The Pulpit Commentary — Zephaniah — Section 29

ac~epfa,,ee of true relioion; aml fltst the ~h·ong city. 'Under the Philistines, the ,e11te11c, &hall reach the Philistinu. Hebl'ews, the Greeks, the Honums, the Saracens, the Crusaders, it was a. place of Ver. 4.-There ie ree.son enough why note. The shattered w,1lls that still sur- ,Judah should tremble when the nations round the site were built bv Richard Caiur around lwr, such as the powerful and turbu- de Lion. When I first cla.m.bered to the top lent Philistines, fall befnre the invading of a. broken bastion, a. scene of desolation liost. Four of the five cities of the Philis- burst suddenly upon my view for which I tines are mentioned, M denoting the whole was not prepared, though I had seen Da.al- trrritory, which a.gain is the representative bec and Palmyru, Heliopolis and Memphis. of the heathen world more definitely pRr• The whole site was before me, and not e. ticularized later on. Thus the four quarters fragment of a. house standing. One small' of the world are virtually specified : the section was covered with little gardens ; but Philistines repres(mting the west. the over the rest of the sitEI lay smooth rounded Moabites and Acmonites (vers. 8-10) hillocks of drifting sand. The sand is fast the east. the Cushites (vers. 11, 12) the advancing-so fast, that probably ere the south, and the Assyrians (vers. 13-15) the close of the century the site of Asce.lon will north. Gaza (see note on Amos i. 6) shall have been blotted out for ever" (' Illust. of be forsaken; depopulated and desolate. Bible Proph.,' p. 21). As for Ekron, hod. There is a. paronomasia. in the Hebrew : Alcir, travellers note that it is now e. little .Azzal, will be azu.bhaJ.. Some of the other village, consisting of about fifty mud localities a.re treated in the so.me manner houses, without e. remnant of antiquity ex- (comp. Micah i. 10-15, and notes there). cept two large walls; its very ruins have Ashkelon e. desolation (see note on Amos i. vanished. 1'he omission of Gath, a town e.t 8). They shall drive out Ashdod. The in- this time of small importance (see note on habitants shall be expelled. (For Ashdod. Amos i. 6), is probably owing to a. feeling see note on Amos, Zoe. cit.) At the noon day. of the symbolism of numbers, four denoting The hottest part of the day, tlie most unlikely completion, or the whole, like "thll four time for a. hostile attack, hence the expres- winds, the four ends of the earth," etc. sion is equivalent to "unexpectedly and Ver. 5.-Woe. The denunciation extends suddenly" (comp. Jer. xv. 8). Ekron shall to all Philistie.. The inhabitants of the sea be rooted up. In the Hebrew paronomasiu, coast. Both the Greek and Le.tin Versions Ekr0'1 (" the Deep-rooted") shall be f.eaker. retain the notion of the Hebrew word (For Ekron, see note on Amos, Zoe. cit., where chebel: " Ye who inhabit the measured the fulfilment of prophecy concerning that allotment of the see.." "Philistia,'' says Sir town is noted.) Gaza. (see note on Amos i. C. Warren," consists of e.n undulating plain 7), after being depopulated and a.gain re- from fifty to a hundred feet above the level peopled by Alexander the Great, fell into of the sea, reaching thirty-two miles from tbe hands of Ptolemy, and was destroyed by Ekron to Gaza, with e. breadth of from nine Antiochus, B.C. 198 (Polybius, 'Reliq.,' xvi. to sixteen miles. To the east of this the 40 ; Pusey, p. 457). Often rebuilt, it was hills commence, not the hill-country, but a. as often razed to the gronnd; and the pre- series of low spurs and undulating ground. sent representative of the ancient town, culminating in hogs' be.eke, running nearly Ghnzzeb, stands upon a hill composed of north and south, and rising in ple.ces to the accumulated ruins of successive cities. twelve hundred feet above the ocean" Of the condition of .Ash.kelon, Dr. Thomson (' Survey Memoirs: Jerusalem,' p. 436). writes, " There are no buildings of the The nation of the Cherethitee. So in Ezek. ancient city now standing, bnt broken xxv. 16. Zephaniah calls the Philistines by column.s are mixed up with the soil. . . . tliis name for the sake of e. play on the Let us climb to the top of these to.II frag- word. Cherethites meaning " Cutters-oft;" e.nd ments at the sonth-ea.st angle of the wall, they were devoted to being "cut off" and we shall have the whole scene of deso- (karath). Part of David's body-guard was lation before us, stretching terrace after composed of the so.me people ( l Sam. xxx. terrace, quite down to the sea on the north- 14). The no.me seems to have belonged to e. west. . . . No site in this country bas so portion of the Philistines who inhabited the deeply impre8sed my mind with sadness. soutl,ern part of the district. " One of the . . . They have stretched out upon Ashkelon principal villages of Philistia. is now called the line of confusion and the stones of Keretiya, so that the term may apply to tbe emptiness. Thorns have come up in her inhabitants of this town-B.'l ancient Cherith palaces, and bre.m hies in. the fortresses not mentioned in the Bible" (Conder's tbereof, and it is a habitation of dragons 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 237). They and a court for owls (Isa. :nriv. II-13)" have been supposed to have emigrated from (' The Land and the Book,' p. 546). "It Crete, but there a.re no reliable grounds for WIiii for ages," so.ye Dr. Porter, " a great and this theoey, though the LXX. in the present fJII. tr. 1-15.] THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH. 27