Zefanya 1:14

1:14 The Lord’s great day of judgment ¹  is almost here;

it is approaching very rapidly!

There will be a bitter sound on the Lord’s day of judgment;

at that time warriors will cry out in battle. ² 

Zefanya 1:7

1:7 Be silent before the Lord God, ³ 

for the Lord’s day of judgment ⁴  is almost here. ⁵ 

The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal; ⁶ 

he has ritually purified ⁷  his guests.

Zefanya 3:2

3:2 She is disobedient; ⁸ 

she refuses correction. ⁹ 

She does not trust the Lord;

she does not seek the advice of ¹⁰  her God.

Zefanya 2:6

2:6 The seacoast ¹¹  will be used as pasture lands ¹²  by the shepherds

and as pens for their flocks.

Zefanya 1:10

1:10 On that day,” says the Lord,

“a loud cry will go up ¹³  from the Fish Gate, ¹⁴ 

wailing from the city’s newer district, ¹⁵ 

and a loud crash ¹⁶  from the hills.

[1:14]  ¹ tn Heb “The great day of the Lord.” The words “of judgment” are supplied in the translation here and later in this verse for clarity. See the note on the expression “day of judgment” in v. 7.

[1:14]  ² tn Heb “the sound of the day of the Lord, bitter [is] one crying out there, a warrior.” The present translation does four things: (1) It takes מַר (mar, “bitter”) with what precedes (contrary to the accentuation of the MT). (2) It understands the participle צָרַח (tsarakh, “cry out in battle”) as verbal with “warrior” as its subject. (3) It takes שָׁם (sham, “there”) in a temporal sense, meaning “then, at that time.” (4) It understands “warrior” as collective.

[1:7]  ³ tn Heb “Lord Lord.” The phrase אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (adonai yÿhvih) is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God.”

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[1:7]  sn The origin of the concept of “the day of the Lord” is uncertain. It may have originated in the ancient Near Eastern idea of the sovereign’s day of conquest, where a king would boast that he had concluded an entire military campaign in a single day (see D. Stuart, “The Sovereign’s Day of Conquest,” BASOR 221 [1976]: 159-64). In the OT the expression is applied to several acts of divine judgment, some historical and others still future (see A. J. Everson, “The Days of Yahweh,” JBL 93 [1974]: 329-37). In the OT the phrase first appears in Amos (assuming that Amos predates Joel and Obadiah), where it seems to refer to a belief on the part of the northern kingdom that God would intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge the nation’s enemies. Amos affirms that the Lord’s day of judgment is indeed approaching, but he declares that it will be a day of disaster, not deliverance, for Israel. Here in Zephaniah, the “day of the Lord” includes God’s coming judgment of Judah, as well as a more universal outpouring of divine anger.

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Or “near.”

[1:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “a sacrifice.” This same word also occurs in the following verse.

[1:7]  sn Because a sacrificial meal presupposes the slaughter of animals, it is used here as a metaphor of the bloody judgment to come.

[1:7]  ⁷ tn Or “consecrated” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[3:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “she does not hear a voice” Refusing to listen is equated with disobedience.

[3:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “she does not receive correction.” The Hebrew phrase, when negated, refers elsewhere to rejecting verbal advice (Jer 17:23; 32:33; 35:13) and refusing to learn from experience (Jer 2:30; 5:3).

[3:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “draw near to.” The present translation assumes that the expression “draw near to” refers to seeking God’s will (see 1 Sam 14:36).

[2:6]  ¹¹ tn The NIV here supplies the phrase “where the Kerethites dwell” (“Kerethites” is translated in v. 5 as “the people who came from Crete”) as an interpretive gloss, but this phrase is not in the MT. The NAB likewise reads “the coastland of the Cretans,” supplying “Cretans” here.

[2:6]  ¹² tn The Hebrew phrase here is נְוֹת כְּרֹת (nÿvot kÿrot). The first word is probably a plural form of נָוָה (navah, “pasture”). The meaning of the second word is unclear. It may be a synonym of the preceding word (cf. NRSV “pastures, meadows for shepherds”); there is a word כַּר (kar, “pasture”) in biblical Hebrew, but elsewhere it forms its plural with a masculine ending. Some have suggested the meaning “wells” or “caves” used as shelters (cf. NEB “shepherds’ huts”); in this case, one might translate, “The seacoast will be used for pasturelands; for shepherds’ wells/caves.”

[1:10]  ¹³ tn The words “will go up” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[1:10]  ¹⁴ sn The Fish Gate was located on Jerusalem’s north side (cf. 2 Chr 33:14; Neh 3:3; 12:39).

[1:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from the second area.” This may refer to an area northwest of the temple where the rich lived (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 86; cf. NASB, NRSV “the Second Quarter”; NIV “the New Quarter”).

[1:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “great breaking.”