Zephaniah 2:6

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.

And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds,.... That tract of land which lay on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, inhabited by the Philistines, should now become so desolate, that instead of towns and cities full of merchants and sea faring persons, and houses full of inhabitants, and warehouses full of goods, there should now only be seen a few huts and cottages for shepherds to dwell in, to shelter them from the heat by day, and where they watched their flocks by night, and took their proper repose and rest. The last word is by some rendered "ditches" (i), which were dug by them to receive rainwater for their use: or rather may signify "cottages dug by shepherds" (k); in subterraneous places, whither they retired in the heat of the day, to shelter themselves from the scorching sun; and some of them were so large as to receive their flocks also; such was the cave of Polyphemus, as Bochart (l) observes, in which the cattle, namely, the sheep and goats, lay down and slept; and in Iceland such are used to secure them from the cold; where we are told (m) there are caverns in the mountains capable of sheltering a hundred sheep or more: and whither they very cordially retreat in bad weather. These holes are in such mountains as have formerly burned, and are of infinite service to them, both winter and summer; in the winter for shelter, and in the summer for very good pastures, which they find in plenty all around.

Such sort of huts and cottages as these, in hot countries, Jerom seems to have respect unto, when, speaking of Tekoa, he says (n), there is not beyond it any little village, nor indeed any field cottages like to ovens (subterraneous ones, Calmet (o) calls them), which the Africans call "mapalia": these Sallust (p) describes as of an oblong figure, covered with tiles, and like the keels of ships, or ships turned bottom upwards; and, according to Pliny (q), they were movable, and carried from place to place in carts and waggons; and therefore cannot be such as before described; and so Dr. Shaw (r) says, the Bedouin Arabs now, as their great ancestors the Arabians, live in tents called "hhymas", from the shelter which they afford the inhabitants; and adds, they are the very same which the ancients call "mapalia": and folds for flocks; in which they put them to lie down in at evening.

6. dwellings and cottages for shepherds—rather, "dwellings with cisterns" (that is, water-tanks dug in the earth) for shepherds. Instead of a thick population and tillage, the region shall become a pasturage for nomad shepherds' flocks. The Hebrew for "dug cisterns," Ceroth, seems a play on sounds, alluding to their name Cherethites (Zep 2:5): Their land shall become what their national name implies, a land of cisterns. Maurer translates, "Feasts for shepherds' (flocks)," that is, one wide pasturage.

Verse 6. - Dwellings and cottages for shepherds; better, pastures with caves for shepherds. In the use of the word keroth , "diggings" ("cottages," Authorized Version) there is probably intended another play on the "Cherethites." Neale, "The road from Gaza to Askalon lay along the sea shore. In the winter months many parts of it are impracticable, owing to the encroachment of the sea. The surf then dashes wildly into the huge caverns worked out of the endless sand hills that line this coast. These caverns were tenanted, when we passed, by goatherds and their flocks. Thither they resort for shelter from the fierce heat of the noontide sun; and here during the night the goats are penned. There are wells and reservoirs in the vicinity which furnish water for the flocks the whole year round, and the brambles and thorn bushes that flourish near the seaside form their pasturage" ('Eight Years in Syria,' 1:40, 41). Septuagint, ἔσται Κρήτη νομὴ ποιμνίων , "Crete shall be a pasture of flocks." Zephaniah 2:6

6 . The text of Zephaniah 2:6 is probably in disorder, as the rhythmical balance of the verse is quite obscured. The Sept. also read differently, the words the sea coast being wanting in their text. These words should probably be omitted as a marginal explanation of it , and the verse read, and it (land of the Philistines, Zephaniah 2:5 ) shall be .… dwellings and cottages for shepherds ] R.V. pastures, with cottages , marg. or, caves . The word rendered “cottages” ( k’rôth ) is obscure. Bochart, whom Keil follows, suggested that the word was infin . of the verb “to dig,” and rendered “for digging,” supposing that the reference was to subterranean huts dug by the shepherds to escape the heat (hence R.V. marg., caves ). The idea has no probability. The peculiar construction (which appears similar to that in Job 20:17 , the floods, the brooks of honey) suggests that “dwellings” and “cottages” are mere variant expressions, having the same meaning. So Hitzig: shall be for meadows of pastures for shepherds. The sense of pasture is seen, Isaiah 30:23 , though the plur. is masc. Psalm 65:13 , while in the present passage the word is fem . It is possible, indeed, that the word is a mere transcriptional duplicate of the preceding word, as the letters forming the two words are frequently confused. The term, however, stood in the text of the Sept., who rendered it Crete , i.e. the country of the Cherethites: and Crete shall be a pasture ( n’vath ) of shepherds .

The seacoast shall be dwellings and cottages - o, literally, cuttings or diggings. This is the central meaning of the word; the place of the Cherethites (the cutters off) shall be "cheroth" of shepherds, places which they dug up that their flocks might be enclosed therein. The tracts once full of fighting men, the scourge of Judah, should be so desolate of its former people, as to become a sheep-walk. Men of peace should take the place of its warriors. So the shepherds of the Gospel with their flocks have entered into possession of war-like nations, turning them to the Gospel. They are shepherds, the chief of whom is that Good Shepherd, who laid down His Life for the sheep. And these are the sheep of whom He speaks, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My Voice; and there shall be one fold and One Shepherd" John 10:16.

The tract of land thus depopulated is to be turned into "pastures (nevōth, the construct state plural of nâveh) of the excavation of shepherds," i.e., where shepherds will make excavations or dig themselves huts under the ground as a protection from the sun. This is the simplest explanation of the variously interpreted kerōth (as an inf. of kârâh, to dig), and can be grammatically sustained. The digging of the shepherds stands for the excavations which they make. Bochart (Hieroz. i. p. 519, ed. Ros.) has already given this explanation: "Caulae s. caulis repletus erit effossionis pastorum, i.e., caulae a pastoribus effossae in cryptis subterraneis ad vitandum solis aestum." On the other hand, the derivation from the noun kērâh, in the sense of cistern, cannot be sustained; and there is no proof of it in the fact that kârâh is applied to the digging of wells. Still less is it possible to maintain the derivation from יכר (Arab. wkr), by which Ewald would support the meaning nests for kērōth, i.e., "the small houses or carts of the shepherds." And Hitzig's alteration of the text into כּרת equals כּרים, pastures, so as to obtain the tautology "meadows of the pastures," is perfectly unwarranted. The word chebhel is construed in Zephaniah 2:6 as a feminine ad sensum, with a retrospective allusion to 'erets Pelishtı̄m; whereas in Zephaniah 2:7 it is construed, as it is everywhere else, as a masculine.