Zephaniah 3:17

3:17 The Lord your God is in your midst;

he is a warrior who can deliver.

He takes great delight in you; ¹ 

he renews you by his love; ² 

he shouts for joy over you.” ³ 

Zephaniah 1:9

1:9 On that day I will punish all who leap over the threshold, ⁴ 

who fill the house of their master ⁵  with wealth taken by violence and deceit. ⁶ 

Zephaniah 1:4

1:4 “I will attack ⁷  Judah

and all who live in Jerusalem. ⁸ 

I will remove ⁹  from this place every trace of Baal worship, ¹⁰ 

as well as the very memory ¹¹  of the pagan priests. ¹² 

Zephaniah 3:10

3:10 From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, ¹³ 

those who pray to me ¹⁴  will bring me tribute.

Zephaniah 3:18

3:18 “As for those who grieve because they cannot attend the festivals –

I took them away from you;

they became tribute and were a source of shame to you. ¹⁵ 

Zephaniah 1:12

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

I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ¹⁶ 

those who think to themselves, ¹⁷ 

‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ¹⁸ 

Zephaniah 3:6

The Lord’s Judgment will Purify

3:6 “I destroyed ¹⁹  nations;

their walled cities ²⁰  are in ruins.

I turned their streets into ruins;

no one passes through them.

Their cities are desolate; ²¹ 

no one lives there. ²² 

Zephaniah 3:15

3:15 The Lord has removed the judgment against you; ²³ 

he has turned back your enemy.

Israel’s king, the Lord, is in your midst!

You no longer need to fear disaster.

[3:17]  ¹ tn Heb “he rejoices over you with joy.”

[3:17]  ² tc The MT reads, “he is silent in his love,” but this makes no sense in light of the immediately preceding and following lines. Some take the Hiphil verb form as causative (see Job 11:3) rather than intransitive and translate, “he causes [you] to be silent by his love,” that is, “he soothes [you] by his love.” The present translation follows the LXX and assumes an original reading יְחַדֵּשׁ (yÿkhaddesh, “he renews”) with ellipsis of the object (“you”).

[3:17]  ³ tn Heb “he rejoices over you with a shout of joy.”

[1:9]  ⁴ sn 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]  ⁵ tn The referent of “their master” is unclear. The king or a pagan god may be in view.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “who fill…with violence and deceit.” The expression “violence and deceit” refers metonymically to the wealth taken by oppressive measures.

[1:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will stretch out my hand against,” is an idiom for hostile action.

[1:4]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “cut off.”

[1:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the remnant of Baal.”

[1:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “name.” Here the “name” is figurative for the memory of those who bear it.

[1:4]  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).

[3:10]  ¹⁰ tn Or “Nubia”; Heb “Cush.” “Cush” is traditionally assumed to refer to the region south of Egypt, i.e. Nubia or northern Sudan, referred to as “Ethiopia” by classical authors (not the more recent Abyssinia).

[3:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “those who pray to me, the daughter of my dispersed ones.” The meaning of the phrase is unclear. Perhaps the text is corrupt at this point or a proper name should be understood. For a discussion of various options see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 134-35.

[3:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “The ones grieving from an assembly I gathered from you they were, tribute upon her, a reproach.” Any translation of this difficult verse must be provisional at best. The present translation assumes three things: (1) The preposition מִן (min) prefixed to “assembly” is causal (the individuals are sorrowing because of the assemblies or festivals they are no longer able to hold). (2) מַשְׂאֵת (mas’et) means “tribute” and refers to the exiled people being treated as the spoils of warfare (see R. D. Patterson, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah [WEC], 385-86). (3) The third feminine singular suffix refers to personified Jerusalem, which is addressed earlier in the verse (the pronominal suffix in “from you” is second feminine singular). For other interpretive options see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 146.

[1:12]  ¹⁶ tn 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “who say in their hearts.”

[1:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “The Lord does not do good nor does he do evil.”

[3:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “cut off.”

[3:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “corner towers”; NEB, NRSV “battlements.”

[3:6]  ²¹ tn This Hebrew verb (צָדָה, tsadah) occurs only here in the OT, but its meaning is established from the context and from an Aramaic cognate.

[3:6]  ²² tn Heb “so that there is no man, without inhabitant.”

[3:15]  ²² tn Heb “your judgments,” that is, “the judgments directed against you.” The translation reflects the implications of the parallelism.