Zephaniah

This is the message the LORD gave to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi. Cushi was the son of Gedaliah, Gedaliah was the son of Amariah, and Amariah was the son of Hizkiah. The message came while Josiah son of Amon was king of Judah.

1The 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.

NoteWhere the King James prints LORD in capital letters it is standing in for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four consonants (YHWH). Jewish readers did not say the name aloud, substituting the ordinary word for "lord," and English translations have followed that custom ever since. In verse 7 "Lord GOD" renders two different Hebrew words: the title "lord" followed by that name. Prophetic books usually name a prophet's father and stop; tracing Zephaniah back four generations is unusual. "Hizkiah" is the same Hebrew name as King Hezekiah, which has led some readers to suppose Zephaniah was of royal blood, though the text does not say so. Josiah ruled Judah roughly 640–609 BC.

2"I will sweep everything away completely from the face of the earth," says the LORD.

2I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.

NoteThe Hebrew here can mean "the ground," "the land" (that is, Judah), or "the earth" as a whole, and the book plays on that range: what begins as a worldwide threat narrows in the next verses to Jerusalem, then widens again at the end of the chapter. The verb translated "utterly consume" or "sweep away" is itself doubled in Hebrew for emphasis, a construction English can only render with words like "completely" or "utterly."

3"I will sweep away people and animals. I will sweep away the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks, along with the wicked people who serve them. I will wipe humanity off the face of the earth," says the LORD.

3I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked: and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.

NoteThe list (people, animals, birds of the sky, fish of the sea) runs back through the order of creation in Genesis 1, where those same categories are made in sequence. First hearers would have recognized the threat as creation being unmade. "The stumbling blocks with the wicked" is obscure in the Hebrew and may be a deliberate pun; "stumbling blocks" is a standard prophetic sneer at idols, things that trip a people up.

4"I will also raise my hand against Judah and against everyone living in Jerusalem. From this place I will cut off every last trace of the god Baal, and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests.

4I 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;

NoteBaal was the Canaanite storm and fertility god, the chief rival to the LORD in Israelite religion for centuries. "The remnant of Baal" means not a surviving group of people but the last leftovers of his cult, shrines, images, the name itself. "Chemarims" simply transliterates a Hebrew word, kemarim, used only of priests of foreign or unauthorised worship; it is the ordinary word for priest in neighboring languages, which is why English versions render it "idolatrous priests" or "pagan priests."

5I will cut off the people who go up on their flat roofs to bow down to the sun, moon, and stars. I will cut off those who bow down and make promises in the LORD's name, and then also make promises by the god Malcham.

5And 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;

Note"The host of heaven" means the sun, moon, planets and stars regarded as divine beings; worship of them spread in Judah under Assyrian influence in the century before Zephaniah. Houses had flat roofs used as living and working space, and an open roof gave a clear view of the sky. "Malcham" is most likely Milcom, the national god of Ammon east of the Jordan, but the same Hebrew letters can be read as malkam, "their king," and ancient translators disagreed about which was meant. The charge is not that people had abandoned the LORD but that they swore binding oaths in both names at once.

6And I will cut off those who have turned away from following the LORD, and those who never looked for the LORD or asked him anything."

6And them that are turned back from the LORD; and those that have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for him.

Note"Enquired for him" translates a set phrase, to "enquire of the LORD" was to seek a specific answer from him through a prophet or priest, the way one might consult an oracle before a battle or a journey. The accusation is that these people never even asked.

7Be silent in front of the Lord GOD, because the day of the LORD is close. The LORD has prepared a sacrifice, and he has set apart the guests he invited.

7Hold 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 bid his guests.

Note"The day of the LORD" was already a familiar expression before Zephaniah wrote. Ordinary people seem to have looked forward to it as a day when God would crush Israel's enemies; the prophets turn it around, making it a day of reckoning that falls on Israel first. A sacrifice was a communal meal as well as a killing: the animal was slaughtered, the guests were ritually purified beforehand, and the meat was shared out. The horror of the image is that here Judah is not on the guest list, Judah is the animal.

8"On the day of the LORD's sacrifice, I will punish the officials, and the king's sons, and everyone who dresses in foreign clothing.

8And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD’s sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

Note"Princes" here means high officials of the court, not only royal sons. "Strange apparel" means foreign dress; wearing imported clothing marked a person as aligned with foreign courts and their customs, and possibly with foreign religion. Josiah came to the throne as a child, so at the likely date of this oracle "the king's children" may point to the wider royal household rather than his own sons.

9On that same day I will punish all those who jump over the doorway, and who fill their master's house with violence and lying."

9In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters’ houses with violence and deceit.

NoteThis is genuinely disputed and the Hebrew supports more than one reading. It may refer to a superstitious practice of stepping over a doorway rather than on it, 1 Samuel 5:5 records exactly such a custom among the priests of the god Dagon at Ashdod. Or it may picture servants and officials vaulting over their own master's threshold in their hurry to bring in plunder, which fits the second half of the verse. "Their masters' houses" can equally mean the house of their lord, and some take that as a temple.

10"On that day," says the LORD, "a cry will go up from the Fish Gate, a wail from the Second District, and a loud crashing sound from the hills.

10And 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.

NoteThe Fish Gate was on the north side of Jerusalem, named for the market where fish brought from the coast was sold; the north was also the side from which an invading army would arrive. "The second" is the Mishneh, the Second District, a newer quarter of the city, added as Jerusalem expanded. "The hills" are the heights around and within the city. The verse traces the sound of panic moving inward across a real map.

11Wail, you people who live in Maktesh, because all the traders are wiped out. Everyone who weighs out silver is cut off.

11Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.

NoteMaktesh means "mortar," the deep stone bowl in which grain or spices were pounded, presumably a nickname for a hollow or valley quarter of Jerusalem, probably the traders' district. Coined money did not yet exist; silver was weighed out on scales for each transaction, so "they that bear silver" means merchants and money-handlers, not porters.

12At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the men who sit comfortably with their minds made up, who say to themselves, 'The LORD will not do anything good, and he will not do anything bad either.'

12And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.

NoteSearching a windowless mud-brick house meant carrying a lamp into every corner; the image is of a hunt so thorough nothing stays hidden. "Settled on their lees" is a winemaking image: wine left standing too long on its own sediment grows thick and heavy. It describes people gone stagnant with comfort. What they say (that the LORD will do neither good nor bad) is not a denial that he exists but a conviction that he does not intervene either way.

13So their property will be carried off and their houses left in ruins. They will build houses but not live in them. They will plant vineyards but never drink the wine from them."

13Therefore 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.

NoteBuilding a house another man occupies and planting a vineyard another man drinks is a fixed formula of covenant curse in Israelite writing (compare Deuteronomy 28:30 and Amos 5:11). A vineyard takes several years to bear, so it stands for long-term labor lost. Hearers would have caught the quotation.

14The great day of the LORD is near. It is near and coming very fast. Listen, the sound of the day of the LORD! Even the strong soldier will cry out bitterly there.

14The 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.

Note"The mighty man" is the trained warrior, the one person expected to shout in battle rather than scream. The Hebrew of the second half of the verse is difficult, and translators divide over whether it is his war cry that turns bitter or the sound of the day itself.

15That day is a day of anger, a day of trouble and hardship, a day of ruin and empty wreckage, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and heavy blackness.

15That 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,

NoteThe Hebrew piles up pairs of near-synonyms, which is a deliberate rhetorical device rather than clumsiness, the repetition is the point, hammering the same note. In the middle pair, "wasteness and desolation" translates two words built on the same root (sho'ah u-mesho'ah), a sound-echo English cannot reproduce.

16It is a day of the war horn and the battle shout against the walled cities and against the high corner towers.

16A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.

NoteThe trumpet is the shofar, a ram's horn, blown to sound an alarm and to signal in battle; "alarm" is the accompanying war cry raised by attacking troops. "Fenced cities" means cities with defensive walls, and the "high towers" are the projecting corner towers from which defenders covered the wall on two sides. The verse names precisely the defenses that were supposed to make a city safe.

17"I will bring such distress on people that they will grope along like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust, and their bodies thrown down like manure.

17And 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.

NoteBlood poured out "as dust" means spilled and trodden into the ground, worth no more than dirt, blood was regarded as the life itself and normally treated with great care. Bodies left lying like dung means left unburied, which in this culture was among the worst things that could happen to a person, an insult continuing after death.

18Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD's anger." The whole earth will be burned up by the fire of his jealousy, because he will bring a sudden end to everyone who lives on the earth.

18Neither 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.

Note"Jealousy" here does not mean petty envy. The Hebrew word covers fierce, exclusive, protective passion, the same word used of a husband's claim on a wife or a nation's zeal for its own, and it is used throughout the Hebrew Bible for God's refusal to share his people with other gods. As in verse 2, the word behind "land" can mean either Judah's territory or the whole earth, and the chapter ends by leaving that scale open.