[119] Or Molech = king. LXX. _by their king_. Other Greek versions: Moloch and Melchom. Vulg. Melchom.
[120] LXX. _His._
[121] So LXX. Heb. _sons_.
[122] Is this some superstitious rite of the idol-worshippers as described in the case of Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 5? Or is it a phrase for breaking into a house, and so parallel to the second clause of the verse? Most interpreters prefer the latter. The idolatrous rites have been left behind. Schwally suggests the original order may have been: _princes and sons of the king, who fill their lord’s house full of violence and deceit; and I will visit upon every one that leapeth over the threshold on that day, and upon all that wear foreign raiment_.
[123] The _Second_ or New Town: cf. 2 Kings xxii. 14, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22, which state that the prophetess Huldah lived there. Cf. Neh. iii. 9, 12, xi. 9.
[124] The hollow probably between the western and eastern hills, or the upper part of the Tyropœan (Orelli).
[125] Heb. _people of Canaan_.
[126] נטיל, found only here, from נטל, to lift up, and in Isa. xl. 15 to weigh. Still it may have a wider meaning, _all they that carry money_ (Davidson).
[127] See above, p. 52.
[128] The Hebrew text and versions here add: _And they shall build houses and not inhabit_ (Greek _in them_), _and plant vineyards and not drink the wine thereof._ But the phrase is a common one (Deut. xxviii. 30; Amos v. 11: cf. Micah vi. 15), and while likely to have been inserted by a later hand, is here superfluous, and mars the firmness and edge of Zephaniah’s threat.
[129] For מהר Wellhausen reads ממהר, pt. Pi; but מהר may be a verbal adj.; compare the phrase מהר שלל, Isa. viii. 1.
[130] Dies Iræ, Dies Illa!
[131] Heb. sho’ah u-mesho’ah. Lit. ruin (or devastation) and destruction.
[132] Some take this first clause of ver. 18 as a gloss. See Schwally _in loco_.
[133] Read אף for אך. So LXX., Syr., Wellhausen, Schwally.
[134] In vv. 1-3 of chap. ii., wrongly separated from chap. i.: see Davidson.
[135] Heb. הִתְקוֹשְׁשׁוּ וָקשּׁוּ. A.V. _Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together_ (קוֹשֵׁשׁ is _to gather straw or sticks_—cf. Arab. _ḳash_, to sweep up—and Nithp. of the Aram. is to assemble). Orelli: _Crowd and crouch down_. Ewald compares Aram. _ḳash_, late Heb. קְשַׁשׁ, _to grow old_, which he believes originally meant _to be withered, grey_. Budde suggests בשו התבששו, but, as Davidson remarks, it is not easy to see how this, if once extant, was altered to the present reading.
[136] נִכְסָף is usually thought to have as its root meaning _to be pale_ or _colourless_, _i.e._ either white or black (_Journal of Phil._, 14, 125), whence כֶּסֶף, _silver_ or _the pale metal_: hence in the Qal to long for, Job xiv. 15, Ps. xvii. 12; so Ni, Gen. xxxi. 30, Ps. lxxxiv. 3; and here _to be ashamed_. But the derivation of the name for silver is quite imaginary, and the colour of shame is red rather than white: cf. the mod. Arab. saying, “They are a people that cannot blush; they have no blood in their faces,” _i.e._ shameless. Indeed Schwally says (_in loco_), “Die Bedeutung fahl, blass ist unerweislich.” Hence (in spite of the meanings of the Aram. כסף both to lose colour and to be ashamed) a derivation for the Hebrew is more probably to be found in the root _kasaf_, to cut off. The Arab. کﺴف, which in the classic tongue means to cut a thread or eclipse the sun, is in colloquial Arabic to give a rebuff, refuse a favour, disappoint, shame. In the forms _inkasaf_ and _itkasaf_ it means to receive a rebuff, be disappointed, then shy or timid, and _kasûf_ means shame, shyness (as well as eclipse of the sun). See Spiro’s _Arabic-English Vocabulary_. In Ps. lxxxiv. נכסף is evidently used of unsatisfied longing (but see Cheyne), which is also the proper meaning of the parallel כלה (cf. other passages where כלה is used of still unfulfilled or rebuffed hopes: Job xix. 27, Ps. lxix. 4, cxix. 81, cxliii. 7). So in Ps. xvii. 4 כסף is used of a lion who is longing for, _i.e._ still disappointed in, his prey, and so in Job xiv. 15.