Zephaniah 1:1-18
1 The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.
2 I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.
3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocksa with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.
4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests;
5 And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham;
6 And them that are turned back from the LORD; and those that have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for him.
7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord GOD: for the day of the LORD is at hand: for the LORD hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bidb his guests.
8 And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD'S sacrifice, that I will punishc the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.
9 In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit.
10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills.
11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.
12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settledd on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.
13 Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
14 The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,
16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.
17 And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
Zephaniah 1:1. The Word of the Lord came to Zephaniah. The glorious person of Christ, the Word and Wisdom of God; so indeed is the oft-repeated gloss of the Chaldaic in all the book of Chronicles, when a prophet was sent to warn and reprove the land of Israel. The name given to him by his parents, “the secret of the Lord,” might seem to have been an augur of his divine call.
Zephaniah 1:2. I will utterly consume man beasts birds and fishes. It was known to the ancients that birds perish by pestilential contagion. “The birds themselves, affected by pernicious air, fall and die beneath the cloud.”
Ipsis est aër avibus non æquus, et illæ Præcipites altâ vitam sub nube relinquunt. Georg. 3: 546.
The blood in a city after carnage, washed into the river by tremendous rain, will suffocate the fish. Yet the words of the prophet are figurative, and intimate that God would cut off even the fisher-men by the sword.
Zephaniah 1:4. I will cut off the Chemarims with the priests. This is a name of contempt, not that they wore black clothes, but that like the name of the Zamzummim, it is given them because of their shouts at the time of their idolatrous sacrifice. The word is translated priests in 2 Kings 23:5. God would destroy these vile men, with all the priests of Aaron's race who had joined in their idolatry. These were the stumblingblocks which occasioned the nation's fall.
Zephaniah 1:5. Them that worship the host of heaven upon the house-tops. Great families had private altars on the flat roofs of their houses, where they made oblations to Venus, Jupiter, and the stars; where also they lifted up their hands and swore by Malcolm, the idol of the Ammonites. See on Judges 10:6. This worship is sabianism, which spread through the oriental world. Job 1:15.
Zephaniah 1:7. The Lord hath prepared a sacrifice. The flesh of the people, and hath invited his guests, the Chaldean army to the feast. Jeremiah ascribes this slaughter to the sins of the false prophets, and the apostate priests. Lamentations 4:13.
Zephaniah 1:8. I will punish all such as are clothed with strange apparel. Lycurgus compelled the Spartans to dress according to their rank. The court, following monthly fashions, under pretense of giving a stimulus to trade, do great injury to the middle classes by exciting a spirit of emulation, and so involving them in superfluous expenses to provide new dresses for their wives and daughters. The young men also must now wear women's stays, forsooth, and so prevent their growth. A dandy race, reproaching the Creator for deficiency in the configuration of the body.
Zephaniah 1:10. A cry from the fishgate. Nehemiah 3:3. It led to Joppa, now St. John D'Acre, whence fish were brought from the sea. This was properly the port of Jerusalem. The next verses describe the cessation of all trade, when the invading army approached. Such are the horrors and visitations of war.
Zephaniah 1:11. Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh. This is the lower city where trades, manufactures, and merchandise were carried on. But critics are not agreed as to the precise import of the word. It might be some outworks adjacent to the city, as the tanneries of Southwark adjacent to London.
Zephaniah 1:13. They shall plant. A better reading would be, Though ye have planted vineyards, ye shall not eat of the fruit thereof.
Zephaniah 1:17. Their flesh shall be as dung; filling all the streets of Jerusalem, and all the courts of the temple. So great was the slaughter on the rebel city, that their blood flowed like water, as described in the seventy ninth psalm. The people of all ages were trodden under foot, as grapes in the wine press. Lamentations 1:15.
REFLECTIONS.
Our prophet having received a divine commission, and probably in early years, opens his ministry like a thunder storm. He exhibited an angry God, marching in fury with fire and sword, cutting off all the living beings of the land, and covering all verdure with the desolations of winter. He saw the angry clouds, as in the next chapter, roll beyond the confines of his country, to pour their latent fury on the nations that laughed at Judah's fall. And what else but such a ministry could rouse a guilty land, from carnal slumber, and sensual repose.
On the Chemarim, on the priests, on those that turn their backs of the Lord, the keenest blasts of the tempest shall blow; for the sins of the sanctuary are doubly provoking in his sight. On the Sabian worshippers upon the house-tops, who could eat their peace-offerings when the moon had begun to repair her new horns, the blast shall blow down their altars. When the Lord begins he will also make an end. All their wealth and pride shall be a booty for the men who do the Lord's strange work.
The prophet, to give his warnings full effect, adds, that the day of the Lord was near. As a watchman, he trifled not with the souls committed to his care. While blowing the trumpet, he left not the harshest truths untold. It was a day of wrath, a day of distress and desolation; a day in which neither gold nor silver should procure a reprieve. Such are the attributes of Him with whom we have to do. He discovers the fire of jealousy on men who had set up another god.