I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, wherewith they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border.
Zephaniah 2 turns from Judah to the nations around it, and here the prophet looks east at two old neighbours, Moab and Ammon. Their weapon was not the sword but the tongue, and God says He heard every word.
The judgment in this chapter does not stop at one side of the land. One writer notes the move from west to east.
It is not merely the Philistines on the west, but Moab and the others on the east who must come into judgment for their proud enmity.
Moab and Ammon were not strangers. Both nations came from Lot. One writer looks back at where they began.
Was it not morally useful for Israel to remember where a lasting thorn in their side came from? It began in the shameful origin of the Moabite and the Ammonite. These were two nations, neighbours and relatives, known for their constant envy and hatred toward the people of God.
The verse does not say Israel heard the taunts; God does. Writers draw out why an attack on a people counts as an attack on God.
The heart calls on God to remember the attacks and insults of the enemy instead of being alarmed by them, for the reproach falls on His name. And this is true. For the world's hostility is really against the Lord when it is against His people. If they were not His people, the world would not trouble itself much about them. God's people have to remember the same thing, and in their own weakness to remember what is at stake.
The last phrase of the verse is about land. One writer traces these borders back to God's first promise to Israel.
Israel is now in a position to receive the full inheritance she has never yet received. Even in her greatest days, Moab, Edom and the Philistines lay inside the territory promised to her from the start. Their divine Leader deliberately spared the first two, along with Ammon, the other son of Lot, and left them the lands they then held. But that was only temporary. They never turned to God, and the prophets from Balaam onward announced judgment on them.
Why does this judgment fall? One writer answers with an image drawn from farming.
This judgment of Moab and Ammon is the harvest which their pride and self-exaltation has brought them.
Has this judgment already happened? One writer points to Nehemiah's day and answers no.
No one can say that all this has been fulfilled. Nehemiah must have felt sharply that it was not. Tobiah the Ammonite opposed the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, and men of the returned remnant had married wives of Ashdod, of Moab and of Ammon. Zephaniah looks on to the future, the time of Israel's full restoration and supremacy over the nations. And how gracious of God to give through His servant such a picture of the future, when dark days were about to close in over the little kingdom of Judah!
Beyond the history, one writer reads Moab as a picture. Where the nation came from explains what it stands for.
Moab was the child of Lot's sin. Lot was a child of God. But he was not content with a life of obedient dependence on Him, and chose instead to go down into Sodom for worldly gain. Moab represents the results of that departure. So it fits that the nation coming from him should picture mere profession: an outward connection with God with nothing real behind it.
- Reproach spoken. Moab and Ammon attacked with words. They taunted God's people and boasted against land promised to Israel.
- Reproach heard. God answers as the injured party. Hostility to His people is hostility to Him. If they were not His, the world would take little interest in them.
- Reproach rooted. Pride is the source. The judgment announced is the harvest that pride grew.
- Reproach reversed. These neighbours held their land only on loan. Israel has never yet received her full inheritance, so the promise still waits on the future.
- Reproach mirrored. Moab came from Lot's compromise. So it pictures an outward link with God with nothing real behind it — kinship that looks close and acts like an enemy.
Therefore, [as] I live, saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall certainly be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and salt-pits, and a perpetual desolation; the remnant of my people shall spoil them, and the residue of my nation shall possess them.
Zephaniah turns east across the Jordan to Moab and Ammon, two neighbours who mocked Judah when she was weak. The sentence is as severe as Sodom's ruin, yet it ends with a promise — so who are "my people," and when do they take possession?
Moab and Ammon both descended from Lot. The charge against them has two halves: what they said about Israel, and how they behaved at Israel's border. One writer sets out the offence, the sentence, and its timing:
Moab and Ammon had sinned against Israel, they reviled them and magnified themselves against their border. Their judgment is announced, as it is in the earlier prophets, like Joel, Amos, and Ezekiel. Moab will be overthrown like Sodom, and Ammon will become like Gomorrah. Then the judgment of Moab and Ammon will finally come, in His day. The remnant of His people will plunder them, and the remnant will possess them. It is obvious this also remains to be fulfilled.
Notice the possessive in the verse — my people, my nation. That is the whole reason an insult aimed at Judah lands on God:
From the moment God is in Israel He identifies Himself with His people. Because of this, He deals with the nations according to how they treated Israel. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me," says the King. The moment they touch Israel, they touch the apple of His eye.
Sodom and Gomorrah were the cities God destroyed in Genesis. Scripture reaches for them again and again:
"The glare of Sodom and Gomorrah is thrown across the whole length of Scripture history. It is the best-known and standard judgment on human sin. Genesis tells the story. Deuteronomy applies it, and so do Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Lamentations and Ezekiel. Our Lord Himself employs it more than once as the figure of the judgment."
The weeds in the verse say the same thing on a smaller scale:
Scripture mentions nettles as a sign that a place was deserted and given up to desolation. In Job, the poor outcasts take shelter under them. Job 30:7; Prov. 24:31; Isa. 34:13; Hosea 9:6; Zeph. 2:9.
This verse is the last mention of Moab in the Bible. One writer traces the whole line, and finds a picture of something in us:
The Moabites are a striking figure of the Flesh. (1) Their start was bad (Gen. 19:37). (2) They were excluded from the congregation of God's people (Deut. 23:3; Neh. 13:1). (3) They were to be utterly destroyed, the last mention of them in Scripture being: "As I live, declares the LORD of hosts … Moab shall become like Sodom … a waste forever" (Zeph. 2:9).
The second half of the verse turns from ruin to ownership: the wasteland still changes hands. One writer ties this to an inheritance Israel has never yet held:
So Israel is now ready to receive the full inheritance she has never yet received. Even in her greatest days, Moab, Edom and the Philistines lay inside the territory God first promised her. God Himself, her divine Leader, spared the first two, along with Ammon, the other son of Lot, and those nations kept the lands they then held. But this was only temporarily; for they never turned to God.
And the heirs are not the powerful. Zephaniah keeps returning to a small surviving group:
Both in chapters 2 and 3 "the remnant" is chiefly in view, "The remnant of the house of Judah," "the remnant of my people" (Zeph. 2:7, 9). These are "the afflicted and poor people" who trust in the name of the Lord (Zeph. 3:12), and who are blessed in connection with Christ.
History supplies the test. Ammonites and Moabites were still troubling God's people long after Zephaniah wrote:
None can say that all this has been fulfilled. Nehemiah must have felt that sharply. Tobiah the Ammonite opposed the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, and men of the returned remnant had married wives of Ashdod, Moab and Ammon (Neh. 13:23). Zephaniah looks on to the future, the time of Israel's full restoration and triumphant supremacy over the nations. And how gracious of God to give this forecast through His servant, just as dark days were about to close over the little kingdom of Judah!
- Contempt starts it. Moab and Ammon insulted God's people and set themselves up against Israel's border.
- God takes it personally. He identifies Himself with His people. He deals with each nation according to how it treated Israel: to touch them is to touch the apple of His eye.
- Sodom sets the measure. Sodom and Gomorrah are Scripture's standard picture of judgment on sin. Nettles mark ground that people have left for good.
- The weak inherit. The land passes to "the remnant" — the afflicted and poor who trust in the name of the Lord, not to the strong.
- Not yet done. Ammonites and Moabites still opposed God's people in Nehemiah's day. Writers read the verse as pointing on to Israel's full restoration.