Zephaniah 1:7-13

Context

1:7 Be silent before the Lord God,¹

for the Lord’s day of judgment² is almost here.³

The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal;⁴

he has ritually purified⁵ his guests.

1:8 “On the day of the Lord’s sacrificial meal,

I will punish the princes⁶ and the king’s sons,

and all who wear foreign styles of clothing.⁷

1:9 On that day I will punish all who leap over the threshold,⁸

who fill the house of their master⁹ with wealth taken by violence and deceit.¹⁰

1:10 On that day,” says the Lord,

“a loud cry will go up¹¹ from the Fish Gate,¹²

wailing from the city’s newer district,¹³

and a loud crash¹⁴ from the hills.

1:11 Wail, you who live in the market district,¹⁵

for all the merchants¹⁶ will disappear¹⁷

and those who count money¹⁸ will be removed.¹⁹

1:12 At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps.

I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin,²⁰

those who think to themselves,²¹

‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’²²

1:13 Their wealth will be stolen

and their houses ruined!

They will not live in the houses they have built,

nor will they drink the wine from the vineyards they have planted.

[1:7] ¹tn Heb “Lord Lord.” The phrase אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (adonai yÿhvih) is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God.”

[1:7] ²tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[1:7] ³tn Or “near.”

[1:7] ⁴tn Heb “a sacrifice.” This same word also occurs in the following verse.

[1:7] ⁵tn Or “consecrated” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:8] ⁶tn Or “officials” (NRSV, TEV); NLT “leaders.”

[1:8] ⁷sn The very dress of the royal court, foreign styles of clothing, revealed the degree to which Judah had assimilated foreign customs.

[1:9] ⁸sn The point of the statement all who hop over the threshold is unclear. A ritual or superstition associated with the Philistine god Dagon may be in view (see 1 Sam 5:5).

[1:9] ⁹tn The referent of “their master” is unclear. The king or a pagan god may be in view.

[1:9] ¹⁰tn Heb “who fill…with violence and deceit.” The expression “violence and deceit” refers metonymically to the wealth taken by oppressive measures.

[1:10] ¹¹tn The words “will go up” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[1:10] ¹²sn The Fish Gate was located on Jerusalem’s north side (cf. 2 Chr 33:14; Neh 3:3; 12:39).

[1:10] ¹³tn Heb “from the second area.” This may refer to an area northwest of the temple where the rich lived (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 86; cf. NASB, NRSV “the Second Quarter”; NIV “the New Quarter”).

[1:10] ¹⁴tn Heb “great breaking.”

[1:11] ¹⁵tn 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.

[1:11] ¹⁶tn 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).

[1:11] ¹⁷tn Or “be destroyed.”

[1:11] ¹⁸tn Heb “weigh out silver.”

[1:11] ¹⁹tn 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.

[1:12] ²⁰tn Heb “who thicken on their sediment.” The imagery comes from wine making, where the wine, if allowed to remain on the sediment too long, will thicken into syrup. The image suggests that the people described here were complacent in their sinful behavior and interpreted the delay in judgment as divine apathy.

[1:12] ²¹tn Heb “who say in their hearts.”

[1:12] ²²tn Heb “The Lord does not do good nor does he do evil.”