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all the heathen will come under the judgment. The fulfilment commenced with the judgment upon Egypt through the Chaldaeans, as is evident from Eze 30:4, Eze 30:9, as compared with Josephus, Ant. x. 11, and continues till the conversion of that people to the Lord, the commencement of which is recorded in Act 8:27-38. The prophet dwells longer upon the heathen power of the north, the Assyrian kingdom with its capital Nineveh, because Assyria was then the imperial power, which was seeking to destroy the kingdom of God in Judah. This explains the fact that the prophet expresses the announcement of the destruction of this power in the form of a wish, as the use of the contracted forms yēt and yâsēm clearly shows. For it is evident that Ewald is wrong in supposing that ויט stands for ויּט, or should be so pointed, inasmuch as the historical tense, “there He stretched out His hand,” would be perfectly out of place. נטה יד (to stretch out a hand), as in Zep 1:4. ‛al tsâphōn, over (or against) the north. The reference is to Assyria with the capital Nineveh. It is true that this kingdom was not to the north, but to the north-east, of Judah; but inasmuch as the Assyrian armies invaded Palestine from the north, it is regarded by the prophets as situated in the north. On Nineveh itself, see at Jon 1:2 (p. 263); and on the destruction of this city and the fall of the Assyrian empire, at Nah 3:19 (p. 379). Lishmâmâh is strengthened by the apposition tsiyyâh kammidbâr.
Nineveh is not only to become a steppe, in which herds feed (Isa 27:10), but a dry, desolate waste, where only desert animals will make their home. Tsiyyâh, the dry, arid land - the barren, sandy desert (cf. Isa 35:1). בּתוכהּ, in the midst of the city which has become a desert, there lie flocks, not of sheep and goats (צאן, Zep 2:6; cf. Isa 13:20), but  כּל־חיתו־גוי , literally of all the animals of the (or a) nation. The meaning can only be, “all kinds of animals in crowds or in a mass.”  גּוי  is used here for the mass of animals, just as it is in Joe 1:6 for the multitude of locusts, and as עם is in Prov. 30:35-36 for the ant-people; and the genitive is to be taken as in apposition. Every other explanation is exposed to much greater objections and difficulties. For the form חיתו, see at Gen 1:24. Pelicans and hedgehogs will make their homes in the remains of the ruined buildings (see at Isa 34:11, on