Zephaniah Chapter 1 verse 5 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 5. - 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 had 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). Verse 5. - That worship the host of heaven upon the house tops. In this verse two classes of fame worshippers are mentioned, viz. star worshippers, and waverers. The worship of the sun, moon, and stars was a very ancient form of error, the heavenly bodies being regarded as the representatives of the powers of nature and the originators of events on earth (see Deuteronomy 4:19; Deuteronomy 17:3; Job 31:26, 27; 2 Kings 17:16). It was especially prevalent in the time of Manasseh (2 Kings 21:3), On the flat roofs of the houses, which were used as places of meditation, recreation, or conference (comp. Joshua 2:6; 1 Samuel 9:25; 2 Samuel 11:2; Acts 10:9), they erected altars for family worship of the heavenly bodies. Here they both burned incense (Jeremiah 19:13) and offered animal sacrifices (2 Kings 23:12). "In Syrian cities," says Dr. Thomson, "the roofs are a great comfort. The ordinary houses have no other place where the inmates, can either see the sun, smell the air, dry their clothes, set out their flower pots, or do numberless other things essential to their health and comfort. During a large part of the year the roof is the most agreeable place about the establishment, especially in the morning and evening. There multitudes sleep during the summer" ('The Land and the Book,' p. 39). Them that worship and that, etc.; rather, the worshippers who, etc. These were people who endeavoured to blend the worship of God with that of Baal, or halted between two opinions (1 Kings 18:21). Swear by the Lord; rather, swear to the Lord; i.e. bind themselves by oath to him, and at the same time swear by Malcham; swear by their king, Baal, or Moloch; call upon him as god. Septuagint, κατὰ τοῦ βασιλέως αὐτῶν, "by their king." But it is, perhaps, best to retain the name untranslated, in which ease it would be the appellation of the god Moloch, who could hardly be omitted in enumerating the objects of idolatrous worship (see Jeremiah 49:1, 3; and notes on Amos 1:15; 5:26).

Ellicott's Commentary