Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
Ver. 13. Therefore their goads shall become a booty] Their illgotten goods, Zephaniah 1:9; Zephaniah 1:11 (for a proof of my providence which they blushed not to deny), shall be carried away by the Chaldees, to their unmedicinable sorrow and heartbreak, Ecclesiastes 4:1,3 .
And their houses a desolation] Because built in blood. See Nahum 2:11,12 .
They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them, &c.] Ex lege mutuatur minas. That they might the more regard his words, the prophet makes use of the menaces of the law, Deuteronomy 28:30; Deuteronomy 28:39, whereof the prophets were interpreters; applying, as here, the general doctrine thereof to the people of their times. To rebuke or exhort men in good words, in God's own words, is the readiest way to prevail with them; unless they be Lucifugae scripturarum (as Tertullian saith of the Marcionites and Valentinians), which yet will take hold of them howsoever, Zechariah 1:6 .