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<p>Notice is here given to Judah and Jerusalem that God is coming forth against them, and will be with them shortly; his <i>presence</i>, as a just avenger, <i>his day</i>, the day of his judgment and his wrath, are not far off, <a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.7" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.7">Zeph. 1:7</a>. 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 <i>day of the Lord</i> will come. Men have their day now, when they take a liberty to do what they please; but <i>God’s day is at hand</i>; it is here called his <i>sacrifice</i>, 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: <i>The slain of the Lord shall be many</i>. 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,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. Who those are that are marked to be sacrificed, that shall be visited and punished in this day of reckoning, and what it is they shall be called to an account for. 1. The royal family, because of the dignity of their place, shall be first reckoned with for their pride, and vanity, and affectation (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.8" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.8">Zeph. 1:8</a>): <i>I will punish the princes, and the king’s children</i>, who think themselves accountable to God, and that, high as they are, he is above them. They shall be punished, and all such as, like them, are clothed <i>with strange apparel</i>, such as, in contempt of their own country (where, probably, it was the custom to go in a very plain dress, as became the seed of Jacob that <i>plain man</i>), affected to appear in the fashion of other nations and introduced their modes in apparel, studying to resemble those from whom God had appointed them, even in their clothes, industriously to distinguish themselves. <i>The princes and the king’s children</i> scorned to wear any home-made stuffs, though God had provided them <i>fine linen</i> and <i>silks</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.16.10" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.16.10">Ezek. 16:10</a>), but they must send abroad to strange countries for their clothes, which would not please unless they were far-fetched and dear-bought; and even those of inferior rank affected to imitate the princes and the king’s children. Pride in apparel is displeasing to God, and a symptom of the degeneracy of a people. 2. The noblemen, and their stewards and servants, come next to be reckoned with (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.9" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.9">Zeph. 1:9</a>): <i>In the same day will I punish those that leap on the threshold</i>, a phrase, no doubt, well understood then, and which probably signified the invading of their neighbour’s rights. Entering their houses by force and violence, and seizing their possessions, they <i>leap on the threshold</i>, as much as to say that the house is their own and they will keep their hold of it; and, accordingly, they make all in it their own that they can lay their hands on, and so <i>fill their masters’ houses</i> with goods gotten <i>by violence and deceit</i> and with all the guilt thereby contracted. Nor shall it suffice them to say that the ill-gotten gains were not for themselves but for their masters, and that what they did was by their order; for the obligations we lie under to keep God’s commandments are prior and superior to the obligations we lie under to serve the interests of any master on earth. 3. The trading people, and the rich merchants, are next called to account. Iniquity is found in their end of the town, among <i>the inhabitants of Maktesh</i>, a low part of Jerusalem, deep like a mortar (for so the word signifies); the <i>goldsmiths</i> lived there (<a class="bibleref" title="Neh.3.32" href="/passage/?search=Neh.3.32">Neh. 3:32</a>) and the merchants; and they are now <i>cut down</i> (they are broken, and have shut up their shops, and become bankrupts); nay, <i>All those that bear silver are cut off</i>, in the first place, by the invaders, for the sake of the silver they carry, which is so far from being a protection to them that it will expose and betray them. The conquerors aimed at the wealthy men, and carried them off first, while <i>the poor of the land escaped</i>. Or it may be meant of a general decay of trade, which was a preface and introduction to the general destruction of the land. It is the token of a declining state when great dealers are cut down, and great bankers are cut off and become bankrupts, who cannot fall alone, but with themselves ruin many. 4. All the secure and careless people, the sons of pleasure, that live a loose idle life, are next reckoned with (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.12" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.12">Zeph. 1:12</a>); they come from all parts of the country, to take up their quarters in the head-quarters of the kingdom, where they take private lodgings, and i
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<p class="tab-1">II. What the destruction will be with which God will punish these sinners, and what course he will take with them. 1. He will silence them (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.7" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.7">Zeph. 1:7</a>): <i>Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord</i>. He will force them to hold their peace, will strike them dumb with horror and amazement. They shall be speechless. All the excuses of their sin, and exceptions against the sentence, will be overruled, and they shall not have a word to say for themselves. 2. He will <i>sacrifice</i> them, for it is <i>the day of the Lord’s sacrifice</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.8" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.8">Zeph. 1:8</a>); he will give them into the hands of their enemies, and glorify himself thereby. 3. He will fill both city and country with lamentation (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.10" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.10">Zeph. 1:10</a>): <i>In that day there shall be a noise of a cry from the fish-gate</i>, so called because near either to the fish-ponds or to the fish-market. It belonged to the city of David (<a class="bibleref" title="2Chr.33.14,Neh.3.3" href="/passage/?search=2Chr.33.14,Neh.3.3"><span class="bibleref" title="2Chr.33.14">2 Chron. 33:14</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Neh.3.3">Neh. 3:3</span></a>); perhaps the same with that which is called the <i>first gate</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Zech.14.10" href="/passage/?search=Zech.14.10">Zech. 14:10</a>), and, if so, it will explain what follows here, <i>And a howling from the second</i>, that is, the second gate, which was next to that <i>fish-gate</i>. The alarm shall go round the walls of Jerusalem from gate to gate; and there shall be <i>a great crashing from the hills</i>, a mighty noise from the mountains round about Jerusalem, from the acclamations of the victorious invaders, or from the lamentations of the timorous invaded, or from both. The inhabitants of the city, even of the closest safest part of the city, shall <i>howl</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.11" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.11">Zeph. 1:11</a>), so clamorous shall the grief be. 4. They shall be stripped of all they have; it shall be a prey to the enemy (<a class="bibleref" title="Zeph.1.13" href="/passage/?search=Zeph.1.13">Zeph. 1:13</a>): <i>Their household goods</i>, and <i>shop-goods</i>, shall <i>become a booty</i>, and a rich booty they shall be; <i>their houses shall be</i> levelled with the ground and be <i>a desolation</i>; those of them that have <i>built</i> new houses <i>shall not inherit them</i>, but the invaders shall get and keep possession of them. And the <i>vineyards</i> they have planted they shall not <i>drink the wine of</i>, but, instead of having it for the relief of their friends that faint among them, they shall part with it for the animating of their foes that fight against them, <a class="bibleref" title="Deut.28.30" href="/passage/?search=Deut.28.30">Deut. 28:30</a>.</p>
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