to rebel · verb, qal active participle, feminine singular absolute
polluted
וְנִגְאָלָ֑הve.nig.'a.Lah
H1351
to soil or (figuratively) desecrate · conjunction + verb, niphal active participle, feminine singular absolute
oppressing
הַיּוֹנָֽהhai.yo.Nah
H3238
to rage or be violent · definite article + verb, qal active participle, feminine singular absolute
city
הָעִ֖ירha.'Ir
H5892
a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 6:6 For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly o…
Isaiah 30:12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
Isaiah 59:13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from t…
Ezekiel 22:7 In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they ve…
Zechariah 7:10 And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your hear…
Malachi 3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false…
Leviticus 1:16 And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behol…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Zephaniah 3:1-7
One would wonder that Jerusalem, the holy city, where God was known, and his name was great, should be the city of which this black character is here given, that a place which enjoyed such abundance of the means of grace should become so very corrupt and vicious, and that God should permit it to be so; yet so it is, to show that the law made nothing perfect; but if this be the true character of Jerusalem, as no doubt it is (for God's judgments will make none worse than they are), it is no wonder that the prophet begins with woe to her. For the holy God hates sin in those that are nearest to him, nay, in them he hates it most. A sinful state is, and will be, a woeful state.
I. Here is a very…
Wo to her that is filthy - This is a denunciation of Divine judgment against Jerusalem.
John Gill on Zephaniah 3:1
Woe to her that is filthy, and polluted,.... Meaning the city of Jerusalem, and its inhabitants; not as before the Babylonish captivity, but after their return from it, under the second temple, as Abarbinel owns; and even as in the times before and at the coming of Christ, and the preaching of his apostles among them; as the whole series of the prophecy, and the connection of the several parts of it, show; and there are such plain intimations of the conversion of the Gentiles, and of such a happy state of the Jews, in which they shall see evil no more, as can agree with no other times than the times of the Gospel, both the beginning and latter part of them. The character of this city, and it…
Zephaniah 3:1, 2
1. Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
1. Vae pollutae et inquinatae, urbi direptrici (vel, fraudatrici.)
2. She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God.
2. Non audivit ad vocem; non suscepit disciplinam (vel, correctionem;) in Iehova non est confisa; ad Deum suum non appropinquarit.
The Prophet speaks here again against Jerusalem; for first, the Jews ought ever to have been severely reproved, as they were given to many sins; and secondly, because there was always there some seed which needed consolation: and this has been the way pursued, as we have hitherto seen, by all t…
The Church Fathers
[Jerusalem] was like this for refusing to the end to hear the word of the prophet sent to it and not accepting in any way the instruction from that source. Though seeming to undergo a change for a while, once more it went back to its characteristic wickedness; at any rate, it took no account of God's sending the prophet, nor did it make the decision to pay attention to him later, despite having such a remarkable experience. On the contrary, it forsook him completely and declared war on him, attacking Jerusalem after the annihilation of the ten tribes, the city in which the temple of God was to be found.
(Chapter 3, verses 1 onwards) Woe to the provoking and redeemed city: the dove did not hear the voice and did not receive discipline. It did not trust in the Lord and did not approach its God. Its princes are in its midst, like roaring lions. Its judges are wolves of the evening, they do not leave anything for the morning. Its prophets are insane, unfaithful men. Its priests have defiled the holy, they have acted unjustly against the law. The Lord is righteous; he will not do injustice. Every morning he brings his justice to light; it does not fail. But the wicked know no shame. I have cut off nations; their battlements are in ruins. I laid waste their streets, so that no one walks in them; their cities have been made desolate, without a man, without an inhabitant. I said, 'Surely you will fear me; you will accept correction. Then your dwelling would not be cut off according to all that I have appointed against you.' But all the more they were eager to make all their deeds corrupt. However, rising at dawn, they corrupted all their thoughts. LXX: O illustrious and redeemed city, the dove did not hear a voice, nor receive discipline: it did not trust in the Lord, nor did it approach its Lord. Its princes in it are like roaring lions; its judges are like Arabian wolves, not leaving anything until morning; its prophets are men who carry the spirit, contemptible men; its priests defile the holy things and act impiously against the law: but the Lord is righteous in its midst, and will not do iniquity. In the morning, it will give its judgment in the light, and it is not hidden, and it does not know iniquity in its demands, nor eternal injustice: I have removed the proud, their corners are scattered: I have destroyed their paths so that they may not pass: their cities have failed, because no one remains, nor does anybody dwell. I have said, nevertheless you will fear me, and you will receive discipline, and you will not perish from my sight in all the ways in which I have taken vengeance upon her. Prepare, rise early in the morning: all their buds have been destroyed. Many people think that because of the context of the discourse, it is said against Nineveh, about which it was said above: And he will destroy Assyria, and make Nineveh a wasteland. But the Scripture never called Nineveh a dove: although in Jeremiah, some think that what was said about the doves…
Zephaniah pronounces a message of sorrow for Judah and Jerusalem and admonishes them to wait patiently for the results of God’s righteous judgment.
3:1 Polluted Jerusalem had wandered far from its call to be a holy city (Isa 52:1).
Rashi on Zephaniah 3:1
Woe to her who is filthy and polluted Until now, Zephaniah was speaking of Ninveh, but now he refers to Jerusalem: Woe to her who is destined to be plundered and sullied like dung. It will be polluted with the filth of its iniquity. filthy as in (Lev. 1:16) “its crop”; and (Nahum 3:6) “And I will make you like dung.”
the dove like city Like a silly dove, without a heart.
