2:4,5
Attention now turns back to the “other” nations. This nation things is actually very important. Israel made the mistake of thinking that because she was chosen by God (which she is) that meant that her sin did not matter and the other nations were not important. Instead she should have been an example of a repentant people who trusted in God’s mercy, received His blessing and then spread that blessing to the nations (Gen 12:2,3). As it is, the nations are repentant, trust God for mercy and receive His blessing, and this will one day spread to Israel (Rom 11:11,12). But we too need to be careful, both in our view of Israel, and of all people (Rom 11:17-21). We are special only in the sense of having received God’s mercy, we should delight to see others receive that same mercy.
Anyway, I have rather strayed from the immediate message of these verses! Sudden and unavoidable disaster will come upon Gaza, Ashkron, Ashdod and Ekron. These were all Philistine cities, situated near the sea, hence the words in v5! Judgement was coming their way.
2:6,7
The Philistine lands would become fertile pastureland. We have a tendency to either see only judgement, or only mercy, but in the Bible we often find the two together. The land would become fertile and fruitful. The land will belong to a remnant of Judah. So although terrible judgement was going to come upon Judah, a remnant would be saved. Again we find this same model in Rom 9-11. The people would be cared for by the Lord and their fortunes would be restored. We need to remember that it is God’s plan that we are cared for by Him, and that we are restored.
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