Zephaniah 2:8-10 I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people… I have heard the reproach, ere. "The threat now turns from the Philistines in the west to the two tribes in the east, viz. the Moabites and the Ammonites, who were descended from Lot, and therefore blood relations, and who manifested hostility to Israel on every possible occasion." The passage suggests three facts. I. THAT GOOD MEN ARE OFTEN SUBJECT TO ANNOYANCES FROM THE UNGODLY WORLD. "I have heard the reproach [abuse] of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people [abused my nation], and magnified themselves against their border." These people, the Moabites and the Ammonites, were constantly annoying and abusing the chosen people in the time of Moses. Balak, the King of the Moabites, sought to destroy the Israelites by means of Balaam's curses (Numbers 22.). And in the time of the judges, both peoples endeavoured to oppress Israel (Judges 3:12; Judges 10:7). The charge here probably refers to the hostile attitude assumed by both tribes at all times toward the people of God. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah accused them of annoying them (Isaiah 16:6; Jeremiah 48:29). The hostile conduct of Moab and Ammon towards Israel is only a specimen and an illustration of the antagonism of wicked men towards the truly pious. They "reproach" them; they charge them with superstition, fanaticism, cant, hypocrisy. Their revilings are often bitter and constant. "It has been," says an old writer, "the common lot of God's people in all ages to be reproached and reviled on one account or another." There is an eternal enmity between the two seeds - the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The conduct of a truly good man can scarcely fail to exasperate worldly and ungodly people. It condemns their selfishness, their greed, their falsehood, their pleasures. "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before," etc.; "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call those of the household!" "Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother; and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." In corrupt society, we may lay it down as a truth that the better a man is, the more pure, honest, true, righteous, the more he will be hated and annoyed by his neighbours. The best men, the men of whom "the world is not worthy," are always persecuted. II. THAT THESE ANNOYANCES ESCAPE NOT THE NOTICE OF GOD. "I have heard the reproach of Moab." I have heard the whole, all their calumnies, reproaches, revilings not a word has escaped me, not a syllable has been lost. Observe: 1. God's attention to the minute concerns of human life. He who is the Maker and Manager of the universe, to whom the creation is as nothing and less than nothing, is not indifferent to the utterances of little human creatures on this earth, which is itself a mere speck in space. "I have heard the reproaches." "He sees with equal eye, as God of all A hero perish, or a sparrow fall." 2. God's special interest in his people. Good men are his children, as dear to him as the apple of the eye; and whatever happens to them, even a reproachful word, affects him. It is truly consoling, it is energizing, to know that the great Father is interested in all that pertains to us. "Thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings" (Jeremiah 32:19). III. THAT GOD WILL NOT FAIL TO CHASTISE THE AUTHORS OF SUCH ANNOYANCES. "Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them. This shall they have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts." Mark: 1. The doom of those reproachers. "They shall be as So, lore and Gomorrah." "This simile," says Keil, "was rendered a very natural one by the situation of the two lands in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. It affirms the utter destruction of the two tribes." Their land is to abound with "nettles and salt pits," the products and proofs of utter ruin. 2. The cause of their doom. "This shall they have for their pride." All the persecutors of the good will meet with a terrible chastisement. Sooner or later God will avenge his own elect. Hence let the godly victims of persecution, when they are "reviled, revile not again;" "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord;" "Blessed are they which and persecuted," etc. (Matthew 5:10). - D.T. Parallel Verses KJV: I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. |
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