Zephaniah 1:9

Those that leap on the threshold— Over the threshold. Houbigant. Calmet observes, that this alludes to the custom of the Philistines, when they enter the temple of Dagon; but the author of the Observations is of a different opinion. That notion can have nothing to recommend it, says he, I think, but its being supposed by so old a writer as the Chaldee paraphrast: he is of opinion, that it alludes to the custom of riding into the houses, spoken of in the note on Proverbs 17:19 and he observes, that such as are clothed with strange apparel, Zephaniah 1:8 are words which, in this connection, seem only to mean the rich, who are conscious of such power and influence, as to dare in a time of oppression and danger to avow their riches, and who therefore were not afraid to wear the costly manufactures of strange countries, Ezekiel 27:7 though they were neither magistrates, nor of a royal descent. A great number of attendants is a modern piece of oriental magnificence. It appears to have been so anciently. See Ecclesiastes 5:11. These servants now, it is most certain, frequently attend their master on horseback, richly attired, sometimes to the number of twenty-five or thirty. If they did so anciently, such a number of servants attending great men, (who are represented by this very prophet, ch. Zephaniah 3:3 as at that time, in common, terrible oppressors) may be naturally supposed to ride into the people's houses, and having gained an admission by deceit, to force from them by violence large contributions; for this riding into houses is now practised by the Arabs, and consequently might be practised by others too anciently. It is not now peculiar to the Arabs; for Le Bruyn, after describing the magnificent furniture of several of the Armenian merchants at Julfa, that suburb of Ispahan in which they live, tells us, that the front door of the greatest part of these houses is very small, partly to hinder the Persians from entering into them on horseback, and partly that they may less observe the magnificence within. To which should be added, what he elsewhere observes, that these Armenians are treated with great rigour and insolence by the Persians. If this text refers to a violence of this sort, they are the thresholds of the oppressed over which they leaped; not the thresholds of the oppressive masters, (which some have supposed,) when they returned home loaden with the spoil. See Observations, p. 57.