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John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Zephaniah 1:11

Verse 11 The Prophet addresses the merchants here who inhabited the middle part of the city, and hence thought themselves farther off from all danger and trouble. As then they were concealed as it were in their hiding-places, they thought that no danger was nigh them; and thus security blinded them the more. After having spoken of the king’s palace and of the princes and their servants, Zephaniah now turns his discourse to the merchants. And he calls them the inhabitants of the hollow place,... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Zephaniah 1:12

Verse 12 The Prophet addresses here generally the despisers of God, who were become hardened in their wickedness. But before he openly names them, he says that the visitation would be such, that God would search every corner, so that no place would remain unexplored. For to visit with candles, or to search with candles, is so to examine all hidden places or coverts, that nothing may escape. When one intends to plunder a city, he first enters into the houses, and takes away whatever he finds;... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:1-18

Part I. THE JUDGMENT UPON ALL THE WORLD , AND UPON JUDAH IN PARTICULAR . read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:1-18

We learn from ver. 1 that Zephaniah received from the Lord his message to Judah in the days of Josiah, the last of the godly and reforming kings, who, after the gross corruption of the preceding reigns of Manasseh and Amon, restored to a large extent the purity of the worship of God, and was the means of bringing about a certain kind and degree of repentance and amendment in the people. Probably, however, the major part of Zephaniah's prophecy belongs to the early part of Josiah's reign,... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:7-13

4. The judgment is described with regard to those whom it will affect, vie. the princes, the traders, the irreligious and profligate. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:9

Those that leap on ( over ) the threshold. These are the retainers of the princes, etc; named in ver. 8. There is no allusion to the circumstance of the priests of Dagon abstaining from treading on the threshold of their temple in consequence of what happened to the idol at Ashdod ( 1 Samuel 5:5 ). It is inconceivable that this merely local custom, which demonstrated the impotence of the false god, should hare been imported into Judah. where, indeed, the worship of Dagon seems never to... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:10

The second class which shall be smitten, viz. the traders and usurers, the enemy being represented as breaking in upon the localities where these persons resided. The fish gate. This is generally supposed to have been in the north wall of the city towards its eastern extremity, and to have been so called because through it were brought the fish from the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, and there was a fish market in its immediate neighbourhood (see Nehemiah 3:3 ; Nehemiah 12:39 ; 2... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:11

Maktesh; the Mortar; Septuagint, τὴν κατακεκομμένην , "her that is broken down." The word is found in 15:19 of a hollow place in a rock, and it is here used in the sense of "valley," and probably refers to the Tyropoeum, or part of it, the depression that ran down the city, having Aera and Zion on its west side, and Moriah and Ophel on its east, and extended south as far as the pool of Siloam. It does not seem a very appropriate appellation for a lengthy valley like the Tyropceum,... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Zephaniah 1:12

The third class which shall be smitten, viz. the profligate and riotous. I will search Jerusalem with candles ( lights ) . No evil doer shall escape. The enemy whom God summons to execute his wrath shall leave no corner unsearched where the debauchees hide themselves (comp. Luke 15:8 ). Jerome and commentators after him refer to Josephus's account of the last siege of Jerusalem for a parallel to these predicted proceedings of the Chaldeans. Here we read how princes and priests and... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Zephaniah 1:9

I will punish all those that leap on the threshold - Neither language nor history nor context allow this to be understood of the idolatrous custom of Ashdod, not to tread on the threshold of the temple of Dagon. It had indeed been a strange infatuation of idolatry, that God’s people should adopt an act of superstitious reverence for an idol in the very instance in which its nothingness and the power of the true God had been shown. Nothing is indeed too brutish for one who chooses an idol for... read more

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