from the judgment. Upon them, viz., these pastures, will they feed.” The plural עליהם does not stand for the neuter, but is occasioned by a retrospective glance at נות רעים. The subject is, those that are left of the house of Judah. They will there feed their flocks, and lie down in the huts of Ashkelon. For the prophet adds by way of explanation, Jehovah their God will visit them. Pâqad, to visit in a good sense, i.e., to take them under His care, as is almost always the meaning when it is construed with an accusative of the person. It is only in Psa 59:6 that it is used with an acc. pers. instead of with על, in the sense of to chastise or punish. שׁוּב שׁבוּת as in Hos 6:11 and Amo 9:14. The keri שׁבית has arisen from a misinterpretation. On the fulfilment, see what follows.
Verses 8-10
The judgment upon Joab and Ammon. - Zep 2:8. “I have heard the abuse of Moab, and the revilings of the sons of Ammon, who have abused my nation, and boasted against its boundary. Zep 2:9. Therefore, as I live, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Yea, Moab shall become like Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrha, an inheritance of nettles and salt-pits, and desert for ever. The remnant of my nation will plunder them, the residue of my nation will inherit them. Zep 2:10. Such to them for their pride, that they have despised and boasted against the nation of Jehovah of hosts.” The threat now turns from the Philistines in the west to the two tribes to the east, viz., the Moabites and Ammonites, who were descended from Lot, and therefore blood-relations, and who manifested hostility to Israel on every possible occasion. Even in the time of Moses, the Moabitish king Balak sought to destroy Israel by means of Balaam's curses (Numbers 22), for which the Moabites were threatened with extermination (Num 24:17). In the time of the judges they both attempted to oppress Israel (Jdg 3:12. and Jdg 10:7.; cf. 1Sa 11:1-5 and 2 Samuel 10-12), for which they were severely punished by Saul and David (1Sa 14:47, and 2Sa 8:2; 2Sa 12:30-31). The reproach of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites, which Jehovah had heard, cannot be taken, as Jerome, Rashi, and others suppose, as referring to the hostilities of those tribes towards the Judaeans during the Chaldaean catastrophe; nor restricted, as v. Cölln imagines, to the reproaches heaped upon the ten tribes when they were carried away by the Assyrians, since nothing is know
