Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible · Zephaniah Kapitel 2

Zephaniah 2:1. O nation not desired— O nation, that receiveth not instruction. Houbigant renders this and the next verse as follows: O nation without knowledge. Zephaniah 2:2. Before you be carried away as the chaff, when the day shall come; before the fierce anger, &c.

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Zephaniah 2:3. Which have wrought his judgment— Keep his judgments. Houbigant.

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Zephaniah 2:4. For Gaza shall be forsaken— For, lo, Gaza is forsaken; and so throughout, in the present tense: as much as to say, "Behold, the cities of the Philistines are taken and plundered by this victorious people; therefore your destruction draweth nigh." After Psammiticus king of Egypt, who took the cities of the Philistines, his son Necho came, who carried away king Jehoahaz in bonds. See Houbigant.

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Zephaniah 2:5. The Cherethites— The Cretans. They are supposed to have been a colony of the Philistines. See the note on 1 Samuel 30:14.

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Zephaniah 2:7. The coast shall be for the remnant— That is, the Maccabees who subdued the Philistines and the Ammonites. See Zephaniah 2:9.

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Zephaniah 2:9. Even the breeding of nettles— A forsaken place of nettles. Houbigant. Instead of my people, in the last clause, Houbigant reads my nation.

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Zephaniah 2:11. For he will famish, &c.— He will dissipate. Houbigant. But Bishop Warburton observes, that the expression, as it stands in our version, is noble, and alludes to the popular superstitions of Paganism, which conceived that the gods were nourished by the steam of sacrifices. But when were the heathen gods thus famished, but in the first ages of Christianity? Every one from his place, or in his place; that is to say, they were not to go up to Jerusalem to worship;—even all the isles of the heathens. But when did they worship the God of Israel, every one from his place, before the preaching of the apostles? Then indeed their speedy and general conversion distinguished them from the rest of the nation. Houbigant observes, that the calling of the Gentiles is mentioned here very appositely, and in its proper place, as in order of time it followed soon after the kingdom of the Maccabees.

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Zephaniah 2:13. Will make Nineveh a desolation— Dr. Prideaux observes, that, Chyniladanus being king of the Assyrian and Babylonian empire, Nabopolassar his general took the latter from him, in the sixteenth year of Josiah; fourteen years after which, Sarracus the king was slain, and Nineveh destroyed, which completed the fall of Assyria. Rauwolff observes in his Travels, that on this side the river Tigris in Mesopotamia, it is so sandy and dry, that you would think you were in the middle of the deserts of Arabia. See Prideaux's Connection, An. 612 and 626.

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