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