3:12 I will leave in your midst a humble and meek group of people, 1
and they will find safety in the Lord’s presence. 2
1:11 Wail, you who live in the market district, 3
for all the merchants 4 will disappear 5
and those who count money 6 will be removed. 7
2:10 This is how they will be repaid for their arrogance, 8
for they taunted and verbally harassed 9 the people of the Lord who commands armies.
1:4 “I will attack 10 Judah
and all who live in Jerusalem. 11
I will remove 12 from this place every trace of Baal worship, 13
as well as the very memory 14 of the pagan priests. 15
1 tn Heb “needy and poor people.” The terms often refer to a socioeconomic group, but here they may refer to those who are humble in a spiritual sense.
2 tn Heb “and they will take refuge in the name of the
3 tn Heb “in the Mortar.” The Hebrew term מַכְתֵּשׁ (makhtesh, “mortar”) is apparently here the name of a low-lying area where economic activity took place.
4 tn Or perhaps “Canaanites.” Cf. BDB 489 s.v. I and II כְּנַעֲנִי. Translators have rendered the term either as “the merchant people” (KJV, NKJV), “the traders” (NRSV), “merchants” (NEB, NIV), or, alternatively, “the people of Canaan” (NASB).
5 tn Or “be destroyed.”
6 tn Heb “weigh out silver.”
7 tn Heb “be cut off.” In the Hebrew text of v. 11b the perfect verbal forms emphasize the certainty of the judgment, speaking of it as if it were already accomplished.
5 tn Heb “this is for them in place of their arrogance.”
6 tn Heb “made great [their mouth?] against” (cf. the last phrase of v. 8).
7 tn Heb “I will stretch out my hand against,” is an idiom for hostile action.
8 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
9 tn Heb “cut off.”
10 tn Heb “the remnant of Baal.”
11 tn Heb “name.” Here the “name” is figurative for the memory of those who bear it.
12 tc Heb “of the pagan priests and priests.” The first word (כְּמָרִים, kÿmarim) refers to idolatrous priests in its two other appearances in the OT (2 Kgs 23:5, Hos 10:5), while the second word (כֹּהֲנִים, kohanim) is the normal term for “priest” and is used of both legitimate and illegitimate priests in the OT. It is likely that the second term, which is omitted in the LXX, is a later scribal addition to the Hebrew text, defining the extremely rare word that precedes (see J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 167-68; cf. also NEB, NRSV). Some argue that both words are original; among the modern English versions that include both are NASB and NIV. Possibly the first word refers to outright pagan priests, while the second has in view once-legitimate priests of the Lord who had drifted into idolatrous practices. Another option is found in Adele Berlin, who translates, “the idolatrous priests among the priests,” understanding the second word as giving the general category of which the idolatrous priests are a part (Zephaniah [AB 25A], 75).