Zephaniah 3:10

The point is not to draw attention to the country beside the Nile, nor even to add to it the land beside the Euphrates. The call is to a land beyond both. Egypt and Assyria had been the chief of those powers, for there was an Asiatic Cush as well as an African one. The land in question lay beyond these well-known countries — not near them, but perhaps ever so far off. It means a country far away.

The same word is translated "suppliant" in Zephaniah 3:10. Its root verb, athar, is the common word for "entreat, pray." Wilson defines athar as "to pray as a suppliant, to plead with God with power, in abundance, or with success." In its Niphal form it is generally used of pleading that prevails with God.

These suppliant worshippers are the Jews who return from beyond the rivers of Cush — the Nile and the Euphrates, which normally ringed them round. In that day God will take away their shame for the past. This does not mean they will not mourn deeply and repent truly; it means the reproach will be removed from them. Their empty self-exaltation will disappear, and they will be the meek of the earth.

While the peoples in verse 9 are the Gentiles, the suppliants in verse 10 are Jews brought back from the dispersion. The converted Gentiles bring them back as an offering to the Lord (Isaiah 66:20). When that happens, the restored nation will have no need to be ashamed of all it has done. The Lord in infinite grace will have cleansed them from their iniquity. Now they are no longer proud and haughty, but a remnant humbled, trusting in the Lord.

This is so plain that it needs no comment. It states clearly and beyond doubt that the Lord will turn to the people a pure language, to serve Him with one consent, only after the fire of God's jealousy has devoured the whole earth, and after He has assembled the kingdoms for that very purpose. I will only add that "people" here is plural in the original — Ammim, not Goyim, which means Gentiles. I think it is the word used for all the nations that are not viewed as shut out from the covenant.

The reference is not to gospel times but to Messianic times, after the judgments just spoken of have been carried out. So it is not right to bring in here the spread of Christianity, which has not overthrown idolatry: inside the Roman Empire it put idolatry down, but afterwards it fell away into idolatry far and wide. In the Christian world there is nothing like the "one shoulder" for the service of the Lord.

"I will also leave in the midst of you an afflicted and poor people." There must be moral integrity as well as true lowliness before God can entrust them with the throne. They are destined to have the first dominion. Before that they will know a humbling — not by circumstances only, but by grace working in their spirit — and it will fit them for their future greatness.