Albert Barnes Commentary Zephaniah 2:15

"This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none besides me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand." — Zephaniah 2:15 (ASV)

This utter desolation is the rejoicing city (it is so unlike, that it is necessary to point out that it is the same); this is she who was full of joy, exulting exceedingly, but in herself, not in God. She is the one that dwelt carelessly—literally, “securely,” and so carelessly—saying, Peace and safety (1 Thessalonians 5:3), as though no evil would come upon her, and so perishing more certainly and miserably . This is she That said in her heart—this was her inmost feeling, the moving cause of all her deeds—I am, and there is none beside me. This is literally, “and there is no I beside,” claiming the very attribute of God (as the world does) of self-existence, as if it alone were “I,” and others, in respect to her, were as nothing.

Pantheism, which denies the being of God as Author of the world and claims the life in the material world to be God, and each living being to be a part of God, is only this self-idolatry, reflected upon and carried out in words.

All the pride of the world, all self-indulgence which says, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, all covetousness which ends in this world, speaks this by its acts: “I and no I beside.”

How is she become a desolation—she has passed wholly into it, exists only as a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in, a mere den for “the wild beasts.” Every one that passeth by her shall hiss in derision, and wag his hand in detestation, as though putting the hand between themselves and it, so as not to look at it, or, as it were, motioning it away. The action is different from that of clapping the hands in exultation (Nahum 3:19).

“It is not difficult,” Jerome says, “to explain this of the world: that when the Lord has stretched forth His hand over the north and destroyed the Assyrian, the Prince of this world, the world also perishes together with its Princes, and is brought to utter desolation, and is pitied by none, but all hiss and shake their hands at its ruin.

“But concerning the Church, it seems at first sight blasphemous to say that it shall be a pathless desert, and wild beasts shall dwell in her, and that afterward it shall be said insultingly over her: ‘This is the city given up to ill, which dwelt carelessly and said in her heart, I and none beside.’

“But whoever should consider that of the Apostle, in which he says, in the last days perilous times shall come (2 Timothy 3:1–5), and what is written in the Gospel, that because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold (Matthew 24:12), so that then shall that be fulfilled, When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith on the earth?—he will not marvel at the extreme desolation of the Church. He will not marvel that, in the reign of antichrist, it shall be reduced to a desolation and given over to beasts, and shall suffer whatever the prophet now describes.

“For if for unbelief God spared not the natural branches, but brake them off, and turned rivers into a wilderness and the water-springs into a dry ground, and a fruitful land into barrenness, for the iniquity of them that dwell therein, why not also to those of whom He had said, He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into water-springs, and there He maketh the hungry to dwell (Psalms 107:33–36)?

“And as to those whom out of the wild olive He hath grafted into the good olive tree, why, if forgetful of this benefit, they depart from their Maker and worship the Assyrian, should He not undo them and bring them to the same thirst in which they were before?

“While this may be understood generally of the coming of antichrist or of the end of the world, yet it may, day by day, be understood of those who pretend to be of the Church of God, and in works deny it, are hearers of the word not doers. These are those who in vain boast in an outward show, while herds (that is, troops of vices) dwell in them, and brute animals serving the body, and all the beasts of the field which devour their hearts (and pelicans, that is, gluttons, whose god is their belly), and hedgehogs, a prickly animal full of spikes which pricks whatever it touches.

“After this it is added, that the Church shall therefore suffer this, or has suffered it, because it lifted itself up proudly and raised its head like a cedar, given up to evil works, and yet promising itself future blessedness, and despising others in its heart, not thinking that there is any other beside itself, and saying, I am, and there is no other beside me. How is it become a solitude, a lair of beasts! For where before dwelled the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and Angels presided over its ministries, there beasts shall dwell.

“And if we understand that every one that passeth by shall hiss, we shall explain it thus: when Angels shall pass through her, and not remain in her, as was their custom, they shall be amazed and marvel. They shall not support and bear her up with their hand when she is falling, but shall lift up their hands and pass by. Or they shall make a sound like those who mourn. But if we understand this of the devil and his angels, who also destroyed the vine that was brought out of Egypt, we shall say that through the soul, which before was the temple of God and has ceased to be so, the serpent passes, and hisses and spits forth the venom of his malice in her. And not this only, but he also sets in motion his works, which figuratively are called hands.”

Rup.: “The earlier and partial fulfillment of prophecy does not destroy, it rather confirms, the entire fulfillment to come. For whoever hears of the destruction of mighty cities is constrained to believe the truth of the Gospel, that the fashion of this world passeth away, and that, after the likeness of Nineveh and Babylon, the Lord will in the end judge the whole world also.”