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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Zephaniah 2:12 - 2:12
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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. הֵמָּה does not take the place of the copula between the subject and predicate, any more than הוּא in Isa 37:16 and Ezr 5:11 (to which Hitzig appeals in support of this usage: see Delitzsch, on the other hand, in his Comm. on Isaiah, l.c.), but is a predicate. The prophecy passes suddenly from the form of address (in the second person) adopted in the opening clause, to a statement concerning the Cushites (in the third person). For similar instances of sudden transition, see Zep 3:18; Zec 3:8; Eze 28:22.
(Note: Calvin correctly says: “The prophet commences by driving them, in the second person, to the tribunal of God, and then adds in the third person, 'They will be,' etc.”)
חַלְלֵי חַרְבִּי is a reminiscence from Isa 66:16 : slain by Jehovah with the sword. Zephaniah says nothing further concerning this distant nation, which had not come into any hostile collision with Judah in his day; and only mentions it to exemplify the thought that all the heathen will come under the judgment. The fulfilment commenced with the judgment upon Egypt through the Chaldaeans, as is evident from Eze 30:4, Eze 30:9, as compared with Josephus, Ant. x. 11, and continues till the conversion of that people to the Lord, the commencement of which is recorded in Act 8:27-38. The prophet dwells longer upon the heathen power of the north, the Assyrian kingdom with its capital Nineveh, because Assyria was then the imperial power, which was seeking to destroy the kingdom of God in Judah. This explains the fact that the prophet expresses the announcement of the destruction of this power in the form of a wish, as the use of the contracted forms yēt and yâsēm clearly shows. For it is evident that Ewald is wrong in supposing that וְיֵט stands for וַיֵּט, or should be so pointed, inasmuch as the historical tense, “there He stretched out His hand,” would be perfectly out of place. נָטָה יָד (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). בֵּתוֹכָהּ, in the midst of the city which has become a desert, there lie flocks, not of sheep and goats (צֹאן, Zep 2:6; cf. Isa 13:20), but כָּל־חַיְתֹו־גֹוי , 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.” גּוֹי is used here for the mass of animals, just as it is in Joe 1:6 for the multitude of locusts, and as עַם 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 חַיְתוֹ, 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). בְּכַפְתֹּרֶיהָ, 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. קוֹל יְשׁוֹרֵר 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 קוֹל, 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. עַלִּיזָה, 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 הַיּוֹשֶׁבֶת to עוֹד 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 אַפְסִי = אֵינִי, I am absolutely no further (see at Isa 47:8). But how has this self-deifying pride been put to shame! אֵיךְ, 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). הֵינִיעַ יָד, to swing the hand, embodying the thought, “Away with her, she has richly deserved her fate.”