SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:9
Por tanto, vivo yo, dijo el SEÑOR de los ejércitos, Dios de Israel, que Moab será como Sodoma, y los hijos de Amón como Gomorra; campo de ortigas, y mina de sal, y asolamiento perpetuo; el remanente de mi pueblo los saqueará, y el remanente de mis gentiles los heredará.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Zephaniah 2:9
Verse 9. The breeding of nettles] That is, their land shall become desolate, and be a place for nettles, thorns, &c., to flourish in, for want of cultivation.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 9. Therefore [as] I live, saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel , etc.] The Lord here swears by himself, by his life; partly to show how provoked he was at, and how grievously he resented, the injuries done to his people; and partly to observe the certain fulfilment of what is after declared; and it might be depended upon it would surely be done, not only because of his word and oath, which are immutable; but because of his ability to do it, as “the Lord of hosts”, of armies above and below; and because of the covenant relation that subsisted between him and Israel, being their God; and therefore would avenge the insults and injuries done them: surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah ; that is, should be utterly destroyed, as these cities were; whose destruction is often made use of to express the utter ruin and destruction of any other people; otherwise it is not to be supposed that these countries were to be destroyed, or were destroyed, in like manner, by fire from heaven; the similitude lies in other things after expressed: [even] the breeding of nettles ; or “left to nettles” f68 ; or rather to “thorns”, as the Targum: and so the Vulgate Latin version renders it “the dryness of thorns”, though to a very poor sense. In general the meaning of the phrase is, that those countries should be very barren and desolate, like such places as are overrun with nettles, thorns, briers, and brambles; and these so thick, that there is no passing through them without a man’s tearing his garments and his flesh: for Schultens f69 , from the use of the word in the Arabic language, shows that the words are to be rendered a “thicket of thorns which tear”; and cut the feet of those that pass through them; and even their whole body, as well as their clothes; and, wherever these grow in such plenty, it is a plain sign of a barren land, as well as what follow: and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation ; signifying that the countries of Moab and Ammon should be waste, barren, and uncultivated, as the above places were, where nothing but nettles grew, as do in great abundance in desolate places; and where saltpits should be, or heaps of salt, as Kimchi interprets it; and wherever salt is found, as Pliny says, it is a barren place, and produces nothing; though Herodotus speaks of places where were hillocks of salt, and very fruitful; and where the people used salt in manuring and improving their ground; which must be accounted for by the difference of climate and soil: this passage is produced by Reland to prove that the lake Asphaltites is not the place, as is commonly believed, where Sodom and Gomorrah stood; since those cities were not overflown, or immersed in and covered with water, but were destroyed by fire and brimstone, and so became desolate; and had no herbs and plants, but nettles, and such like things; and such these countries of Moab and Ammon should be, and ever remain so, at least for a long time; and especially should be desolate and uninhabited by the former possessors of it; (see Deuteronomy 29:23) this was fulfilled about five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar, as Josephus relates, led his army into Coelesyria, and made war upon the Ammonites and Moabites, and subjected them to him, who were the inhabitant of it, as the same writer says f75 : the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them ; that is, the Jews, the remnant of them that returned from Babylon: now these, in the times of the Maccabees, and those that descended from them, seized on several places in these countries, and possessed them; for, after these countries had been subdued and made desolate by Nebuchadnezzar, they became considerable nations again. Josephus says the Moabites in his time were a great nation; though in the third century, as Origen relates, they went under the common name of Arabians; and, even long before the times of Josephus, they were called Arabian Moabites, as he himself observes; when he tells us that Alexander Jannaeus subdued them, and imposed a tribute on them; and who also gives us an account of the cities of the Moabites, which were taken and demolished by them, as Essebon, Medaba, Lemba, Oronas, Telithon, Zara, the valley of the Cilicians, and Pella; these he destroyed, because the inhabitants would not promise to conform to the rites and customs of the Jews f78 ; though Josephus ben Gorion, who also makes mention of these cities as taken by the same prince, says he did not demolish them, because they entered into a covenant and were circumcised; and he speaks of ten fortified cities of the king of Syria, added at the same time to the kingdom of Israel, not destroyed: likewise the children of Ammon, after their captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, became a powerful people: we read of the country of the Ammonites in “Then Jason, who had undermined his own brother, being undermined by another, was compelled to flee into the country of the Ammonites.” (2 Maccabees 4:26) and, in the times of Judas Maccabeus, Timotheus, their general, got together a strong and numerous army, which being worsted by Judas, he took their city Jasoron, or Jaser, “Afterward he passed over to the children of Ammon, where he found a mighty power, and much people, with Timotheus their captain.” (1 Maccabees 5:6) carried their wives and children captive, and burnt their city f80 ; and this people, as well as the Moabites in the third century, as before observed, were swallowed up under the general name of Arabians; and neither of them are any more; all which has fulfilled this prophecy, and those of Jeremiah and Amos concerning them: this, likewise, in a spiritual sense, might have a further accomplishment in the first times of the Gospel, when it was preached in these countries by the apostles, and churches were formed in them; and may be still further accomplished in the latter day, when those parts of the world shall be possessed by converted Jews and by Gentile Christians. Kimchi owns it may be interpreted as future, of what shall be in the times of the Messiah.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 4-15 - Those are really in a woful condition who have the word of the Lor against them, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. God wil restore his people to their rights, though long kept from them. It ha been the common lot of God's people, in all ages, to be reproached an 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 expec the performance of every promise, praying that our Father's name may be hallowed every where, over all the earth __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
לכן 3651 חי 2416 אני 589 נאם 5002 יהוה 3068 צבאות 6635 אלהי 430 ישׂראל 3478 כי 3588 מואב 4124 כסדם 5467 תהיה 1961 ובני 1121 עמון 5983 כעמרה 6017 ממשׁק 4476 חרול 2738 ומכרה 953 מלח 4417 ושׁממה 8077 עד 5704 עולם 5769 שׁארית 7611 עמי 5971 יבזום 962 ויתר 3499 גוי 1471 ינחלום׃ 5157
