13 And their wealth shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation; and they shall build houses, and not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and not drink the wine thereof.
Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and new wine, but shalt not drink wine.
Forasmuch, therefore, as ye trample upon the poor, and take from him presents of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, and ye shall not drink the wine of them.
Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not eat of it.
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness: they have made it a desolation; desolate, it mourneth unto me: the whole land is made desolate, for no man layeth it to heart. Spoilers are come upon all heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Jehovah devoureth from one end of the land even to the [other] end of the land: no flesh hath peace. They have sown wheat, and they reap thorns; they have put themselves to pain, [and] do not profit. Be ye therefore ashamed of your revenues, because of the fierce anger of Jehovah.
Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed [as] a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
And I will pour out mine indignation upon them; I will consume them in the fire of my wrath: their own way will I recompense upon their head, saith the Lord Jehovah.
They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be as an impurity: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah's wrath; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their belly; for it hath been the stumbling-block of their iniquity.
Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, and in all thy borders;
For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled, sorely put to shame! For we have forsaken the land, for they have cast down our dwellings.
And I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling-place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.
And they shall eat up thy harvest and thy bread, they shall eat up thy sons and thy daughters, they shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds, they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig-trees; they shall destroy with the sword thy strong cities, wherein thou trustedst.
Destruction upon destruction is proclaimed; for the whole land is wasted: suddenly are my tents laid waste, my curtains, in a moment.
The lion is come up from his thicket, the destroyer of the nations is on his way; he is gone forth from his place, to make thy land desolate; thy cities shall be laid waste, without inhabitant.
And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof: they shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
Behold, Jehovah maketh the land empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad its inhabitants. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with him from whom usury is taken. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for Jehovah hath spoken this word.
And I said, Lord, how long? And he said, Until the cities be wasted, without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land become an utter desolation,
Woe unto them that add house to house, that join field to field, until there is no more room, and that ye dwell yourselves alone in the midst of the land! In mine ears Jehovah of hosts [hath said], Many houses shall assuredly become a desolation, great and excellent ones, without inhabitant.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Zephaniah 1
Commentary on Zephaniah 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Prophecy of Zephaniah
Chapter 1
After the title of the book (v. 1) here is,
Such fair and timely warning as this did God give to the Jews of the approaching captivity; but they hardened their neck, which made their destruction remediless.
Zep 1:1-6
Here is,
Zep 1:7-13
Notice is here given to Judah and Jerusalem that God is coming forth against them, and will be with them shortly; his presence, as a just avenger, his day, the day of his judgment and his wrath, are not far off, v. 7. Those that improve not the presence of God with them as a Father, but sin away that presence, may expect his presence with them as a Judge, to call them to an account for the contempt put upon his grace. The day of the Lord will come. Men have their day now, when they take a liberty to do what they please; but God's day is at hand; it is here called his sacrifice, a sacrifice of his preparing, for the punishing of presumptuous sinners is a sacrifice to the justice of God, some reparation to his injured honour. Those that brought their offerings to other gods were themselves justly made victims to the true God. On a day of sacrifice great slaughter was made; so shall there be in Jerusalem; men shall be killed up as fast as lambs for the altar, with as little regret, with as much pleasure: The slain of the Lord shall be many. On a day of sacrifice great feasts were made upon the sacrifices; so the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem shall be feasted upon by their enemies the Chaldeans; these are the guests God has prepared and invited to come and glut themselves-their revenge with slaughter and their covetousness with plunder. Now observe,
Zep 1:14-18
Nothing could be expressed with more spirit and life, nor in words more proper to startle and awaken a secure and careless people, than the warning here given to Judah and Jerusalem of the approaching destruction by the Chaldeans. That is enough to make the sinners in Zion tremble-that it is the day of the Lord, the day in which he will manifest himself by taking vengeance on them. It is the great day of the Lord, a specimen of the day of judgment, a kind of doom's-day, as the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is represented to be in our Saviour's prediction concerning it, Mt. 24:27.