How does seeking precede the nations’ judgments?

The heading joins repentance to judgments against Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Ethiopians and Assyrians. The unloved nation is told to gather before the decree brings the day as passing dust and indignation arrives. Those meek who have wrought judgment are told to seek the Lord, the just and the meek, with the qualified hope that they may be hidden. Gaza is destroyed, Ascalon deserted, Azotus expelled at noonday and Accaron uprooted. Coastal Chanaan, the Philistine land, loses inhabitants and becomes shepherds’ resting places and cattle folds. Juda’s remnant will feed and rest in Ascalon’s houses when God visits and brings back captivity.

God has heard Moab’s reproach and Ammon’s blasphemies and their magnification upon his people’s borders. By an oath, Moab becomes like Sodom and Ammon like Gomorrha: thorns, salt heaps and perpetual desert, spoiled and possessed by the remnant. Pride and blasphemy are named as reasons. God consumes earth’s gods and all Gentile islands adore him from their own places. Ethiopians face his sword; his hand stretches north to destroy Assyria and make the beautiful city impassable desert. The edition identifies Ninive and dates its destruction to Josias’s sixteenth year. Flocks, beasts, bittern, urchin, singing bird and raven occupy the ruined thresholds, windows and upper post. The once-secure city that claimed no equal becomes a beast-filled desert, greeted with hissing and hand-wagging. The passage does not supply a universal immunity promise or turn dust into windblown chaff.