Zephaniah 2:11 - Exposition.

§ 4. Before passing to the judgment on the nations of the south and north, the prophet shows the object of all these chastisements: God destroys idolatry in order that pure religion may reign over all the earth. The Lord will be terrible unto them. The Lord shows himself as a terrible God over the Moabites and Ammonites, but only as parts of the heathen world, and with a view to a universal result This is the purpose of the revelation of himself as Judge. Septuagint, ̓Επιφανήσεται Κύριος ἐπ αὐτούς , "The Lord will appear against them." For he will famish all the gods of the earth. The verb means literally, "to make lean," and then "to destroy;" hence the LXX ; ἐξολοθρεύσει . The word may be chosen in order to express the idea that worshippers will no more be found to offer sacrifices and drink offerings to the gods (see Bel and the Dragon 6, 12). The nations being destroyed, the gods reverenced by them would vanish and be heard of no more. Men shall worship him. Idolatry abolished, men shall learn to worship Jehovah. Every one from his place. Every one shall worship God in his own place and country; the Lord shall be universally recognized, and his worship shall no longer be confined to one temple or one land, but wherever men dwell there shall they offer their homage and adoration (comp. Isaiah 19:18 , Isaiah 19:19 ; Malachi 1:11 , where the same truth is signified). Such passages as Micah 4:1 and Zechariah 14:16 , which seem to imply that all nations are to come up to the material Jerusalem to pay their devotions, require evidently a spiritual interpretation, and denote that the heathen converted to Christ shall be received into the Church, and join in the worship of the true Israel. The isles of the heathen; or, coasts of the nations; the most distant countries that lie across the seas ( Genesis 10:5 ; Psalms 72:10 ; Isaiah 11:11 , etc.).