Zephaniah began by singling out Judah amid the general destruction, "I will also stretch out My Hand upon Judah" Zephaniah 1:4; he sums up the judgment of the world in the same way; "He will stretch out, or, Stretch He forth, "His Hand against the north and destroy Asshur, and make Nineveh a desolation." Judah had, in Zephaniah's time, nothing to fear from Assyria. Isaiah Isa 39:6 and Micah M1 Corinthians 4:10 had already foretold, that the captivity would be to Babylon. Yet of Assyria alone the prophet, in his own person, expresses his own conformity with the mind of God. Of others he had said, "the word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, and I will destroy thee; As I live, saith the Lord, Moab shall be as Sodom. Ye also, O Ethiopians, the, slain of My sword are they." Of Assyria alone, by a slight inflection of the word, he expresses that he goes along with this, which he announces.

He does not say as an imprecation, "May He stretch forth His hand;" but gently, as continuing his prophecies, "and," joining on Asshur with the rest; only instead of saying "He will stretch forth," by a form almost insulated in Hebrew, he says, "And stretch He forth His Hand." In a way not unlike, David having declared God's judgments, "The Lord trieth the righteous; and the wicked and the lover of violence doth His soul abhor, subjoineth, On the wicked rain He snares," signifying that he (as all must be in the Day of judgment), is at one with the judgment of God. This is the last sentence upon Nineveh, enforcing that of Jonah and Nahum, yet without place of repentance now. He accumulates words expressive of desolateness. It should not only be a "desolation" Zephaniah 2:4, Zephaniah 2:9, as he had said of Ashkelon, Moab and Amman, but a dry, parched , unfruitful Isaiah 53:2 land. As Isaiah, under the same words, prophesies that the dry and desolate land should, by the Gospel, be glad, so the gladness of the world should become dryness and desolation. Asshur is named, as though one individual , implying the entireness of the destruction; all shall perish as one man; or as gathered into one and dependent upon one, its evil King. "The north" is not only Assyria, in that its armies came upon Judah from the north, but it stands for the whole power of evil (see Isaiah 14:13), as Nineveh for the whole beautiful, evil, world. The world with "the princes of this world" shall perish together.

He will - destroy Assyria - He will overthrow the empire, and Nineveh, their metropolitan city. See on Jonah and Nahum.

And he will stretch out his hand against the north,.... Either the Lord, or Nebuchadnezzar his sword; who, as he would subdue the nations that lay southward, he would lead his army northward against the land of Assyria, which lay to the north of Judea, as next explained:

and destroy Assyria; that famous monarchy, which had ruled over the kingdoms of the earth, now should come to an end, and be reduced to subjection to the king of Babylon:

and will make Nineveh a desolation; which was the capital city, the metropolis of the Assyrian monarchy: Nahum prophesies at large of the destruction of this city:

and dry like a wilderness; which before was a very watery place, situated by rivers, particularly the river Tigris; so that it was formerly like a pool of water, Nahum 2:6 but now should be dry like a heath or desert, Dr. Prideaux places the destruction of Nineveh in the twenty ninth year of Josiah's reign; but Bishop Usher earlier, in the sixteenth year of his reign; and, if so, then Zephaniah, who here prophesies of it, must begin to prophesy in the former part of Josiah's reign.

And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.

2:13 He - God. The north - Assyria, which lay northward of Judea, and due north from Babylon.

Margin Nineveh

See Scofield Note: "Nah 1:1".

13. Here he passes suddenly to the north. Nineveh was destroyed by Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, 625 B.C. The Scythian hordes, by an inroad into Media and thence in the southwest of Asia (thought by many to be the forces described by Zephaniah, as the invaders of Judea, rather than the Chaldeans), for a while interrupted Cyaxares' operations; but he finally succeeded. Arbaces and Belesis previously subverted the Assyrian empire under Sardanapalus (that is, Pul?), 877 B.C.

2:4-15 Those are really in a woful condition who have the word of the Lord against them, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. God will restore his people to their rights, though long kept from them. It has been the common lot of God's people, in all ages, to be reproached and reviled. God shall be worshipped, not only by all Israel, and the strangers who join them, but by the heathen. Remote nations must be reckoned with for the wrongs done to God's people. The sufferings of the insolent and haughty in prosperity, are unpitied and unlamented. But all the desolations of flourishing nations will make way for the overturning Satan's kingdom. Let us improve our advantages, and expect the performance of every promise, praying that our Father's name may be hallowed every where, over all the earth.