Zephaniah 1:9

In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit. THOSE THAT LEAP ON THE THRESHOLD - the servants of the princes who, after having gotten prey, like hounds for their masters, leap exultingly on their masters' thresholds; or on the thresholds of the houses which they break into (Calvin). Jerome explains it of those who walk up the steps into the sanctuary with haughtiness. Rosenmuller translates, 'leap over the threshold;' namely, in imitation of the Philistine custom of not treading on the threshold, which arose from the head and hands of Dagon being cut off on the threshold before the ark (1 Samuel 5:5). Compare Isaiah 2:6, "Thy people ... are soothsayers like the Philistines." Cal...

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 9. _THAT LEAP ON THE THRESHOLD_] Or, _that leap over the_ _threshold_. It is most probable that the _Philistines_ are here meant. After the time that Dagon fell before the ark, and his hands were broken off on the threshold of his temple, his worshippers would no more set a foot upon the threshold, but stepped or leaped over it, when they entered into his temple. The _Chaldee_ understands this of the Philistines, without giving this reason for it. Some understand it of haughtiness and pride: others think that _leaping on the threshold_ refers to the customs of the Arabs, who used to ride into people's houses and take away whatever they could carry; and that this is the reason why, in several parts of the East, they have their doors made very low, to prevent those depredators from entering. In this manner, we learn the _Persians_ have frequently oppressed the poor _Armenians_, goin...

I WILL PUNISH ALL THOSE THAT LEAP ON THE THRESHOLD - Neither language nor history nor context allow this to be understood of the idolatrous custom of Ashdod, not to tread on the threshold of the temple of Dagon. It had indeed been a strange infatuation of idolatry, that God’s people should adopt an act of superstitious reverence for an idol in the very instance in which its nothingness and the power of the true God had been shown. Nothing is indeed too brutish for one who chooses an idol for the true God, preferring Satan to the good God. Yet, the superstition belonged apparently to Ashdod alone; the worship of Dagon, although another form of untrue worship, does not appear, like that of Baal, to have fascinated the Jews; nor would Zephaniah, to express a rare superstition, have chosen an idiom, which might more readily express the contrary, that they “leapt “on” the threshold,” not over...

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.

IN THE SAME DAY ALSO WILL I PUNISH ALL THOSE THAT LEAP ON THE THRESHOLD,.... Not in a ludicrous way, who, by dancing and leaping, made sport for persons, and brought their masters much gain, as the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination did, Acts 16:16 rather, that entered rashly and irreverently into the house of God; or else in an idolatrous way, who, when they went into an idol's temple, did not tread upon the threshold, but leaped over it, as the priests of Dagon, after the fall of that idol on the threshold, 1 Samuel 5:4. So the Targum, "and I will visit all those that walk in the laws (or according to the customs) of the Philistines;'' whose idol Dagon was: but it seems better to interpret it of such, who, seeing houses full of good things, in a rude, bold, insolent manner, th

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

THOSE THAT LEAP, &C. No reference to idolatrous practice, as in 1 Kings 18:26. but to the servants of rulers sent to enter the houses of others and steal Figure of speech _Periphrasis_ (App-6), for robbers. ON. over. VIOLENCE AND DECEIT. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Cause), App-6, for the booty procured....

The classes in Jerusalem on which the judgment will fall The errors and sins assailed by Zephaniah are the same as those attacked by earlier prophets, e.g. (1) the false worship, Zephaniah 1:4, cf. Amos 4:4 ff.; Isaiah 1:11 ff.; (2) the civil wrong and injustice, Zephaniah 1:9, cf. Amos 5:7; Amos 5:10-13; Isaiah 3:12-15; Isai