Zephaniah 2:12

2:4-15 Those are really in a woful condition who have the word of the Lord against them, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. God will restore his people to their rights, though long kept from them. It has been the common lot of God's people, in all ages, to be reproached and reviled. God shall be worshipped, not only by all Israel, and the strangers who join them, but by the heathen. Remote nations must be reckoned with for the wrongs done to God's people. The sufferings of the insolent and haughty in prosperity, are unpitied and unlamented. But all the desolations of flourishing nations will make way for the overturning Satan's kingdom. Let us improve our advantages, and expect the performance of every promise, praying that our Father's name may be hallowed every where, over all the earth.

Ye Ethiopians also,.... Or, "as for ye Ethiopians also" (h); not the Ethiopians in Africa beyond Egypt, at a distance from the land of Israel, and the countries before mentioned; but the inhabitants of Arabia Chusea, or Ethiopia, which lay near to Moab and Ammon; these should not escape, but suffer with their neighbours, who sometimes distressed the people of the Jews, and made war with them, being nigh them; see 2 Chronicles 14:9 , ye shall be slain by my sword; or, "the slain of my sword are they" (i); R. Japhet thinks here is a defect of the note of similitude "as", which should be supplied thus, "ye" are, or shall be, "the slain of my sword", as they; as the Moabites and Ammonites; that is, these Ethiopians should be slain as well as they by the sword of Nebuchadnezzar; which is called the sword of God, because he was an instrument in the hand of God for punishing the nations of the earth. This was fulfilled very probably when Egypt was subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, with whom Ethiopia was confederate, as well as near unto it, Jeremiah 46:1. The destruction of these by the Assyrians is predicted, Isaiah 20:4. (h) "etiam ad vos Aethiopes quod attinet", Piscator. (i) "interfecti gladio meo ipsi", Montanus.

Zephaniah 2:12 . Ye Ethiopians also shall be slain — Here a denunciation of divine wrath is uttered against the Ethiopians, as, Zephaniah 2:8 , against the Moabites and Ammonites. It is said that they should be slain by God’s sword; because Nebuchadnezzar, who was to subdue them, was raised up by the divine providence, in order to execute its purposes; and to cut off those whose wickedness called for the infliction of divine vengeance. This denunciation against the Ethiopians was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar, by whom they were overthrown, when they came to assist the king of Egypt against him.

The prophet doth not speak of the African Ethiopians, south of Egypt, but of the Arabian Ethiopians, much nearer to Canaan, whose country was called Cusaea, with the addition Ethiopia Cusaea. See Habakkuk 3:7 . Ye shall be slain, punished by war, and your people cut off, by my sword; Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldeans, called here God’s sword, for God employed and prospered them.

12. Fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar (God's sword, Isa 10:5) conquered Egypt, with which Ethiopia was closely connected as its ally (Jer 46:2-9; Eze 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.

Verses 12-15. - 5 . The judgment shall fall upon the Ethiopians and Assyrians, representing the south and north. Verse 12. - Ethiopians ; Cushites. These are named as the most remote inhabitants of the south with which the Israelites were acquainted ( Ezekiel 38:5 ). Ye shall be slain by my sword; the slain of my sword are they , the second person being dropped, as one cannot address the dead (Orelli). The Lord's sword is the instrument which he uses to effect his purpose of punishment (comp. Isaiah 27:1 ; Isaiah 34:5 ; Isaiah 66:16 ). The Ethiopians are reckoned among the forces of Egypt ( 2 Chronicles 12:3 ; Nahum 3:9 , etc.). The prediction had a fulfilment when the Assyrians conquered Egypt, and again under Nebuchadnezzar. It shall have a more sublime accomplishment when the sword of the Spirit shall reduce the utmost south to the dominion of Christ (see Isaiah 45:14 ; Psalm 68:31 ). The commencement of this conversion is seen in the chamberlain of Queen Candace ( Acts 8:27 , etc.). Zephaniah 2:12

12 . Threat against Ethiopia Ethiopia or Cush was the country lying south of Egypt. Stretching from Syene (Assouan) southward, it corresponded to Nubia and the modern Soudan. Its capital is supposed to have lain near the 4th Cataract, on the great western bend of the Nile, about midway between Abu Hamed and Old Donkola. ye shall be slain ] lit. are the slain of my sword , Isaiah 66:16 . Comp. Jeremiah 25:33 . The words are a prediction.

Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by My sword - Literally, "Ye Ethiopians also, the slain of My sword are they." Having summoned them to His throne, God speaks of them, not to them anymore; perhaps in compassion, as elsewhere in indignation . The Ethiopians were not in any direct antagonism to God and His people, but allied only to their old oppressor, Egypt. They may have been in Pharaoh Necho's army, in resisting which, as a subject of Assyria, Josiah was slain: they are mentioned Jeremiah 46:9 in that army which Nebuchadnezzar smote at Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim. The prophecy of Ezekiel implies rather, that Ethiopia should be involved in the calamities of Egypt, than that it should be itself invaded. "Great terror shall be in Ethiopia, 'when the slain shall fall in Egypt' Ezekiel 30:4 ." "Ethiopia and Lybia and Lydia etc. and all the men of the land that is in league, shall fall 'with these,' by the sword" Ezekiel 30:5 . "They also that 'uphold Egypt' shall fall" Ezekiel 30:6 . Syene, the frontier-fortress over against Ethiopia, is especially mentioned as the boundary also of the destruction. "Messengers" God says, "shall go forth from Me to make the careless Ethiopians afraid" Ezekiel 30:9, while the storm was bursting in its full desolating force upon Egypt. All the other cities, whose destruction is foretold, are cities of lower or upper Egypt . But such a blow as that foretold by Jeremiah and Ezekiel must have fallen heavily upon the allies of Egypt.

We have no details, for the Egyptians would not, and did not tell of the calamities and disgraces of their country. No one does. Josephus, however, briefly but distinctly says , that after Nebuchadnezzar had in the 23rd year of his reign, the 5th after the destruction of Jerusalem, "reduced into subjection Moab and Ammon, he invaded Egypt, with a view to subdue it," "killed its then king, and having set up another, captured for the second time the Jews in it and carried them to Babylon." The memory of the devastation by Nebuchadnezzar lived on apparently in Egypt, and is a recognized fact among the Muslim historians, who had no interest in the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, of which it does not appear that they even knew. Bokht-nasar (Nebuchadnezzar), they say , "made war on the son of Nechas (Necho), slew him and ruined the city of Memphis" and many other cities of Egypt: he carried the inhabitants captive, without leaving one, so that Egypt remained waste forty years without one inhabitant." Another says , The refuge which the king of Egypt granted to the Jews who fled from Nebuchadnezzar brought this war upon it: for he took them under his protection and would not give them up to their enemy.