4 Gaza will be abandoned
and Ashkelon left in ruins.
At midday Ashdod will be emptied
and Ekron uprooted.
5 Woe to you who live by the sea,
you Kerethite people;
the word of the Lord is against you,
Canaan, land of the Philistines.
He says, “I will destroy you,
and none will be left.”
6 The land by the sea will become pastures
having wells for shepherds
and pens for flocks.
7 That land will belong
to the remnant of the people of Judah;
there they will find pasture.
In the evening they will lie down
in the houses of Ashkelon.
The Lord their God will care for them;
he will restore their fortunes.
Zephaniah has a different kind of Gaza strip in mind, where you can roll an elephant through the main cities after God's ethnic cleansing is done. These were the Philistines that Goliath came out of, neither circumcised or circumspect.
The hermeneutic might be rough for modern Palestinians; this is one that doesn't translate into the 21st century well, since it would mean no mas for Hamas. Given the geopolitics in play, that would be a feature rather than a bug, but it would be something that their Muslim Brotherhood brethren in Egypt would not take kindly to. Thus, this prophecy will likely be on the shelf for a while.
However, verse 6 and 7 are comforting to Judah; God will have their back in the long haul. Making the modern believer stand in the place of Israel is an iffy prospect, but it gives us some hope as well.
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