Zephaniah 2:13-15
2:13 a Zephaniah turns from the south (2:12 b) to the north. Like Nahum before him, he announces the imminent demise of Assyria.2:14 c To drive home his point about Nineveh’s fate, Zephaniah invokes powerful imagery: Rubble would fill the doorways through which the wealthy and powerful of Nineveh had once walked. The eerie sounds of owls hooting in empty windows would punctuate the city’s desolation.
2:15 d utter ruin: The doom was so certain and irreversible (see Nah 1:14 e; 2:13 f; 3:19 g) that Zephaniah saw no future for Assyria or its capital. So complete was Nineveh’s devastation that the Greek historian Xenophon once passed by its ruins unaware that it was there.
• laugh ... shake a defiant fist: Those who suffered under Assyria’s cruel empire would be glad seeing its demise.
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