Zephaniah 1:4 - Exposition.

I will also stretch out mine hand . This expression is used when God is about to do great things or inflict notable punishment (see Exodus 3:20 ; Exodus 15:12 ; Deuteronomy 4:34 ; Isaiah 5:25 ; Jeremiah 51:25 , etc.). Judah. In so far as Judah was rebellious and wicked, it should incur the judicial punishment. Judgment was to begin at the house of God ( 1 Peter 4:17 ), the sin of the chosen people being more heinous than that of heathens. Hence it is added, upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, because, having in their very midst the temple of God, with its services and priests, they ought especially to have abhorred idolatry and maintained the true faith. The remnant of Baal; i.e. the last vestige. One cannot argue from this expression that the reform was already carried so far that Baal worship had almost disappeared. The next verse shows that idolatry still flourished; but the term implies merely that God would exterminate it so entirely that no trace of it should remain. The LXX . has, "the names of Baal," τὰ ὀνόματα τῆς βάαλ ( Hosea 2:17 ). (For Josiah's reform of these iniquities, see 2 Kings 23:4 , etc.) The name of the Chemarims ( Chemarim ) . The word means "black-robed," and is applied to the idolatrous priests whom the kings bad appointed to conduct worship in high places ( 2 Kings 23:5 ; Hosea 10:5 ). "The name," says Dr. Pussy, "is probably the Syriac name of 'priest,' used in Holy Scripture of idolatrous priests, because the Syrians were idolaters" Not only shall the persons of these priests be cut off, but their very name and memory shall vanish ( Zechariah 13:2 ). With the priests ( kohanim ) . Together with the legitimate priests who had corrupted the worship of Jehovah ( Zephaniah 3:4 ; Jeremiah 2:8 ; Ezekiel 8:11 ).