Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Zephaniah · About this commentary
The Coast Left to Shepherds
Zephaniah 2:4-7
4 For Gaza will be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation. They will drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron will be rooted up. · WEB
The oracle against the Philistine cities ends not in ruin but in pasture — the land changes hands rather than merely emptying.
Four cities are named in a line: Gaza forsaken, Ashkelon a desolation, Ashdod driven out at noonday, Ekron rooted up. Gaza and Ashdod had been Judah's western pressure for centuries, and the fifth city of the Philistine pentapolis, Gath, is missing — as it is in other prophetic lists, the text simply not naming it.
Verse 5 addresses the coast as Canaan, land of the Philistia , and the sentence is destruction until no inhabitant remains.
But verses 6 and 7 do something the oracles against Nineveh will not do. The coast becomes pasture with shepherds' cottages and sheepfolds, and then it is given: the coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah. The word remnant arrives here for the first time in the book, and it arrives holding property. Judgment on the nations is not only subtraction; it clears ground for people who had none.
settled What this mark means