Zep 3:5-6
Jerusalem sins in this manner, without observing that Jehovah is constantly making known to it His own righteousness. Zep 3:5. “Jehovah is just in the midst of her; does no wrong: morning by morning He sets His justice in the light, not failing; but the unjust knoweth no shame. Zep 3:6. I have cut off nations: their battlements are laid waste; I have devastated their streets, so that no one else passeth over: their cities are laid waste, that there is no man there, not an inhabitant more.” Zep 3:5 is attached adversatively to what precedes without a particle, in this sense: And yet Jehovah is just beqirbâh, i.e., in the midst of the city filled with sinners. The words recal to mind the description of the divine administration in Deu 32:4, where Jehovah is described as אין עול and ישׁר. It follows from this that tsaddı̄q is not to be referred to the fact that God does not leave the sins of the nation unpunished (Ros.), but to the fact that He commits no wrong: so that לא יעשׂה עולה is only a negative paraphrase of tsaddı̄q. His justice, i.e., the righteousness of His conduct, He puts in the light every morning (babbōqer babbōqer, used distributively, as in Exo 16:21; Lev 6:5, etc.), not by rewarding virtue and punishing wickedness (Hitzig, Strauss, after the Chaldee, Jerome, Theodoret, and Cyril), according to which mishpât would signify judgment; but by causing His law and justice to be proclaimed to the nation daily “by prophets, whose labour He employs to teach the nation His laws, and who exert themselves diligently by exhorting and admonishing every day, to call it to bring forth better fruit, but all in vain (Ros., Ewald, etc.; cf. Hos 6:5). It is at variance with the context to take these words as referring to the judgments of God. These are first spoken of in Zep 3:6, and the correspondence between these two verses and Zep 3:7 and Zep 3:8 shows that we must not mix up together Zep 3:5 and Zep 3:6, or interpret Zep 3:5 from Zep 3:6. Just as the judgment is threatened there (Zep 3:8) because the people have accepted no correction, and have not allowed themselves to be moved to the fear of Jehovah, so also in Zep 3:5 and Zep 3:6 the prophet demonstrates the righteousness of God from His double administration: viz., first, from the fact that He causes His justice to be proclaimed to the people, that they may accept correction; and secondly, by pointing to the judgments upon the nations. לא נעדּר paraphrases the idea of “infallibly;” the literal meaning is, that there is no morning in which the justice is wanting. Hitzig, Strauss, and others have rendered it quite unsuitably, “God does not suffer Himself to be wanting,” i.e., does not remain absent. But the perverse one, viz., the nation sunk in unrighteousness, knows no disgrace, to make it ashamed of its misdeeds. In Zep 3:6 Jehovah is introduced as speaking, to set before the nations in the most impressive manner the judgments in which He has manifested His righteousness. The two hemistichs are formed uniformly, each consisting of two clauses, in which the direct address alternates with an indefinite, passive construction: I have cut off nations, their battlements have been laid waste, etc. Gōyı̄m are neither those nations who are threatened with ruin in Zep 2:4-15, nor the Canaanites, who have been exterminated by Israel, but nations generally, which have succumbed to the judgments of God, without any more precise definition. Pinnōth, the battlements of the fortress-walls and towers (Zep 1:16), stand per synecdochen for castles or fortifications. Chūtsōth are not streets of the city, but roads, and stand synecdochically for the flat country. This is required by the correspondence of the clauses. For just as the cities answer to the castles, so do chūtsōth to the nations. Nitsdū, from tsâdâh, not in the sense of waylaying (Exo 21:13; 1Sa 24:12), but in accordance with Aramaean usage, to lay waste, answering to nâshammū, for which Jeremiah uses nittetsū in Jer 4:26.
In Zep 3:7 and Zep 3:8 the prophet sums up all that he has said in Zep 3:1-6, to close his admonition to repentance with the announcement of judgment. Zep 3:7. “I said, Only do thou fear me, do thou accept correction, so will their dwelling not be cut off, according to all that I have appointed concerning them: but they most zealously destroyed all their doings. Zep 3:8. Therefore wait for me, is the saying of Jehovah, for the day when I rise up to the prey; for it is my right to gather nations together, to bring kingdoms in crowds, to heap upon them my fury, all the burning of my wrath: for in the fire of my zeal will the whole earth be devoured.” God has not allowed instruction and warning to be wanting, to avert the judgment of destruction from Judah; but the people have been getting worse and worse, so that now He is obliged to make His justice acknowledged on earth by means of judgments. אמרתּי, not I thought, but I said. This refers to the strenuous exertions of God to bring His justice to the light day by day (Zep 3:5), and to admonitions of the prophets in order to bring the people to repentance. תּיראי and תּקחי dna תּ are cohortatives, chosen instead of imperatives, to set forth the demand of God by clothing it in the form of entreating admonition as an emanation of His love. Lâqach mūsâr as in Zep 3:2. The words are addressed to the inhabitants of Jerusalem personified as the daughter of Zion (Zep 3:11); and מעונהּ, her dwelling, is the city of Jerusalem, not the temple, which is called the dwelling-place of Jehovah indeed, but never the dwelling-place of the nation, or of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The clause which follows, and which has been very differently interpreted, כּל אשׁר פּקדתּי עליה, can hardly be taken in any other way than that in which Ewald has taken it, viz., by rendering kōl as the accusative of manner: according to all that I have appointed, or as I have appointed everything concerning them. For it is evidently impracticable to connect it with what precedes as asyndeton, because the idea of יבוא cannot be taken per zeugma from יכּרת, and we should necessarily have to supply that idea. For hikkârēth does not in any way fit in with אשׁר פּקדתּי, whether we take פּקד על in the sense of charge, command, appoint (after Job 34:13; Job 36:23), or in that of correct, punish. For the thought that God will cut off all that He has appointed concerning Jerusalem, would be just as untenable as the thought that He will exterminate the sins that have been punished in Jerusalem. But instead of repenting, the people have only shown themselves still more zealous in evil deeds. Hishkı̄m, to rise early, then in connection with another verb, adverbially: early and zealously. Hishchı̄th, to act corruptly; and with ‛ălı̄lōth, to complete corrupt and evil deeds (cf. Psa 14:1). Jehovah must therefore interpose with punishment.