules. The story is in Genesis chapter 19. We believe that Sodom and Gomorrah are under the salt sea. We call it the Dead Sea. A waste place is somewhere where there is nothing valuable. The remnant have taken away everything that anyone would want to keep. Look at the note on verse 7 for ‘remnant’. ‘Proud’ (verse 10) means ‘to think that you are important’. Verse 11 says that one day ‘everybody will bow down to’ God. In other words, everyone in the world will say that God is very great! Christians believe that this will happen when Jesus comes back to the earth as its king. Some parts of the Bible are about Jesus’ return. We call them by the word ‘eschatological’. That means that Zephaniah is an eschatological book. Revelation and parts of Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah are the same. ‘As I live’, in verse 9, means ‘it really will happen’. God is alive. So ‘as I live’ means this: ‘It is sure that God is alive. So what he says is also sure. It will happen as he has said’ It is a special promise that we call an oath.
Verse 12 is about the people in Cush. This was an old name for countries in the Nile Valley, maybe Egypt or Ethiopia, both south of Judah. Some of the Jews had to go to Egypt. Jeremiah was one of them. God says that his sword will kill the people from Cush. A sword is a long sharp knife that soldiers used to kill people. Zephaniah meant that God would send a foreign army to destroy Cush.
Verses 13-15 are about Assyria. A foreign army destroyed Assyria in 612 B.C. In verse 13, ‘the north’ means ‘Assyria and other countries near it’. ‘(The LORD) will lift his hand’. You lift your hand before you hit someone with your hand. Here, Zephaniah describes the foreign army from Persia as God’s hand. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. God will use a foreign army to destroy Nineveh. Then only animals will live there. Owls are birds that catch their food at night. They make a noise. We say that they ‘hoot’. Some owls make a long ‘oooo’ noise; other owls make a loud scream. Ravens are big black birds that eat dead bodies. We say that they ‘croak’. These may not be the right names for the birds that Zephaniah wrote about. Bible students are not sure. ‘*Shake’ means ‘move fast from side to side’. People *shake their fists when they are angry. Or they *shake them when something has happened to make them happy.
This is from Bibletrack.org.
Notice the mention of Judah's neighbors as victims of this devastation. Most noteworthy is Assyria's mention along with its capital city, Nineveh, way east several hundred miles in modern-day Iraq (verse 13). Nineveh fell to the Babylonians in 612 B.C. The Babylonians approached around the mountain range through the fertile crescent when they attacked and always appeared from the North in so doing. Of course, all of these nations were overcome by the Babylonians.
You will notice in verses 4-5 here that a clear geographical pattern of defeat is shown. The initial defeat (though short lived) of Jerusalem was at the hand of the Egyptian king who naturally approached from the south along the coast. Look at the cities listed in verse 4, Gaza, then Ashkelon, then Ashdod (all coastal cities listed from south to north) and Ekron (inland 11 miles from Ashdod in a direct line toward Jerusalem). That's the route the Egyptian king would have taken to attack Jerusalem. Of course the Egyptian king fell to the Babylonians shortly thereafter. All of those coastal Philistine cities are to be destroyed along with the Ethiopians, Moabites and Ammonites. It seems obvious that the Egyptian/Babylonian siege is in view here.
God made a promise to David.... yep the one that knocked down the giant Goliath. God told David that one of his descendants would always rule Judah. It wasn't easy.... there were a lot of knuckleheads pretending to be worth something back then too. But God is God and He's always good for His Word. It's easy for God to always keep His Word because He knows how the story ends. Anyway.... even after the raping, murdering, castrating and enslavement of the people of Judah by not one but two really really really mean conquerors..... there would still be some of David's descendants.... who are also the descendants of Jacob [Israel].
The Remnant will be a group of descendants of David, Jacob, and Abraham..... who believe that God is the One True Living God. The Remnant will have survived the breech of the peace agreement that is yet to be signed in Jerusalem. The Remnant will have survived the massive earthquake that will be so violent the rocks will cry. The Remnant will have hidden in caves only to run for their lives when the earthquake begins. The Remnant will be those descendants of David, Jacob, and Abraham that God has called back to Canaan to start all over fresh. Now God has pointed to a spot on the map where His Remnant will live. It's in verse 7.
I'm glad there was an interesting tidbit about the Remnant in this chapter.
