Declarations Concerning Other Peoples—and Jerusalem (3:1-7): The main part of this section comprises four declarations about different nations. They vary considerably in form and thus look like prophecies of separate origin that have been brought together here to form a sequence. As a result, they offer a survey of the surrounding nations, like the surveys found in Isaiah and Amos, but briefer. Zephaniah began with the world as a whole (1:2–3a) and then moved to the implications for Judah (1:3b–18). He follows the same logic here as he turns to specific nations, Judah’s neighbors and the more distant great powers (2:4–15). Thus Philistia covers the people to the west of Judah and Moab and Ammon the area to the east. The Cushites or Sudanese are the people who had ruled Egypt to the south, so that the term can refer to Egypt. Assyria is the great power to the north (in terms of the direction one travels). There is interestingly no reference to Babylon, the up-and-coming Middle Eastern power, nor to Edom, Judah’s neighbor to the southeast which is often the subject of such prophecies, and only in connection with Moab and Ammon is there any suggestion that calamity comes to these peoples because of enmity towards Judah. The aim is simply to cover all four points of the compass. At the center, in verse 11, is a declaration about the nations as a whole, as is the case in Isaiah 13–23; the nations will become worshipers of Yahweh. Then Zephaniah moves again to the implications for Judah (3:1–5), as happens in Amos 1:3–2:16, before summing up the section (3:6–7). There is little stress on the reasons for Yahweh’s action against the other nations; the point again is that Judah is going the same way, and 3:1–7 explains why this is so.
3:1–5 The MT opens a new subsection here (it actually then comprises vv. 1–13), which is quite reasonable, but in opening a whole new chapter English translations are misleading. The same is true of the NIV’s headings, which have described previous sections as “Against Philistia/Moab and Ammon/Cush/Assyria” but here we have simply “The Future of Jerusalem.” More appropriately, the TNIV simply entitles those preceding sections “Philistia,” “Moab and Ammon,” “Cush,” and “Assyria,” and then similarly entitles 3:1–5 “Jerusalem.” The dynamic of 2:4–3:7 involves declaring that Yahweh’s attitude to Jerusalem is the same as it is to these other peoples. The function of 2:4–18 is similar to that of Amos 1:3–2:5 in relation to what follows. It has set up Jerusalem itself for confrontation by Yahweh. Aspects of 2:4–18 have hinted at something of this: the worrying references to the remnant of Judah, with the promises that are not very exciting (it will squat in the ruins of Ashkelon, it will take secure possession of the Sodom-like wastelands of Moab). Whereas one might have wondered whether the warnings to the nations encourage xenophobia or imply some encouragement to expansionist political policies or resistance to imperial powers, what now follows indicates that the point lies somewhere else entirely.
Indeed, verse 1 does not actually signal that the subject of Zephaniah’s warnings has changed. Speaking of Nineveh, the previous verse began “This is the exultant [NIV “carefree”] city”; this verse begins, literally, “Oh, rebellious and defiled, oppressive city” (NIV reverses the order of the lines). We have noted that 2:4–7 gives precedent for locating the exclamation “Oh!” in the midst of a proclamation, so nothing stops the reader from initially assuming that 3:1 addresses the city that 2:13–15 described (the Syriac translation of the OT makes that explicit). While none of the three words describing the city is the most common one to convey the meaning in question, they are all words that could describe a city such as Nineveh. “Rebellious” (not marah but peshaʿ) is Amos’s repeated indictment of peoples in Amos 1:3–2:5. Such rebelliousness can lead to defilement; in Isaiah 59:3 it is blood that has “defiled” people’s hands (gaʾal), and here the third descriptor, the participle “oppressive” (yanah), suggests the means by which rebellion has “defiled” the city. Oppressing people is an act of rebellion against Yahweh that generates defilement, and “oppressive” is a natural enough term to describe Assyria (it describes Babylon in passages such as Jer. 46:16). It is contrary to Yahweh’s own character and it is thus incompatible with coming into Yahweh’s presence. But “oppressive” is also a term to describe Jerusalem (e.g., Ezek. 22:7, 9); and this particular word for “rebellious” is one often applied to Jerusalem (Jer. 4:17); and this particular word for “defiled” is applied only to Israel. So we begin to wonder what this city is.
The subsequent descriptions (v. 2) confirm that it is indeed actually Jerusalem. Not listening or obeying (shamaʿ) points that way; so does not accepting correction. Failing to trust in Yahweh and to draw near to her God makes things certain. Chapter 3 refers to a different city. The critique is the same as that in 1:4–9. The failure to trust and to draw near are expressed in having recourse to the Master (baʿal) in a concern that the crops will grow, to the planets and stars in a concern to control the future and safeguard against problems, and to Molech to keep in touch with family members who have passed away. The city is quite willing to draw near to all these, but not to Yahweh. And precisely the possibility of reckoning that Zephaniah continues to refer to Nineveh illustrates the frightful nature of the situation. Jerusalem is no better than another city. The argument indeed follows that of Amos 1–2.
In line with Amos, with his reference to oppression Zephaniah has already gone beyond the critique in chapter 1. He takes this further in verses 3–5 as they give more detail on the nature of the city’s rebelliousness, defilement, oppressiveness, disobedience, resistance to learning, failure of trust, and reluctance to come into Yahweh’s presence. Oppressiveness is the action of the leaders of a community, or at least it involves their connivance. So here, it is the responsibility of the city’s officials and rulers. Both words are general ones for people in authority; the second (shofetim) is commonly translated “judges,” and making decisions of a legal kind is one way in which people with power oppress ordinary people. There is a marked difference between the way the ordinary people mentioned in 2:3 go about decision-making (mishpat) and the way the big city’s decision-makers do so. Zephaniah has two vivid images for the terrifying nature of their action: they are like (or rather they just are) roaring lions and voracious wolves (see the additional note).
One positive aspect to the link between church and state is the possibility that religious leaders hold community leaders to account, but this theory fails (v. 4). We think of prophets as a good word, but in the OT it is at best a neutral word, and often a word with negative connotations (see the comments on “Habakkuk the Prophet”). The many prophets contemporary with Zephaniah and Habakkuk were arrogant, positive and confident in the affirming and encouraging ministry they exercised towards their people (cf. Jer. 23:32). That meant they were unwittingly also treacherous, “people of [many] treacheries” or “of great treachery,” people who totally betrayed Yahweh and totally betrayed the community by their positive and upbeat ministry and by the way they encouraged people to continue in a lifestyle that involved oppression and recourse to other gods (for this word “treacherous,” see the comment on Hab. 1:13). Her priests likewise fail in their ministry. They profane the sanctuary or “profane what is holy.” There is nothing more radical or far-reaching that could be said about priests, because the most basic aspect of their task is to make sure that what is holy stays holy, to keep the sanctuary holy, to make sure it is not defiled, and thus to make sure that Yahweh is willing to be present there. They do the opposite. The context again suggests that they do this by conniving with oppression and the worship of other deities and encouraging such practices, both of which will ensure that Yahweh stays away. In both respects they do violence to the law; they violate the torah that they are supposed to safeguard, implement, and propagate. A priest’s lips are supposed to safeguard the acknowledgment of the torah and the acknowledgment of Yahweh, and people seek teaching from his mouth (Mal. 2:7); and this is how they behave.
The activity of officials, decision-makers, prophets, and priests thus stands in stark contrast to the nature and activity of the God whom they are supposed to serve and reflect, the LORD within her (v. 5). This last expression and similar ones recur in chapter 3. The city’s officials “within it” are roaring lions (v. 3; NIV omits it there); but Yahweh is “within it” doing something about that (v. 5); Yahweh will thus remove the exultant from “within you” (v. 11; NIV has “from this city”) but will leave a remnant “within you” (v. 12); henceforth Yahweh is “within you” as protector (vv. 15, 17; NIV has “with you”).
The first characteristic of Yahweh within the city is to be righteous or faithful (tsaddiq); hence the exhortation to “seek Yahweh in righteousness/faithfulness” (2:3; see the comment). It is the direct opposite of the kind of behavior verses 1–4 described. To summarize that contrast, he does no wrong. In Habakkuk 2:12 the NIV translated the word ʿawlah as “crime,” and that suggests something of the contrast. The next two lines spell out its implications. We have no evidence that a court would meet every morning and this may impose ideas out of the urbanized West with its professionalized legal systems. What does happen Morning by morning is that Yahweh makes the light of the new day dawn and does not fail to do so. And this is Yahweh’s way of exposing wrong and bringing about judgment (cf. Job 38:12–15), of dispensing his justice. More literally it is Yahweh’s way of giving a decision, giving judgment. The word is mishpat, which suggests a contrast between Yahweh’s decision-making and that of Jerusalem’s own decision-makers, its shofetim (v. 2). The fact that Yahweh exercises mishpat thus accompanies the fact that tsedeq attaches to Yahweh and emphasizes the way this is not so in the community (see 2:2–3). Of course there is no infallibility about the effectiveness of this: the fact that Yahweh arranges for wrong to be exposed does not mean the community deals with it. It makes more of a moral appeal. And the trouble is that it brings no sense of shame to the kind of people who lead the city’s life inside and outside worship, the unrighteous. The adjective is related to the word for “wrong,” so it again brings out a contrast. Yahweh does no wrong; these leaders are all wrongdoers. Although Yahweh is active in this way, they still say, “Yahweh doesn’t do anything” (1:12).
3:6–7 Zephaniah sums up the implications of 2:4–3:5. On one hand there is the way Yahweh has cut off nations so that their strongholds were demolished. Yahweh speaks in the qatal, the “perfect” (even in the last line; see the additional note), apparently looking behind the prospective events in 2:4–15 to the pattern of action that Israel can already see in the way Yahweh has treated the nations. Yahweh needs to do this to provide a lead in to verse 7. Israel’s story gives plenty of examples of Yahweh’s cutting off the Philistines and the Canaanites (perhaps part of the point about mentioning Canaan in 2:5 is presupposed here), the Moabites and the Ammonites, the Sudanese (esp. the land of Egypt which they have recently ruled but from which they were turfed out) and the Assyrians.
In light of all that, “I said . . .” (v. 7). To the city is then an NIV addition, and in a context such as this the verb “say” regularly means “I said to myself,” “I thought” (so TNIV). The usage is similar to that in Jeremiah 3:7, where Yahweh “thought” Ephraim would turn back when it had had its fill of worshiping the Master (baʿal). Here Yahweh thought there would be a contrast between Judah and those nations, thought that the city would turn back to fear Yahweh and/or to revere Yahweh and stand in awe before Yahweh (see the comment on 2:11 for the ambiguity of this verb). Yahweh thought it would accept correction. Whatever the significance of Yahweh’s bringing trouble to the nations (for instance, whether it is corrective or retributive), when Yahweh brings trouble to Israel it is designed to shape the people, to turn them back in the right direction. It is chastisement not punishment. The trouble is that this rarely works (see Amos 4:6–11 with its bleak refrain). Yet hope springs eternal in the divine breast. Yahweh is always hoping for something better from us than we have so far provided and is never giving up hope.
Yahweh’s hope was that perhaps the city might respond, and not have its dwelling cut off in the way the nations had been cut off (v. 6) and not have Yahweh’s punishments come on it—more literally, not have Yahweh attend to it, as in 1:8, 9. But verses 1–5 recount the phenomena that indicate that Jerusalem has not fulfilled this hope. Instead its people have been eager to continue as they were. The verb (shakam in the hipʿil) refers to getting up early in order to do something, a classic sign of eagerness (cf. Isa. 5:11). The people’s eagerness is for corruption (the verbs are now plural; they will continue thus in v. 8).
Additional Notes
3:3 Evening wolves is zeʾebe ʿereb. Jeremiah 5:6 has zeʾeb ʿarabot, “the wolf of the steppes,” the wild wolf, and the expression at least involves another paronomasia. “Evening” pairs with morning in the third line, but the word also suggests that these are wolves from the wild who have no business exercising leadership in the city. The third line more literally says “who have not chewed bones in the morning.” The NIV offers a plausible paraphrase; they eat up everything in the evening, bones and all. But the idea may be that they are ravenous in the evening because they have not eaten at all that day.
3:6 In the sixth line, the TNIV’s “they are deserted and empty” is better than NIV’s no one will be left. The construction is similar to the one in the fourth line: “with no one passing through . . . with no one living [there].” All the verbs in the verse are qatal (“perfect”) and the whole verse refers to the past.
Promises and Warnings for Jerusalem and the Nations (3:8-20): As the first section of the book (1:2–2:3) flows straight into the second, so the second (2:4–3:7) flows straight into the third, though the parenthetic “declares the LORD” as usual signals something of a new start. As was also the case in the second section, Zephaniah keeps us guessing about the nature of his argument. And again, the section comprises a collection of short prophecies that have been brought together as a larger presentation. Once more Yahweh declares the intention to act against Judah but also affirms that this will not be the end. Yahweh will preserve a remnant and turn it into a people that does trust in Yahweh, and will also form from among the nations a people that will worship Yahweh.
3:8–10 Therefore in the Prophets is usually a worrying word, as it was in 2:9. This instance particularly recalls Amos’s conclusion to his account of Ephraim’s failure to learn the lesson from Yahweh’s chastisements; in other words, verse 8 follows on verse 7 as Amos 4:12 follows Amos 4:6–11. There Amos declared, “Therefore . . . prepare to meet your God”: it will evidently not be a pleasant meeting. Here Zephaniah declares, “Therefore” wait for me, and this, too, does not sound like waiting for something good: “Wait till your father comes home.” Yet “wait” (khakah) never occurs elsewhere to mean waiting for something unpleasant, so perhaps the prophet communicates an ambiguity. The plural addressees might indeed be people such as officials, rulers, prophets, and priests, for whom the waiting might be negative. But they might also be the ordinary people addressed in 2:3, for whom the waiting would be positive. Either way, specifically they are to wait for the day Yahweh will stand up to testify against the leadership and in favor of the ordinary people. Once again Zephaniah indulges in a paronomasia, though it does not reduce the threat. As the NIV margin notes, the word rendered “testify” is actually the similar word “plunder” (see the additional note). The matter concerning which Yahweh will argue a case (one way or the other) will result in some plundering (one way or the other). The notion of Yahweh arguing a case fits the image of Yahweh that follows; literally, “it is my decision” to assemble the nations. Once more, “decision” is mishpat, the word translated “what he commands” in 2:3 and “his justice” in 3:5. These words summon the nations to listen while Yahweh argues a case (cf. Isa. 1:2–3).
The NIV then assumes that Zephaniah again somersaults when Yahweh declares the intention “to pour out my wrath on them” in that it takes “them” to be these nations that Yahweh has assembled and it has Yahweh declaring that The whole world will be affected by Yahweh’s jealous anger. But on that basis it is hard to make sense of a train of thought through the verses. It is more likely that “them” refers back to the people of Jerusalem, and the nations are gathered to hear Yahweh’s case against these people. It is on them that Yahweh’s wrath will be poured out, as was the case in 1:2–2:3, and it is the whole land that Yahweh’s jealous anger consumes; the word is again ʾerets, as in 1:18 and 2:3.
The destiny of the people of Jerusalem will then contrast somewhat surprisingly with that of the peoples (v. 9). As well as burning up the people of Jerusalem in wrath, Yahweh intends (more literally) to “change the peoples [with] a purged lip.” The word for “purge” or purify (barar) usually refers to physical cleansing rather than metaphysical or religious cleansing. In what way might peoples’ lips need such purifying? We might start from hints in 2:4–15: the peoples make threats against Yahweh’s people and their land and declare their confidence that they will stay in power forever. Such thoughts will be removed from their lips so that they may call on the name of the LORD, or, as one might as easily translate it, “call or proclaim in the name of Yahweh,” testify to Yahweh. This astonishing aim in turn restates the one articulated in the midst of 2:4–15 (see v. 11), making explicit that as well as bowing down physically (which could signify enforced obeisance) they lift up their voices in worship and/or prayer and/or proclamation. Thus they will serve him, a verb (ʿabad) that often denotes worship (as when we speak of a church “service”). All of them will do so, and shoulder to shoulder, literally “one shoulder,” or as we might think of it, side by side or arm in arm. The unity that the nations lost near the Beginning (Gen. 11:1–9) is now restored (Floyd, Minor Prophets, Part 2, p. 209), and given its proper focus. The unity at which an empire aims likewise has a new focus. The verse actually begins ki ʾaz (“because then”); the NIV does not translate the ki (see the additional note at 2:4). Including the “because” creates a link with what precedes, similar to that at 2:4. There is a subtle causal connection between pouring out wrath on Judah and purifying the peoples, similar to the one Paul sees between the Jewish people not recognizing their Messiah on one hand, and God offering the gospel to the Gentiles on the other.
Indeed, the worshipers will not even be confined to the empire that Judah knew (v. 10). From beyond Sudan, from an Africa too far away to be more than the subject of exotic tales, worshipers of Yahweh will come. More literally, these are suppliants. The noun occurs only here, but the related verb (ʿatar) means to pray in the sense of petitioning; it is the technical word for supplication or intercession, making explicit one of the possible implications of “calling on Yahweh’s name” (v. 9). At the same time, using this unusual word makes it possible also to recall the homonym (an alternative form for ʿashar better known from Aramaic) meaning “be rich/abundant”: the suppliants are also able to bring their abundance as they bring me offerings. The unusual expression my scattered people (see the additional note) involves a similar paronomasia, as there is one verb, puts, meaning “scatter,” with a second meaning “flow” or “overflow” (see Zech. 1:17). People “scattered” all over the world will bring overflowing “offerings.”
3:11–13 So radical have been Zephaniah’s declarations in verses 8–10 that one might easily have reckoned he was propounding a “supersessionist” view, a “replacement theology” whereby Judah ceases to be the people worshiping Yahweh and a Gentile people takes its place; one could compare Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 21:43. But Zephaniah always has a surprise in the next subsection, and so it is here. In speaking of the destiny of the nations in verses 9–10, he has been speaking to the people of Jerusalem. He now addresses the city (“you” through vv. 11–12 is feminine singular) with good news. The bad news in verse 8 meant a terrifying outburst of wrath and the devastation of the whole land, but not the end of the people.
Zephaniah speaks of what will happen On that day (v. 11). Other occurrences of that phrase in Zephaniah in 1:9, 10; 3:16 illustrate its ambiguity. On one hand, it has its down-to-earth, prosaic significance, and here it follows on the “then” of verse 9. Likewise, Zephaniah 1:7 referred to a certain day, and the subsequent verses referred back to this day. Yet the day they referred back to was “the day of the LORD,” and the expression “that day” itself can carry the same connotation (here, compare also the reference to “the day” in 3:8). Now references in Zephaniah to “Yahweh’s day” do not imply a day to come at some distant time; he would agree with Ezekiel’s warning about such thinking (see Ezek. 12:21–28). When he says it “is near” (1:7) he means it. If the day got postponed by a few decades because of Josiah’s reform, it nevertheless came (in 587 B.C.) within the lifetime of some of his hearers if not within his own lifetime. Likewise the day of purification and transformation was to follow on the day of wrath; he was not looking forward centuries. And after the decades of exile, the Jerusalem community was indeed reconstituted, and the Second Temple community made Yahweh its sole God, abjured the making of images and the attaching of Yahweh’s name to such emptiness, and kept the Sabbath, all of these to an extent unparalleled in Israel’s earlier story. There would be further expressions of wrath and further stages of restoration and renewal to follow; what happened at the fall and restoration of the city in the sixth and fifth centuries did not exhaust the notion of Yahweh’s day. But within the foreseeable future the city would indeed know both shame and transformation.
So the calamity of verse 8 will not be the end, and the purifying of the peoples will not mean that other peoples replace Judah. Rather, there will be a purifying of Jerusalem itself. The city’s current wrongs and the coming calamity that they will bring on it are reason for shame. They are reason for Jerusalem to have a sense of shame in its own being and for it to have a sense of shame in relation to other peoples (cf. the warning in Hab. 2:10). But then you will not be put to shame by such wrongs. What follows suggests this might have two implications. One is that they will have paid for those past wrongs and been purified through the removal of the people especially responsible for the wrongs, so they need no longer be ashamed for them. The other is that there will be no further wrongs to bring further shame.
A parallel between the third line and verse 9 underlines the point. Both begin “because then” (ki ʾaz; NIV omitted the “because” in v. 9, here it omits the “then”). Yahweh’s purifying the nations turns out to have an equivalent in a cleansing removal from this city (lit., “from within you”; see the comment on 3:5) the people who rejoice or exult in its majesty. “Exultant” was the word applied to Assyria in 2:15 (NIV had “carefree” there). The leadership in Jerusalem (see 3:1–3) was pretty confident; perhaps in Zephaniah’s day the decline of Assyria’s power made it more so. In turn, “majesty” or pride was a term associated with Moab and Ammon in 2:10 (there gaʾon, here gaʾawah); the term will emphasize the leadership’s confidence (but see the additional note). It has become as exultant as its imperial overlords, instead of learning from their threatened fate. The promise that Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill restates the point as “be haughty” comes from the verb gabah, which again means “be high” but thus “be proud” as a consequence. Taking such an attitude “on my holy hill” has a special inappropriateness, and that haughtiness will cease.
So Yahweh will remove the impressive and powerful people, the people with leadership instincts, power, and money, but leave behind within you (the recurring expression; see the comment on 3:5) the meek and humble (v. 12). Concerning “the meek,” see the comment on 2:3, where the related noun was translated “humble.” Here, “humble” (dal) is another word suggesting poor and lowly. It does not imply that they are poor in the sense that they do not have food or homes; they are simply ordinary people, not rich people. Both words indicate people’s position in society more than their moral qualities. Literally, Yahweh intends to leave behind “a meek and humble people” or “a weak and poor people”; that is, Zephaniah speaks in terms of a community. They are a group who trust in the name of the LORD, more literally “who take refuge in Yahweh’s name,” or “and they will take refuge in Yahweh’s name” (the verb khasah; see the comment on Nah. 1:7). Being weak and poor means you have little alternative. You are not subject to the temptation to trust in your power or resources. You prove that “Yahweh’s name is a strong tower” to which the faithful run and find safety (Prov. 18:10) because Yahweh’s name stands for Yahweh in person; when one appeals to Yahweh by name, Yahweh in person shows up as a helper and defender.
The verb for leave (shaʾar in the hipʿil) is the verb that generates the noun remnant (sheʾerit; v. 13). The fact that Yahweh leaves behind only the weak and poor shows how the notion of a remnant does not in itself imply that these leftovers are particularly holy. They are simply the people that an invading army would not make a point of killing, capturing, or transporting. They are not worth the bother. But being powerless and ordinary people, and thus the kind of people who end up as the leftovers, does exempt them from some temptations. It also propels them towards trust in something outside themselves. It does not in itself mean they are faithful, but the painful experience pushes them towards becoming leftovers that are faithful, a faithful remnant.
So this “weak and humble people” is The remnant of Israel. On the use of the word “Israel,” see the comment on Nahum 2:2. As is probably the case there, Zephaniah takes up this term that politically denoted Ephraim as opposed to Judah and uses it to describe Judeans; now that Ephraim has gone out of existence, theologically speaking they are Israel. But in effect Zephaniah is warning the people of Jerusalem that most of them (or perhaps rather, the people among them who seem to count) are also about to lose the status of being Israel. Israel will be just some pathetic leftovers. Yet in Yahweh’s eyes they will be Israel. Yahweh’s designation guarantees their significance and guarantees the future of Israel (again, see the argument of Rom. 9–11).
These leftovers will do no wrong, imitating Yahweh (3:5) rather than the city-builder of Habakkuk 2:12 (the word there translated “crime”), and there will be no dishonesty about them. Zephaniah gives two lines to this particular facet and means of wrongdoing, thereby rather emphasizing it. As we know from our own experience of urban life, corruption is a characteristic means whereby people gain power and exercise it in order to make money, and when the powerless, ordinary people become perforce the city’s leadership, they will be subject to the same temptation. They will resist it.
But what kind of will is this? Is it a statement or a promise or a demand? Perhaps it is all three. Doing right and forswearing corruption is a definition of what the remnant is, a little like, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin” (1 John 3:9a). These characteristics are also Yahweh’s undertaking to Jerusalem; after the great purging, its people will have these characteristics. And furthermore, it is a challenge; it requires the remnant to apply their own wills to being such people.
The subsection closes with another subtle “because” (ki) that the NIV omits in the conviction that it is just a marker of emphasis (cf. v. 9). It is followed by a They that is emphatic: “because those people will pasture and lie down with no one to frighten them.” There is a logical connection between their responsiveness to Yahweh and their security, though one aspect of the logic is that the promise of security is part of the reason for their responsiveness. They will find that as they are faithful to Yahweh, they will no longer be subject to the threats they have experienced from the superpower and from Yahweh. Zephaniah has described these at some length and with some vividness, with the warning that they will issue in a wasting “with no one living [there]” (3:6); here he uses the same construction to promise the opposite, a security “with no one frightening.” Similarly, the picture of flocks “pasturing” and “lying down” was a negative one in 2:6–7, 14, a sign of devastation; now it becomes a positive one, a sign of security and provision.
3:14–18 The appropriate response to much of this book would be lament, but the appropriate response to verses 11–13 would be celebration. Zephaniah reverts to addressing “Daughter Zion” ([TNIV], one might paraphrase as “Maiden Zion” [NIV Daughter of Zion gives a misleading impression as the genitive is a defining one, like “State of California”]). Once again Zephaniah identifies the city’s people as Israel (see the comment on v. 13). Sing is perhaps too tuneful an expression to translate ranan, which suggests a kind of tuneless and wordless ululating, the making of a “nananana” sound. The first two verbs in the verse (“sing” and shout) indicate the kind of noise that Ms. Zion is encouraged to make, and Be glad and rejoice specifies the attitude that the noise expresses (this cannot be presupposed; ululating and shouting can also signify grief). “Rejoice” or “exult” (ʿalaz) picks up another significant word, since 2:15 implicitly critiqued the “exultant” city (NIV has “carefree”) and 3:11 promised that the people who “rejoice” will be removed from it. It is not exulting that is wrong; what matters is the object of your exultation.
While it is natural to see this encouragement about rejoicing as following on from verses 11–13, it more explicitly forms the lead in to verse 15, which provides the basis for and content of the rejoicing. It is that (more literally) Yahweh has removed the decision about the city; the qatal (“perfect”) verbs refer to what will have become the case when the purging has happened. “Remove” is the verb from verse 11; exultation is now possible because removing the falsely exultant also makes possible the removal of Yahweh’s decision about judgment. Your punishment is “your mishpat,” another use of this key word: see 2:3; 3:5; and in particular 3:8, where Yahweh declares, “I have decided [literally, “My decision is”] to assemble the nations” to hear the proclamation that wrath is to be poured out on Judah” (3:8). Now Yahweh has withdrawn that last decision; there is no further need to implement it. Yahweh has thus turned back your enemy; the collective expression can cover any enemy that arises. This will have come about through the fact that The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you, or rather, “is within you” (see the comment on 3:5). Yahweh is in the midst of this city as a warrior king who has no trouble turning back an attacker. In this context, one of the resonances of the description of Yahweh as Israel’s king is the contrast with 1:5. The people think they have a king, and it is not Yahweh. They think acknowledging that king will benefit them and alleviate any anxiety they have about the future. The prophecy has declared that this will not be the case and that Yahweh will demonstrate that the presence in their midst of Yahweh as their king will mean that never again will you fear any harm.
To expand on that last line, On that day (see the comment on v. 11) it will be possible to encourage Jerusalem-Zion not to fear (v. 16). In Zephaniah’s day it is only false prophets who encourage Judah in this way, but the other side of judgment, this will become Yahweh’s word (cf. Isa. 35:4; 40:9; 41:10). That encouragement takes on more concrete form by means of the jussive “your hands must/need not drop.” It is a standard image for the way fear can paralyze people in the midst of defending their city from attack (e.g., Jer. 6:24; 50:43; Ezek. 7:17; 21:7), but it also recurs in connection with fear arising from attempts to halt rebuilding projects in the restored community after the exile (Ezra 4:4; Neh. 6:9).
The basis for not being discouraged (v. 17) in turn expands on the declaration about the presence of Yahweh as King. Yes, “Yahweh your God is within you” (that expression recurs once more) as one who is mighty to save, literally as “the warrior who delivers.” Back in 1:14, Yahweh was the warrior attacking Jerusalem. Now Yahweh is indeed the warrior king defending the city. Yet the warrior is also the lover; perhaps for Israel there is less tension between these than there might be for modern people (cf. Ps. 45). The one who loves is prepared to defend. So Yahweh feels the same joy that verse 14 encouraged Jerusalem to feel: literally, “he will rejoice over you with joy. . . . He will be glad over you with resounding” (on the intervening line, see the additional note). The combination of terms to refer to Yahweh’s rejoicing is unique; while several passages speak of Yahweh “rejoicing” and “being glad” (sus, gil; e.g., Isa. 65:19, in a similar context), only this verse refers to Yahweh’s “joy” or “resounding” (simkhah, rinnah). The implication is that if Yahweh will be taking such delight in you, Jerusalem, you can indeed relax about your future and be joyful yourself.
Verse 18 then constitutes another way of saying that joy and song will replace fear and discouragement. In the period after the exile the question of when mourning can or should give way to joy is a recurrent one (see, e.g., Neh. 8:9–12; Zech. 7:1–4; 8:18–19), and this declaration anticipates or speaks to that question, though its details are unclear (see the additional note).
3:19–20 So far, the book has focused on Jerusalem and the people who live there, and on foreigners who live in other parts of the world. Only here in these final two verses does it speak to the experience of people who belong to Israel but are scattered elsewhere. These might be Ephraimites who have already been transported to Assyria, or Judeans who will later be transported to Babylon, or members of either nation who have taken refuge or will take refuge in surrounding countries or across the Mediterranean. The key expression in the two verses is the repeated I will gather. Yet the “you” in verse 19 still refers to Jerusalem (that is, it is feminine singular), and this indicates that the focus still lies there. As was the case when Zephaniah addressed foreign peoples, one has to distinguish between the rhetorical audience and the physical audience. All the prophet’s words address the people of Jerusalem. Promising the exiles that they will return when one is actually addressing Jerusalem is in part a way of encouraging Jerusalem.
Verse 19 expresses the promise as if Yahweh has done it already (“I have gathered”). Similarly Yahweh goes on to declare, “I am dealing with your oppressors,” even though the At that time makes clear that Yahweh is speaking about something that has not yet begun. “Oppress” is the verb ʿanah in the piʿel from which the words ʿani and ʿanaw for “weak,” “meek,” or “humble” derive, which suggests that it is these oppressors who have made people in the city weak and lowly. I will rescue the lame reintroduces the key verb yashaʿ (hipʿil), “deliver.” Thus the promise more literally suggests a shepherd rescuing lame sheep, but it is a familiar image to describe a king’s care for his people; and then the image’s reference to Yahweh’s delivering exiles pokes through the language. I will . . . gather those who have been scattered likewise suggests gathering sheep who have strayed (Deut. 22:1), but “scatter” comes to be commonly used in the OT to refer to the scattering of people in exile (e.g., Jer. 40:12). Yahweh goes on to promise that this will also involve their having shame replaced by praise and honor in the countries from which they need to be rescued.
The closing verse restates this promise. Here to gather means to bring home and to restore fortunes (see the additional note on 2:7). The phrase before your very eyes underlines the reality of Yahweh’s act, and the closing says the LORD declares its certainty.
Additional Notes
3:3 Evening wolves is zeʾebe ʿereb. Jeremiah 5:6 has zeʾeb ʿarabot, “the wolf of the steppes,” the wild wolf, and the expression at least involves another paronomasia. “Evening” pairs with morning in the third line, but the word also suggests that these are wolves from the wild who have no business exercising leadership in the city. The third line more literally says “who have not chewed bones in the morning.” The NIV offers a plausible paraphrase; they eat up everything in the evening, bones and all. But the idea may be that they are ravenous in the evening because they have not eaten at all that day.
3:6 In the sixth line, the TNIV’s “they are deserted and empty” is better than NIV’s no one will be left. The construction is similar to the one in the fourth line: “with no one passing through . . . with no one living [there].” All the verbs in the verse are qatal (“perfect”) and the whole verse refers to the past.
3:8 To testify is leʿad; “to plunder” (NIV margin) is leʿed.
3:10 My scattered people is, lit., “the daughter of my scattered ones” and in other contexts it could suggest Judeans scattered by the exile; v. 14 will refer to “daughter Zion/Jerusalem.” But the verb refers to the scattering of the nations in Gen. 10:18; 11:4, 8 (also Isa. 24:1), and in picturing Yahweh bringing calamity on Judah, Zephaniah has used other images than scattering or exile. “Daughter” can also be an image for a foreign people (e.g., Isa. 23:10, 12; Jer. 46:11; 50:42; Lam. 4:21, 22).
3:11 Those who rejoice in their pride is, more literally, “those who rejoice in your pride,” implying “those who rejoice in their pride in you.” But one might more naturally take it to mean “those who revel in your glory” (TNIV; cf., e.g., Deut. 33:26, 29), another way of expressing a false trust in Jerusalem itself.
3:17 He will quiet you with his love: the usual meaning of kharash in the hipʿil would imply “he will be quiet with his love,” and the TNIV thus has “he will no longer rebuke you.” But being quiet is usually bad news, implying refusal to respond or act; with reference to Yahweh, see the comment on Hab. 1:13. The one occurrence meaning “make quiet” (Job 11:3) also has the negative connotation. The NRSV “he will renew you in his love” presupposes that yekhaddesh had been accidentally changed to yakharish. Perhaps the MT means “he will be quiet in his love” in the sense that they will not require the noisy intervention to which Hab. 1:13; Isa. 42:14 refer.
3:18 There are no very problematic words in the verse, but the fact that the NIV text and NIV margin give quite different understandings of it indicates the difficulty of construing how the words fit together, and the TNIV adds another understanding: “I will remove from you all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals, which is a burden and reproach for you.” The TNIV thus suggests a more natural understanding of the first Heb. word, the participle nuge from yagah, as meaning people who sorrow (cf. NIV margin) rather than “sorrows” (NIV). The verse is then a sharp warning to people who cannot imagine moving from sorrow to joy.
