Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Zephaniah 1:9
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
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 it. They are also the same persons, who “leap on the threshold,” and who “fill their masters’ houses with violence and deceit.” Yet, this relates, not to superstition, but to plunder and goods unjustly gotten. As then, before, he had declared God’s judgments upon idolatry, so does he here upon sins against the second table, whether by open violence, or secret fraud, as do also Habakkuk Habakkuk 1:2-3, and Jeremiah Jeremiah 5:27. All, whether open or hidden from man, every wrongful dealing, (for every sin as to a neighbor’s goods falls under these two, violence or fraud) shall be avenged in that day. Here again all which remains is the sin. They enriched, as they thought, their masters by art or by force; they schemed, plotted, robbed; they succeeded to their heart’s wish; but, “ill-gotten, ill-spent!” They “filled their masters’ houses” quite full; but wherewith? with violence and deceit, which witnessed against them, and brought down the judgments of God upon them. return to 'Top of Page'
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