[109] Chap. i. 14b.
[110] In fact this forms one difficulty about the conclusion which we have reached as to the date. We saw that one reason against putting the Book of Zephaniah after the great Reforms of 621 was that it betrayed no sign of their effects. But it might justly be answered that, if Zephaniah prophesied before 621, his book ought to betray some sign of the approach of reform. Still the explanation given above is satisfactory.
[111] Chap. i. 12.
[112] So wine upon the lees is a generous wine according to Isa. xxv. 6.
[113] Jer. xlviii. 11.
[114] The text reads the ruins (מַכְשֵׁלוֹת, unless we prefer with Wellhausen מִכְשֹׁלים, the stumbling-blocks, i.e. idols) with the wicked, and I will cut off man (LXX. the lawless) from off the face of the ground. Some think the clause partly too redundant, partly too specific, to be original. But suppose we read וְהִכְשַׁלְתִּי (cf. Mal. ii. 8, Lam. i. 14 and passim: this is more probable than Schwally’s כִּשַׁלְתִּי, op. cit., p. 169), and for אדם the reading which probably the LXX. had before them, אדם רשע (Job xx. 29, xxvii. 13, Prov. xi. 7: cf. אדם בליעל Prov. vi. 12) or אדם עַוָּל (cf. iii. 5), we get the rendering adopted in the translation above. Some think the whole passage an intrusion, yet it is surely probable that the earnest moral spirit of Zephaniah would aim at the wicked from the very outset of his prophecy.
[115] LXX. names, held by some to be the original reading (Schwally, etc.). In that case the phrase might have some allusion to the well-known promise in Deut., the place where I shall set My name. This is more natural than a reference to Hosea ii. 19, which is quoted by some.
[116] Some Greek codd. take Baal as fem., others as plur.
[117] So LXX.
[118] Heb. reads and them who bow themselves, who swear, by Jehovah. So LXX. B with and before who swear. But LXX. A omits and. LXX. Q omits them who bow themselves. Wellhausen keeps the clause with the exception of who swear, and so reads (to the end of verse) them who bow themselves to Jehovah and swear by Milcom.