Zephaniah 2:6

Dwellings and cottages for shepherds. — Better, places for shepherds’ pastures. In c’rôth (best taken as plural of car, “a pasture”) there is a paronomasia on c’rêthîm of Zephaniah 2:5. The term “sea coast” (literally, line of the sea) here, as in Zephaniah 2:5, designates maritime Philistia. This tract of country is represented as ravaged and depopulated, so as to be serviceable only as a mere sheep-walk. Afterwards (Zephaniah 2:7) the restored exiles of Judah make it their pasture-ground. That this predominance of the Jewish over the Philistine race actually took place is manifest. The allusion to the captivity of Judah and its termination is remarkable. “Who save He in whose hand are human wills could now foresee that Judah should, like the ten tribes, rebel, be carried captive, and yet, though like and worse than Israel in its sin, should, unlike Israel, be restored” (Pusey). In the opening words of Zephaniah 2:7 there is perhaps another paronomasia, for chebel (“sea coast” in Zephaniah 2:6), may also mean “an apportioned inheritance;” and the words here may be rendered, “and it shall be for an inheritance for the remnant of the house of Judah.”