Zephaniahchapter 2
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Speaks with:Amos 1×2Jeremiah 47×2Ezekiel 25×2Ezekiel 28×2Joel 1×12 Chronicles 20×1
Summary
Chapter summary
Before the storm, a door: 'Seek ye Jehovah, all ye meek of the earth… seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye will be hid in the day of Jehovah's anger' (2:3). Then judgment moves around the compass. West: Gaza forsaken, Ashkelon a desolation, Ashdod driven out at noonday, Ekron rooted up, the sea-coast left for the remnant of Judah. East: Moab and Ammon, who reproached and reviled his people, made like Sodom and Gomorrah, a possession of nettles and saltpits: 'this shall they have for their pride.' South: Ethiopia slain by the sword. North: Nineveh made dry as the wilderness, the joyous city that said in her heart, 'I am, and there is none besides me.'
Context
Prophecy · Zephaniah — Zephaniah overview
- A. 1–3 Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth
- B. 4–7 Gaza forsaken; the seacoast left for the remnant of Judah
- C. 8–11 Moab and Ammon will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
- D. 12–15 Ethiopia slain, and Nineveh made a dry waste
The outline
A.Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earthvv. 1 to 3
Read vv. 1 to 3 →B.Gaza forsaken; the seacoast left for the remnant of Judahvv. 4 to 7
Read vv. 4 to 7 →C.Moab and Ammon will be like Sodom and Gomorrahvv. 8 to 11
Read vv. 8 to 11 →D.Ethiopia slain, and Nineveh made a dry wastevv. 12 to 15
Read vv. 12 to 15 →
The world behind this chapter
Zephaniah 2The history
The four Philistine cities named — Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron — were the surviving members of the old five-city league on the coastal plain, sitting on the trade road between Egypt and the north. The prophecy that their country will become pastures with huts for shepherds and folds for flocks describes what happens when a trading corridor loses its cities.
Moab and Ammon held the plateau east of the Dead Sea, and the comparison to Sodom and Gomorrah is pointed, since both nations traced their descent to Lot, who escaped that destruction. A land of nettles and salt pits is a literal description of the terrain near the Dead Sea's southern shore, where salt was harvested from evaporation flats.
Cush means the Nile kingdoms south of Egypt, which had actually supplied a ruling dynasty in Egypt within recent memory. Naming them shows the sweep is not limited to Judah's neighbours.
The oracle against Nineveh was spoken while Assyria was still the greatest power on earth, and it came true within a generation. The Babylonian Chronicle records the city's fall in 612 BC to a coalition of Medes and Babylonians. Zephaniah's picture of flocks lying down in her midst, with desert birds roosting on her fallen column capitals, describes a capital left as pasture — which is what the mounds at the site were until excavation began.
What it meant to them
The chapter opens with an instruction, and it is the only door offered: seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility — perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the LORD's anger.
For hearers, the sweep across the nations answered a practical question. If judgment is coming on Judah, what about the powers that have bullied Judah for a century? Zephaniah's answer is that the day of the LORD is not a local event, and Nineveh — the city that had terrified the whole region — is on the list.
Sources cited
- The Babylonian Chronicle (the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle, British Museum)
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Zephaniah 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.