Zephaniah 2:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For Gaza shall be forsaken The prophet digresses here to foretel the fate of some cities and nations bordering on Judea; probably with a view to show that when Judea should be invaded, and Jerusalem attacked, there would be no place for the Jews to escape to, since all the neighbouring cities would be brought to ruin, as well as those of Judea. Nebuchadnezzar, as history informs us, took many of the cities of the Philistines. Wo to the inhabitants of the sea-coasts Wo to the Philistines who live upon the coast of the Mediterranean sea: compare Ezekiel 25:16, where, as well as here, they are called Cherethites, or Cherethims. The LXX. read, παροικοι Κρητων, strangers of the Cretans. They are supposed to have been a colony removed from Crete to Palestine. O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee The Canaanites, properly so called, were the same with the Philistines, and seated in that part of Palestine: see Joshua 13:3. And the sea-coast shall be dwellings for shepherds The merchants, who inhabited there before, being driven far away by the calamities of the times, or carried into captivity, and no others resorting thither. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah This is a declaration that the sea-coasts, of which the Philistines should be dispossessed, should afterward come into the possession of the Jewish people, namely, after their return from their captivity; and that they should feed their flocks there, which should lie down in the evening in the desolate or ruined houses of Ashkelon.