Zephaniah Chapter Two, Moab & Ammon

Zephaniah 2:8 “I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the people of Ammon, with which they have reproached My people, and made arrogant threats against their borders. [9] Therefore, as I live,” says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Surely Moab shall be like Sodom, and the people of Ammon like Gomorrah–overrun with weeds and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation. The residue of My people shall plunder them, and the remnant of My people shall possess them.”

Moab is one of the incestual sons of Lot after he and his daughters fled Sodom, Genesis 19:37. Lot, being the son of Haran, was Abraham’s nephew, Genesis 11:31. Moab became father to the Moabites, cousins as it were to Israel. Yes there was no love between these peoples. Moab, in the book of Jeremiah, is called, “the people of Chemosh,” Jeremiah 48:46.

Chemosh was a loathsome demon god that adored human sacrifice, as was recorded in Amos 2:1 and 2 Kings 3:26, 27. To detail, Amos is clarifying the fact that the Moabite king took the king of Edom’s son–not his own son–and sacrificed him to Chemosh: an act decried as utterly vile by Yahweh. Though Lot was a righteous man by Peter’s inspired confession (see 2 Peter 2:7) his descendants were not. By the time of the Judges Eglon of Moab had enslaved Israel for 18 years, Judges 3:14. It is worthy of note that Moab had a coalition of nations that attacked and subdued Israel, including Amalek and Ammon, Judges 3:13. The historical record is clear that the nations sired from Lot were antagonistic toward Israel from early in their career, further seen by both nation’s unwillingness to practice kindness toward Israel while God led them to Canaan and their inheritance after departing Egypt. More than that, Balak hired Balaam the prophet to curse Israel, and that having failed, to seduce Israel from serving the Lord and turning them to demon worship, Numbers chapters 22-25.

Ammon, being Lot’s other incestuous son, was the progenitor of the people of Ammon, also inveterate enemies of Israel. Ammon, along with Moab and Edom formed a coalition to overthrow Israel and take away their land in the time of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20:10. Edom, like Moab and Ammon, was related to Israel through Esau, Jacob’s brother, and also by intermarriage with Ishamel, the son of Abraham, Genesis 16:15, 28:9. Back to the main narrative, Ammon held no love for Israel, and tried to dispossess them from the land. God chides Ammon for their greed to plunder Israel’s inheritance, saying, “Has Israel no sons? Has he no heir? Why then does Milcom (Molech) inherit Gad, and his people dwell in its cities?” Jeremiah 50:1. Like Moab, Ammon’s spiritual loyalties and fate are bound to their patron deity, Molech in this instance, another demon god that desired the blood of human sacrifice. Neither of Lot’s children kept the faith of their father after the events of Sodom’s destruction, though the evidence of Yahweh’s sovereignty and judgment were etched into the very land they escaped from in the loins of their progenitor.

It is fitting then that God likened their mutual fates to that of the cities of the plain Lot once hailed from, being a messenger of righteousness in that perverse generation. Moab and Ammon’s fortunes shall end in fiery ruin like Sodom and Gomorrah: an abrupt cessation of power and influence or cultural relevance as their people and cultural identity was scattered to the ether when both nations were destroyed. Yahweh states that the residue–the remainder–of His people will plunder Moab and Ammon and possess them. Israel won’t possess the people, but the land they once occupied, formerly given (as they believed) by their respective gods, but now given by the true God to the people of His name: Israel.