Zephaniah 2

8. I have heard--A seasonable consolation to Judah when wantonly assailed by Moab and Ammon with impunity: God saith, "I have heard it all, though I might seem to men not to have observed it because I did not immediately inflict punishment."
magnified themselves--acted haughtily, invading the territory of Judah ( Jeremiah 48:29 , 49:1 ; compare Zephaniah 2:10 , Psalms 35:26 , Obadiah 1:12 ).

9. the breeding of nettles--or, the overspreading of nettles, that is, a place overrun with them.
salt pits--found at the south of the Dead Sea. The water overflows in the spring, and salt is left by the evaporation. Salt land is barren ( Judges 9:45 , Psalms 107:34 , Margin).
possess them--that is, their land; in retribution for their having occupied Judah's land.

10. (Compare Zephaniah 2:8 ).
their pride--in antithesis to the meek ( Zephaniah 2:3 ).

11. famish--bring low by taking from the idols their former fame; as beasts are famished by their food being withheld. Also by destroying the kingdoms under the tutelage of idols ( Psalms 96:4 , Isaiah 46:1 ).
gods of the earth--who have their existence only on earth, not in heaven as the true God.
every one from his place--each in his own Gentile home, taught by the Jews in the true religion: not in Jerusalem alone shall men worship God, but everywhere ( Psalms 68:29 Psalms 68:30 , Malachi 1:11 , John 4:21 , 1 Corinthians 1:2 , 1 Timothy 2:8 ). It does not mean, as in Isaiah 2:2 , Micah 4:1 Micah 4:2 , Zechariah 8:22 , 14:16 that they shall come from their several places to Jerusalem to worship [MAURER].
all . . . isles of . . . heathen--that is, all the maritime regions, especially the west, now being fulfilled in the gathering in of the Gentiles to Messiah.

12. Fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar (God's sword, Isaiah 10:5 ) conquered Egypt, with which Ethiopia was closely connected as its ally ( Jeremiah 46:2-9 , Ezekiel 30:5-9 ).
Ye--literally, "They." The third person expresses estrangement; while doomed before God's tribunal in the second person, they are spoken of in the third as aliens from God.

13. Here he passes suddenly to the north. Nineveh was destroyed by Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, 625 B.C. The Scythian hordes, by an inroad into Media and thence in the southwest of Asia (thought by many to be the forces described by Zephaniah, as the invaders of Judea, rather than the Chaldeans), for a while interrupted Cyaxares' operations; but he finally succeeded. Arbaces and Belesis previously subverted the Assyrian empire under Sardanapalus (that is, Pul?),877 B.C.

14. flocks--of sheep; answering to "beasts" in the parallel clause. Wide pastures for sheep and haunts for wild beasts shall be where once there was a teeming population (compare Zephaniah 2:6 ). MAURER, needlessly for the parallelism, makes it "flocks of savage animals."
beasts of the nations--that is, beasts of the earth ( Genesis 1:24 ). Not as ROSENMULLER, "all kinds of beasts that form a nation," that is, gregarious beasts ( Proverbs 30:25 Proverbs 30:26 ).
cormorant--rather, the "pelican" (so Psalms 102:6 , Isaiah 34:11 , Margin).
bittern--( Isaiah 14:23 ). MAURER translates, "the hedgehog"; HENDERSON, "the porcupine."
upper lintels--rather, "the capitals of her columns," namely, in her temples and palaces [MAURER]. Or, "on the pomegranate-like knops at the tops of the houses" [GROTIUS].
their voice shall sing in the windows--The desert-frequenting birds' "voice in the windows" implies desolation reigning in the upper parts of the palaces, answering to "desolation . . . in the thresholds," that is, in the lower.
he shall uncover the cedar work--laying the cedar wainscoting on the walls, and beams of the ceiling, bare to wind and rain, the roof being torn off, and the windows and doors broken through. All this is designed as a consolation to the Jews that they may bear their calamities patiently, knowing that God will avenge them.

15. Nothing then seemed more improbable than that the capital of so vast an empire, a city sixty miles in compass, with walls one hundred feet high, and so thick that three chariots could go abreast on them, and with fifteen hundred towers, should be so totally destroyed that its site is with difficulty discovered. Yet so it is, as the prophet foretold.
there is none beside me--This peculiar phrase, expressing self-gratulation as if peerless, is plainly adopted from Isaiah 47:8 . The later prophets, when the spirit of prophecy was on the verge of departing, leaned more on the predictions of their predecessors.
hiss--in astonishment at a desolation so great and sudden ( 1 Kings 9:8 ); also in derision ( Job 27:23 , Lamentations 2:15 , Ezekiel 27:36 ).