4Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men;
         Her priests have profaned the sanctuary.
         They have done violence to the law.

5The LORD is righteous within her;
         He will do no injustice.
         Every morning He brings His justice to light;
         He does not fail.
         But the unjust knows no shame.

6“I have cut off nations;
         Their corner towers are in ruins.
         I have made their streets desolate,
         With no one passing by;
         Their cities are laid waste,
         Without a man, without an inhabitant.

7“I said, ‘Surely you will revere Me,
         Accept instruction.’
         So her dwelling will not be cut off
         According to all that I have appointed concerning her.
         But they were eager to corrupt all their deeds.

8“Therefore wait for Me,” declares the LORD,
         “For the day when I rise up as a witness.
         Indeed, My decision is to gather nations,
         To assemble kingdoms,
         To pour out on them My indignation,
         All My burning anger;
         For all the earth will be devoured
         By the fire of My zeal.

9“For then I will give to the peoples purified lips,
         That all of them may call on the name of the LORD,
         To serve Him shoulder to shoulder.

10“From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia
         My worshipers, My dispersed ones,
         Will bring My offerings.

11“In that day you will feel no shame
         Because of all your deeds
         By which you have rebelled against Me;
         For then I will remove from your midst
         Your proud, exulting ones,
         And you will never again be haughty
         On My holy mountain.

A Remnant of Israel

12“But I will leave among you
         A humble and lowly people,
         And they will take refuge in the name of the LORD.

13“The remnant of Israel will do no wrong
         And tell no lies,
         Nor will a deceitful tongue
         Be found in their mouths;
         For they will feed and lie down
         With no one to make them tremble.”

14Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion!
         Shout in triumph, O Israel!
         Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
         O daughter of Jerusalem!

15The LORD has taken away His judgments against you,
         He has cleared away your enemies.
         The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst;
         You will fear disaster no more.

16In that day it will be said to Jerusalem:
         “Do not be afraid, O Zion;
         Do not let your hands fall limp.

17“The LORD your God is in your midst,
         A victorious warrior.
         He will exult over you with joy,
         He will be quiet in His love,
         He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

18“I will gather those who grieve about the appointed feasts—
         They came from you, O Zion;
         The reproach of exile is a burden on them.

19“Behold, I am going to deal at that time
         With all your oppressors,
         I will save the lame
         And gather the outcast,
         And I will turn their shame into praise and renown
         In all the earth.

20“At that time I will bring you in,
         Even at the time when I gather you together;
         Indeed, I will give you renown and praise
         Among all the peoples of the earth,
         When I restore your fortunes before your eyes,”
         Says the LORD.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Her princes within her are roaring lions, Her judges are wolves at evening; They leave nothing for the morning.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Its officials are like roaring lions. Its judges are like wolves in the evening. They leave nothing to gnaw on for the morning.

King James Bible
Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Her princes are in the midst of her as roaring lions: her judges are evening wolves, they left nothing for the morning.

Darby Bible Translation
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, that leave nothing for the morning.

English Revised Version
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they leave nothing till the morrow.

Webster's Bible Translation
Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

World English Bible
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.

Young's Literal Translation
Her heads in her midst are roaring lions, Her judges are evening wolves, They have not gnawn the bone in the morning.

Cross References

Isaiah 5:29 Its roaring is like a lioness, and it roars like young lions; It growls as it seizes the prey And carries it off with no one to deliver it.

Jeremiah 5:6 Therefore a lion from the forest will slay them, A wolf of the deserts will destroy them, A leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces, Because their transgressions are many, Their apostasies are numerous.

Jeremiah 34:19 the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officers and the priests and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf--

Ezekiel 22:27 "Her princes within her are like wolves tearing the prey, by shedding blood and destroying lives in order to get dishonest gain.

Ezekiel 33:26 "You rely on your sword, you commit abominations and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife. Should you then possess the land?"'

Micah 3:3 Who eat the flesh of my people, Strip off their skin from them, Break their bones And chop them up as for the pot And as meat in a kettle."

Habakkuk 1:8 "Their horses are swifter than leopards And keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping, Their horsemen come from afar; They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Chapter 3

We now return to Jerusalem, and must again hear what God has to say to her, I. By way of reproof and threatening, for the abundance of wickedness that was found in her, of which divers instances are given, with the aggravations of them (v. 1-7). II. By way of promise of mercy and grace, which God had yet in reserve for them. Two general heads of promises here are:- 1. That God would bring in a glorious work of reformation among them, cleanse them from their sins, and bring them home to himself; many promises of this kind here are (v. 8-13). 2. That he would bring about a glorious work of salvation for them, when he had thus prepared them for it (v. 14-20). Thus the "Redeemer shall come to Zion," and to clear his own way, shall "turn away ungodliness from Jacob." These promises were to have their full accomplishment in gospel-times and gospel-graces.

Verses 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 bad character given of the city in general. How has the faithful city become a harlot! 1. She shames herself; she is filthy and polluted (v. 1), has made herself infamous (so some read it), the gluttonous city (so the margin), always cramming, and making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it. Sin is the filthiness and pollution of persons and places, and makes them odious in the sight of the holy God. 2. She wrongs her neighbours and inhabitants; she is the oppressing city. Never any place had statutes and judgments so righteous as this city had, and yet, in the administration of the government, never was more unrighteousness. 3. She is very provoking to her God, and in every respect walks contrary to him, v. 2. He had given his law, and spoken to her by his servants the prophets, telling her what was the good she should do and what the evil she should avoid; but she obeyed not his voice, nor made conscience of doing as he commanded her, in any thing. He had taken her under an excellent discipline, both of the word and of the rod; but she did not receive the instruction of the one nor the correction of the other, did not submit to God's will nor answer his end in either. He encouraged her to depend upon him, and his power and promise, for deliverance from evil and supply with good; but she trusted not in the Lord; her confidence was placed in her alliances with the nations more than in her covenant with God. He gave her tokens of his presence, and instituted ordinances of communion for her with himself; but she drew not near to her God, did not meet him where he appointed and where he promised to meet her. She stood at a distance, and said to the Almighty, Depart.

II. Here is a very bad character of the leading men in it; those that should by their influence suppress vice and profaneness there are the great patterns and patrons of wickedness, and those that should be her physicians are really her worst disease. 1. Her princes are ravenous and barbarous as roaring lions that make a prey of all about them, and they are universally feared and hated; they use their power for destruction, and not for edification. 2. Her judges, who should be the protectors of injured innocence, are evening wolves, rapacious and greedy, and their cruelty and covetousness both insatiable: They gnaw not the bones till the morrow; they take so much delight and pleasure in cruelty and oppression that when they have devoured a good man they reserve the bones, as it were, for a sweet morsel, to be gnawed the next morning, Job 31:31. 3. Her prophets, who pretend to be special messengers from heaven to them, are light and treacherous persons, fanciful, and of a vain imagination, frothy and airy, and of a loose conversation, men of no consistency with themselves, in whom one can put no confidence. They were so given to bantering that it was hard to say when they were serious. Their pretended prophecies were all a sham, and they secretly laughed at those that were deluded by them. 4. Her priests, who are teachers by office and have the charge of the holy things, are false to their trust and betray it. They were to preserve the purity of the sanctuary, but they did themselves pollute it, and the sacred offices of it, which they were to attend upon-such priests as Hophni and Phinehas, who by their wicked lives made the sacrifices of the Lord to be abhorred. They were to expound and apply the law, and to judge according to it; but, in their explications and applications of it, they did violence to the law; they corrupted the sense of it, and perverted it to the patronising of that which was directly contrary to it. By forced constructions, they made the law to speak what they pleased, to serve a turn, and so, in effect, made void the law.

III. We have here the aggravations of this general corruption of all orders and degrees of men in Jerusalem.

1. They had the tokens of God's presence among them, and all the advantages that could be of knowing his will, with the strongest inducements possible to do it, and yet they persisted in their disobedience, v. 5. (1.) They had the honour and privilege of the Shechinah, God's dwelling in their land, so as he dwelt not with any other people: "The just Lord is in the midst of thee, to take cognizance of all thou doest amiss and give countenance to all thou doest well; he is in the midst of thee as a holy God, and therefore thy pollutions are the more offensive, Deu. 23:14. He is in the midst of you as a just God, and therefore will punish the affronts you put upon him, and the wrongs and injuries you do to one another." (2.) They had God's own example set before them, in the discovery he made of himself to them, that they might conform to it: "He will not do iniquity, and therefore you should not;" for this was the great rule of their institution, "Be you holy, for I am holy. God will be true to you; be not you then false to him." (3.) He sent to them his prophets, rising up early and sending them: Every morning he brings his judgment to light, as duly as the morning comes; he fails not. He shows them plainly what the good is which he requires of them, and puts them in mind of it; he wakens morning by morning (Isa. 50:4), wakens his prophets with the rising sun, to bring to light the things which belong to their peace. So that, upon the whole matter, what more could have been done to his vineyard, to make it fruitful? Isa. 5:4. And yet, after all, the unjust know no shame; those that have been unjust are unjust still, and are not ashamed of their unrighteousness, neither can they blush. If they had any sense of honour, any shame left in them, they would not go so directly contrary to their profession and to the instructions given them. But those that are past shame are past cure.

2. God had set before their eyes some remarkable monuments of his justice, which were designed for warning to them (v. 6): I have cut off the nations, the seven nations of Canaan, which the land spewed out for their wickedness, upon which they had this caution given them, to take heed lest it spew them out also, Lev. 18:28. Or it may refer to some of the neighbouring nations that were made desolate for their wickedness, especially to the nations of Israel, the ten tribes. Their towers were desolate, their high towers, their strong towers, their pride and power broken; their streets were wasted, so that none passed along through them; their cities were destroyed and laid in ruins; no man was to be found in them, no inhabitant, all were slain or carried into captivity. The enemies did it, but God avows it: I cut them off, says he. And God designed this for an admonition to Jerusalem (Eze. 23:9, 11): "I said, Surely thou wilt fear me; surely these judgments upon others will deter thee from the like wicked practices; surely thou wilt receive instruction by these providences; it ought to be expected that thou wouldst not continue to sin like the nations when thou seest the ruin which their sin brought upon them." They could not but see their own house in danger when their neighbour's was on fire; and, when we are frightened, God should be feared.

3. He had set before them life and death, good and evil, both in his word and in his providence. (1.) He had assured them of the continuance of their prosperity if they would fear him and receive instruction, for so their dwelling would not be cut off as their neighbour's was; if they took the warning given them, and reformed, what was past should be pardoned, and their tranquility lengthened out. (2.) He had made them feel the smart of the rod, though he reprieved them from the sword: Howsoever I punished them, that, being chastened, they might not be condemned. Such various methods did God take with them, to reclaim them, but all in vain; they were not won upon by gentle methods, nor had severe ones any effect, for they rose early, and corrupted all their doings; they were more resolute and eager in their wicked courses than ever, more studious and solicitous in making provision for their lusts, and let slip no opportunity for the gratification of them. God rose up early, to send them his prophets, to reduce and reclaim them, but they were up before him, to shut and bolt the door against them. Their wickedness was universal: All their doings were corrupted; and it was all owing to themselves; they could not lay the blame upon the tempter, but they alone must bear it; they themselves wilfully and designedly corrupted all their doings; for every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust and enticed.

Calvin's Commentary

3. Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

3. Principes ejus in medio ejus, leones rugientes; judices ejus lupi vespertini, non lacerant ad mane (alii non differunt, nempe ossa comminuere; sed [mrg], proprie significat, conterere vel, frangere ergo de ossibus loquitur Propheta, quod scilicet non expectarent usque ad mane, ut ipsa contererent dentibus; sed prae fame, vel potius rabie praedam statim lacerarent; imo etiam contererent ossa dentibus.)

The Prophet now explains what we have stated respecting plunder and fraud. He confirms that he had not without reason called Jerusalem hyvnh, eiune, a rapacious city, or one given to plunder; for the princes were like lions and the judges like wolves. And when he speaks of judges, he does not spare the common people; but he shows that all orders were then corrupt: for though no justice or equity is regarded by the people, there will yet remain some shame among the judges, so as to retain the people at least within some limits, that an extreme licentiousness may not prevail: but when robbery is practiced in the court of justice, what can be said of such a city? We hence see that the Prophet in these words describes an extreme confusion: The princes of Jerusalem, he says, are lions. And we have elsewhere similar declarations; for the Prophets, when it was their object to condemn all from the least to the greatest, did yet direct their discourse especially to the judges.

And this is worthy of being noticed, for there was then no Church of God, except at Jerusalem. Yet the Prophet says, that the judges, and prophets, and priests, were all apostates. What comfort could the faithful have had? But we hence see that the fear of God had not wholly failed in his elect, and that they firmly and with an invincible heart contended against all offenses and trials of this kind. Let us also learn to fortify ourselves at this day with the same courage, so that we may not faint, however much impiety may everywhere prevail, and all religion may seem extinct among men.

But we may also hence learn, how foolishly the Papists pride themselves in their vain titles, as though they thought that God was bound as it were to them, because they have bishops and pastors. But the Prophet shows, that even those who performed the ordinary office of executing the laws could yet be the wicked and perfidious despisers of God. He also shows, that neither prophets nor priests ought to be spared; for when God sets them over his Church, he gives them no power to tyrannize, so that they might dare to do anything with impunity, and not be reproved. For though the priesthood under the law was sacred, we yet see that it was subject to correction. So let no one at this day claim for himself a privilege, as though he was exempt from all instruction and reproof, while occupying a high station among the people of God.

He distinguishes between princes and judges; and the reason is, because the kingdom was as yet standing. So the courtiers, who were in favor and authority with the king, drew a part of the spoil to themselves, and the judges devoured another part. Though Scripture often makes no difference between these two names, yet I doubt not but he means by srym, sherim, princes, the chiefs who were courtiers; and he calls them sphtym, shepthim, judges, who administered justice. And he says that the judges were evening wolves, that is, hungry, for wolves become furious in the evening when they have been roaming about all day and have found nothing. As their want sharpens the savageness of wolves, so the Prophet says that the judges were hungry like evening wolves, whose hunger renders them furious. And for the same purpose he adds, that they broke not the bones in the morning; that is, they waited not till the dawn to break the bones; [107] for when they devoured the flesh they also employed their teeth in breaking the bones, because their voracity was so great. We now apprehend the Prophet's meaning. It afterwards follows--

Footnotes:

[107] This is the explanation of Grotius, Mede, and Henderson. The latter's version is--"They gnaw no bones in the morning;" i.e., all is devoured in the night. Newcome, adopting the conjecture of Houbigant, supposes the true reading to be [ydmv], and gives this rendering--"They wait not until the morning," which seems to have no meaning in this connection. What Cocceius proposes is more probable--"Who have not gnawed in the morning;" and on this account they were exceedingly voracious in the evening. But the idea of our common version is very appropriate; it implies that they were like wild beasts prowling all night, and carrying as it were their prey to their dens, that they might devour it there in the morning. This is the view taken by Henry. "They devour the flesh," says Adam Clarke, "in the night, and gnaw the bones, and extract the marrow afterwards."--Ed.

Links

Zephaniah 3 Commentaries: Barnes • Calvin • Clarke • Darby • Gill • Geneva • Guzik • JFB • Keil / Delitzsch • KJV Translators' • Henry's Concise • Matthew Henry • Scofield • TSK • Wesley

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