An outline of Zephaniah 2:4–15

Zephaniah’s words of judgment in Zephaniah 2:4–15 are not structured in an arbitrary way. He has a definite purpose in his grouping of the nations. He speaks of punishment for nations that surrounded Judah from all four points of the compass. He begins with the nations close by: the neighbouring Philistines to the west (Zephaniah 2:4–7), then the Moabites and Ammonites to the east (Zephaniah 2:8–11). Then he moves to nations far away: the imperial powers of the Cushites and Assyrians to the south and north (Zephaniah 2:12–15), respectively.

So Zephaniah starts with speaking of nations that concerned Judah because of their proximity, and then he speaks of nations that concerned Judah because of their place in Judah’s history.^1,2 Motyer categorizes these nations in this way: Here is a typical world: the militarily tough Philistines, the vaguely related (Genesis 19:36–38) but unpredictable Moab and Ammon, the distant and hardly known Cush, and the superpower Assyria. Here is the world in its political diversity: the city-states of Philistia, the minor sovereignties of Moab and Ammon, and the monolithic imperialist Assyria.³