Zephaniah 3

CHAPTER 3Zep 3:1-20. Resumption of the Denunciation of Jerusalem, as Being Unreformed by the Punishment of Other Nations: After Her Chastisement Jehovah Will Interpose for Her against Her Foes; His Worship Shall Flourish in All Lands, Beginning at Jerusalem, Where He Shall Be in the Midst of His People, and Shall Make Them a Praise in All the Earth.1. filthy—Maurer translates from a different root, "rebellious," "contumacious." But the following term, "polluted," refers rather to her inward moral filth, in spite of her outward ceremonial purity [Calvin]. Grotius says, the Hebrew is used of women who have prostituted their virtue. There is in the Hebrew Moreah; a play on the name Moriah, the hill on which the temple was built; implying the glaring contrast between their filthiness and the holiness of the worship on Moriah in which they professed to have a share.oppressing—namely, the poor, weak, widows, orphans and strangers (Jer 22:3).

3:1-7 The holy God hates sin most in those nearest to him. A sinful state is, and will be, a woful state. Yet they had the tokens of God's presence, and all the advantages of knowing his will, with the strongest reasons to do it; still they persisted in disobedience. Alas, that men often are more active in doing wickedness than believers are in doing good.

"\nWoe to her that is filthy, and polluted,.... Meaning the city of Jerusalem, and its inhabitants; not as before the Babylonish captivity, but after their return from it, under the second temple, as Abarbinel owns; and even as in the times before and at the coming of Christ, and the preaching of his apostles among them; as the whole series of the prophecy, and the connection of the several parts of it, show; and there are such plain intimations of the conversion of the Gentiles, and of such a happy state of the Jews, in which they shall see evil no more, as can agree with no other times than the times of the Gospel, both the beginning and latter part of them. The character of this city, and its inhabitants, is, that it was "filthy", and polluted with murders, adulteries, oppression, rapine, and other sins: our Lord often calls them a wicked and an adulterous generation; and yet they pretended to great purity of life and manners; and they were pure in their own eyes, though not washed from their filthiness; they took much pains to make clean the outside of the cup, but within were full of impurity, Mt 23:25. In the margin it is, "woe to her that is gluttonous". The word is used for the craw or crop of a fowl, Le 1:16 hence some render it {t} "woe to the craw"; to the city that is all craw, to which Jerusalem is compared for its devouring the wealth and substance of others. The Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time are said to devour widows' houses, Mt 23:14 and this seems to be the sin with which they were defiled, and here charged with. Some think the word signifies one that is publicly, infamous; either made a public example of, or openly exposed, as sometimes filthy harlots are; or rather one "that has made herself infamous" {u}; by her sins and vices:\n\nto the oppressing city! that oppressed the poor, the widow, and the fatherless. This may have respect to the inhabitants of Jerusalem stoning the prophets of the Lord sent unto them; to the discouragements they laid the followers of Christ under, by not suffering such to come to hear him that were inclined; threatening to cast them out of their synagogues if they professed him, which passed into a law; and to their killing the Lord of life and glory; and the persecution of his apostles, ministers, and people: see Mt 23:13. Some render it, "to the city a dove" {w}; being like a silly dove without heart, as in Ho 7:11. R. Azariah {x} thinks Jerusalem is so called because in its works it was like Babylon, which had for its military sign on its standard a dove; [See comments on Jer 25:38] [See comments on Jer 46:16] [See comments on Ho 11:11] but the former sense is best.\n\n{t} \u05d4\u05d5\u05d9 \u05de\u05d5\u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 "vae ingluviei", Junius Tremellius, Piscator. {u} \u03bf\u03c5\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03b7 "vae huic quae infamatur", L'Empereur Not. in Mosis Kimchii \u03bf\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b6\u03b9\u03b1 "ad scientiam", p. 174. so Drusius and Tarnovius. {w} \u05d7\u05e2\u05d9\u05e8 \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05e0\u05d4 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b7 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1, Sept. "civitas columba", V. L.; so Syr. Ar. Jarchi, and other Jewish interpreters. {x} Meor Enayin, c. 21. fol. 90. 1.\n\n\n "

2. received not correction—Jerusalem is incurable, obstinately rejecting salutary admonition, and refusing to be reformed by "correction" (Jer 5:3).trusted not in … Lord—Distrust in the Lord as if He were insufficient, is the parent of all superstitions and wickednesses [Calvin].drew not near to her God—Though God was specially near to her (De 4:7) as "her God," yet she drew not near to Him, but gratuitously estranged herself from Him.

"\nShe obeyed not the voice,.... Of his servants the prophets, as the Targum, by way of explanation, adds, who warned her of her sins and of her ruin. The inhabitants of Jerusalem hearkened not to the voice of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who gave notice of his coming; nor to the voice of Christ himself, who stretched out his hand all the day to a disobedient and gainsaying people; nor to the voice of his apostles, whose doctrines they contradicted and blasphemed; and put away the word of God from them, thereby judging themselves unworthy of eternal life:\n\nshe received not correction; by the rod, by the judgments of God upon her: or "instruction" {y}; by the Gospel preached to her inhabitants.