Zephaniah 1:11

Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off. HOWL, YE INHABITANTS OF MAKTESH - rather, 'the mortar,' a name applied to the valley of Siloam from its hollow shape (Jerome). The article prefixed proves it not to be a proper name [ hamakteesh (H4389), from kaatash (H3806), to pound]. The valley between Zion and Mount Olivet, at the eastern extremity of Mount Moriah, where the merchants dwelt (Zechariah 14:21, "There shall be no more the Canaanite" - namely, the merchant-Chaldaic version). The Tyropoeon (i:e., cheese makers) Valley below mount Akra (Rosenmuller). Better, Jerusalem itself, so called as lying in the midst of hil...

The Prophet addresses the merchants here who inhabited the middle part of the city, and hence thought themselves farther off from all danger and trouble. As then they were concealed as it were in their hiding-places, they thought that no danger was nigh them; and thus security blinded them the more. After having spoken of the king’s palace and of the princes and their servants, Zephaniah now turns his discourse to the merchants. And he calls them the inhabitants of the hollow place, מכתש, _mecatesh_. The verb כתש, _catash_, means to be hollow; hence the Hebrews call a hollow place מכתש, _mecatesh_. So Solomon calls a mortar by this name, because it is hollow: (79) and we learn also from other parts of scripture that the word means sometimes either a cavern or some low place. But we know that merchants have for the most part

7-13 God's day is at hand; the punishment of presumptuous sinners is a sacrifice to the justice of God. The Jewish royal family shall be reckoned with for their pride and vanity; and those that leap on the threshold, invading their neighbours' rights, and seizing their possessions. The trading people and the rich merchants are called to account. Secure and careless people are reckoned with. They are secure and easy; they say in their heart, the Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil; that is, they deny his dispensing rewards and punishments. But in the day of the Lord's judgment, it will clearly appear that those who perish, fall a sacrifice to Divine justice for breaking God's law, and because they have no interest by faith in the Redeemer's atoning sacrifice....

Verse Zephaniah 1:11. _MAKTESH_] _Calmet_ says this signifies a _mortar_, or a _rock in form of a mortar_, and was the name of a quarter of Jerusalem where they hulled rice, corn, c., according to St. Jerome. Some think the city of Jerusalem is meant, where the inhabitants should be beat and pounded to death as grain is pounded in a mortar. _Newcome_ translates it, the _lower_ city, and considers it the _valley_ in Jerusalem, which divided the _upper_ from the _lower_ city. _THEY THAT BEAR SILVER_] The merchants, moneychangers, usurers, rich men....

HOWL, YE INHABITANTS OF MAKTESH - Literally, “Mortar” , “in which,” Jerome says, “corn is pounded; a hollow vessel, and fit for the use of medical men, in which properly ptisans are wont to be beaten (or made). Striking is it, that Scripture saith not, ‘who dwell in the valley or in the alley,’ but who “dwell in the mortar,” because as corn, when the pestle striketh, is bruised, so the army of the enemy shall rush down upon you” (Jerome). The place intended is probably so much of the valley of the Tyropoeon, which intersected Jerusalem from north to south, as was enclosed by the second wall, on the north, and the first wall on the south. The valley “extended as far as the fountain of Siloam,” and united with the valley of Jehoshaphat a little below Ophel. It was “full of houses,” and, from its name as well as from its situation, it was probably the scene of petty merchandise, where the o...

EXPOSITION. ZEPHANIAH 1:1 Part I. THE JUDGMENT UPON ALL THE WORLD, AND UPON JUDAH IN PARTICULAR. ZEPHANIAH 1:1 § 1. _Title and inscription. _THE WORD OF THE LORD (see note on Micah 1:1). Zephaniah, "Whom the Lord shelters" (see Introduction, § II.). THE SON OF, etc. The genealogy thus introduced shows that the prophet was of illustrious descent; or it may be inserted to distinguish him from others who bore the same name.

HOWL, YE INHABITANTS OF MAKTESH,.... The name of a street in Jerusalem, as Aben Ezra; perhaps it lay low in the hollow of the city, and in the form of a mortar, from whence it might have its name, as the word q signifies; which is used both for a hollow place and for a mortar, Judges 15:19 unless it might be so called from such persons dwelling in it, that used mortars for spice, and other things. The Targum is, "howl, all ye that dwell in the valley of Kidron;'' and Jerom thinks the valley of Siloah is intended, which is the same; which, Adrichomius r says, was broad, deep, and dark, and surrounded the temple in manner of a foss, or ditch; and was disposed in the form of a mortar, called in Hebrew "machtes"; in Latin, "pila"; in which merchants and tradesmen of all kinds dwelt. It is thought by others to be the same which Josephus s calls "the valley of the cheese m

MAKTESH Literally, The Mortar, a depression in Jerusalem where the bazaars were....

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS CHAPTER 1 The Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment _ 1. The judgment of all the world (Zephaniah 1:1) _ 2. The judgment will destroy the evildoers in Judah (Zephaniah 1:4) 3. The day of the Lord (Zephaniah 1:14) Zephaniah 1:1. The first verse is the superscription, and tells us, as pointed out in the introduction, of the connection of Zephaniah and the date of his prophecy. Then comes the announcement of the judgment. It is to consume all things from off the face of the land, man and beast, the fowls of heaven, the fishes of the sea, and end the stumb

THE DOOM OF JUDAH AND JERUSALEM. Zephaniah 1:2. Riding as it were on the crest of a tidal wave of destruction, which sweeps off man and beast from the face of the ground, Yahweh stretches His hand against Judah and Jerusalem, the centre of the world's offence, to cut off the priests and worshippers of Baal, together with all such as prostrate themselves before the host of heaven, mingle the worship of Yahweh with that of Molech, or otherwise prove traitor to the God of their fathers, withdrawing from His allegiance and ceasing to inquire after Him. ZEPHANIAH 1:2. GROUND: the cultivated, inhabited, civilised world. Zephaniah 1:3. For the stumbling-blocks with (a rendering as dubious as it