The Pulpit Commentary — Zephaniah — Section 16

of Jehovah wilh that of Baal, offering oaths of allegiance partly to Jehovah and partly to their king, i.e. Baal. (c) And finally, apostates and open despisers of the Jehovah- religion should be punished----;those who had turned back from serving Jehovah, and those who had never served him at all (vcr. 6). Learn: 1. The value of an honoured and pious ancestry. 2. The lie1ht the Word of God (contained in Scripture) can cast upon the foture. 3. The certainty of a day of judgment for mon and nations. 4. The impossibility of eluding the just judgment of God. 6. The inevitable ruin of them who will not serve God. 6. The impossi- bility of trying to serve God and idols. 7. The danger of neglecting religion hardly less than that of apostatizing from it.-T. W. Vere. 7-13.-" The day of the Lord's sacrifice." I. THE INTENDED VICTI:MB. 1. Their persons catalogued. (1) 'l'he royal household. Josiah exempted on account of his piety (2 Kings xxii. 19, 20; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 27, 28)-a testimony at once to Divine faithfulness and to the superior advantage of godliness (Ps. xvii. 7; xci. 9, 10; 2 Pet. ii. 9 ; Rev. iii. 10). But included were the princes, or "the heads of the tribes and families who naturally filled the higher offices of state" (Keil); the king's sons, either Josiah's children, then quite young, Jehoiak.im being six and Jehoabaz four years of age, and Zedekiah not yet born; or J osiah's brothers and uncles who were also king's sons; and the superior servants of the palace, who are probably referred to as those who" leap over the threshold and fill their masters' house with violence and deceit" (ver. 9). (2) The rich merchants of Jerusalem. Described by their residence, their occupation, their prosperity, and their doom. The part of the city ia which they were located, named most likely by the prophet himself, Maktesh, or "The Mortar," was "most probably the depression which ran down between .Acra on the west, and Bezetha and Moriah on the east, as far as the fountain of Shiloah" (Keil), "the cheese-makers' valley" of Josephus, styled by the present-day inhabitants El-Wad, or "The VaUey." There they traded, leading money upon usury, and were called by the prophet "people of Canaan," because of their resemblance to Canaanitish or Phcenician merchants. With such success had they carried on their business, that they were "laden with silver." Yet were they doomed to be destroyed, ground to pieces, and bruised to death, by the Babylonian conquerors, like corn in a mortar when the pestle descendeth. (3) The irreligious debauchees and rioters of the metropolis generally. Characterized as persons who had settled on their lees, and said iu their hearts, "The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil." (For an explanation of the figure, consult Exposition, and see homily on ver. 12.) The language pointed to those whose material prosperity had been their moral and religious ruin, wb.o, having grown wealthy aac. luxurious, had also become atheistical at least in practice, saying in their hearts, and acting as if they believed, that either there was no God at all, or if there were, that he was perfectly indifferent to their characters and conduct-a form of infidelity that has ~eldom lacked representatives among foolish and ungodly men (Job xxii. 12-14; Ps. x. 4; xiv. 1; xciv. 6, 7). 2. Their sins specified. (1) Of the royal household, two-wearing foreign clothes and leaping over the threshold. The former referred to the custom of copying the dress and with that the manners and luxuries of heathen peoples, and in particular, in J osiah's time, of Egypt and Assyria, or Babylon. Among the E?;yptians "the dress of the king was most gorgeous, consisting of robes of the most beautiful stuffs and the richest ornaments" (Budge, 'Dwellers on the Nile,' p. 181). Nahum (ii. 3) describes the Assyrian soldiery as arrnyed "in scarlet;" while Ezekiel (xxiii. 12, 15) depicts the Assyrian warriors as "clothed most gorgeously," and speaks of the Chaldeans as "girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads." Of course, the sin against which the prophet inveighed was not the mere adoption of Egyptian, Assyrian, or Babylonian habiliments, but the inclination to look to and lean upon, to follow after and copy, these nations in their luxuries and idolatries rather than to remain faithful to Jehovah's Law and worship, which the imitation of their dress revealed. Clothes, according to Carlyle (' Sartor Resartus,' i. J.), are "the vestural tissue which man's soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall, wherein his whole other tissues are included and screeu~d, his whole faculties work, his whole self lives, moves, and has its being.'' Hence a person's 4ress is no Jl!CBD indicl\tion of a person's inner self. " Outward dress," says Pusi,y, a THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH. [oH, I, 1-18,