Zefanya 1:7-11

1:7 Be silent before the Lord God, ¹ 

for the Lord’s day of judgment ²  is almost here. ³ 

The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal; ⁴ 

he has ritually purified ⁵  his guests.

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

I will punish the princes ⁶  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 master ⁹  with wealth taken by violence and deceit. ¹⁰ 

1:10 On that day,” says the Lord,

“a loud cry will go up ¹¹  from the Fish Gate, ¹² 

wailing from the city’s newer district, ¹³ 

and a loud crash ¹⁴  from the hills.

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

for all the merchants ¹⁶  will disappear ¹⁷ 

and those who count money ¹⁸  will be removed. ¹⁹ 

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

[1:7]  ² tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[1:7]  sn The origin of the concept of “the day of the Lord” is uncertain. It may have originated in the ancient Near Eastern idea of the sovereign’s day of conquest, where a king would boast that he had concluded an entire military campaign in a single day (see D. Stuart, “The Sovereign’s Day of Conquest,” BASOR 221 [1976]: 159-64). In the OT the expression is applied to several acts of divine judgment, some historical and others still future (see A. J. Everson, “The Days of Yahweh,” JBL 93 [1974]: 329-37). In the OT the phrase first appears in Amos (assuming that Amos predates Joel and Obadiah), where it seems to refer to a belief on the part of the northern kingdom that God would intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge the nation’s enemies. Amos affirms that the Lord’s day of judgment is indeed approaching, but he declares that it will be a day of disaster, not deliverance, for Israel. Here in Zephaniah, the “day of the Lord” includes God’s coming judgment of Judah, as well as a more universal outpouring of divine anger.

[1:7]  ³ tn Or “near.”

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

[1:7]  sn Because a sacrificial meal presupposes the slaughter of animals, it is used here as a metaphor of the bloody judgment to come.

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

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

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

[1:9]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn The referent of “their master” is unclear. The king or a pagan god may be in view.

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

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

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

[1:10]  ¹³ tn 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]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “great breaking.”

[1:11]  ¹⁵ tn 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]  ¹⁶ tn 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]  ¹⁷ tn Or “be destroyed.”

[1:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “weigh out silver.”

[1:11]  ¹⁹ tn 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.