Albert Barnes Commentary Zephaniah 2:14

"And herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the capitals thereof; [their] voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he hath laid bare the cedar-work." — Zephaniah 2:14 (ASV)

And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her - No desolation is like that of decayed luxury. It preaches the nothingness of humanity, the fruitlessness of our toils, the fleetingness of our hopes and enjoyments, and their baffling when at their height. Grass in a courtyard or on a once-beaten road, and even more so in a town, speaks of the passing away of what has been—that people were accustomed to be there, and now are not, or are there less than they were. It leaves a feeling of emptiness and forsakenness.

But in Nineveh, not just a few tufts of grass here and there will signify desolation; it will be one wild, rank pasture, where flocks will not only feed but also “lie down” as in their fold and continual resting place. This will not be just in the outskirts or suburbs, but in the very center of her life, throng, and busy activity—in the midst of her—and no one will frighten them away. So Isaiah had said of the cities of Aroer, “they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down and none shall make them afraid” (Isaiah 17:2), and of Judah until its restoration by Christ, that it should be “a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks” (Isaiah 32:14). And not only those animals usually found in some connection with humans, but “all the beasts of a nation”—the troops of wild, savage, and unclean beasts that shun human dwellings or are enemies to us—these in troops will have their lair there.

Both the cormorant and the bittern - They may be the same. The pelican retires inland to consume its food. (See Tristram and Houghton, Smith’s Bible Dictionary, “Pelican” note.) It could be a hedgehog.

Shall lodge in the upper lintels of it. - The capitals (the term “chapiters” is used in some English Bible margins) of the pillars of the temples and palaces will lie broken and strewn upon the ground, and among those desolate fragments of her pride, unclean animals will haunt. The pelican has its Hebrew name from vomiting. It vomits up the shells it had swallowed whole after they had been opened by the heat of the stomach, and so picks out the animal contained in them—the very image of greediness and uncleanness. It also dwells not only in deserts but near marshes, so that Nineveh is doubly desolate.

A voice shall sing in the windows - In the midst of the desolation, the muteness of the hedgehog and the pensive loneliness of the solitary pelican, the musing spectator is even startled by the gladness of a bird, joyous in the existence that God has given it. Instead of the harmony of music and male and female singers in their palaces, the sweet music of some lonely bird will be heard, unconscious that it is sitting in the windows of those at whose name the world grew pale, portions of the outer walls being all that remain of her palaces.

Desolation will be in the thresholds, sitting, as it were, in them—everywhere to be seen in them, and all the more so because unseen. Desolation is something oppressive; we “feel” its presence. There, as a warder keeps watch at the empty portals where once the greatest crowd thronged, desolation will sit, so that no one may enter. For He will uncover (or, as the English margin reads, hath uncovered) the cedar-work: in the roofless palaces, the carved cedar-work will be laid open to wind and rain.

Anyone must have noticed how pitiful and dreary the decay of any house in a town looks, with torn wallpaper hanging uselessly on its walls. A poet of our own said of the beautiful ruins of a desolate monastery:

“For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout the ruins gray.”

But at Nineveh, it is one of the mightiest cities of the world that thus lies desolate, and the bared cedar-work had, in the days of its greatness, been carried off from the despoiled Lebanon or Hermon.