[178] A frequent phrase of Jeremiah’s.
[179] משפטי, decree, ordinance, decision.
[180] Heb. My anger. LXX. omits.
[181] That is to say, the prophet returns to that general judgment of the whole earth, with which in his first discourse he had already threatened Judah. He threatens her with it again in this eighth verse, because, as he has said in the preceding ones, all other warnings have failed. The eighth verse therefore follows naturally upon the seventh, just as naturally as in Amos iv. ver. 12, introduced by the same לָכֵן as here, follows its predecessors. The next two verses of the text, however, describe an opposite result: instead of the destruction of the heathen, they picture their conversion, and it is only in the eleventh verse that we return to the main subject of the passage, Judah herself, who is represented (in harmony with the close of Zephaniah’s first discourse) as reduced to a righteous and pious remnant. Vv. 9 and 10 are therefore obviously a later insertion, and we pass to the eleventh verse. Vv. 9 and 10: For then (this has no meaning after ver. 8) will I give to the peoples a pure lip (elliptic phrase: turn to the peoples a pure lip—i.e. turn their evil lip into a pure lip: pure = picked out, select, excellent, cf. Isa. xlix. 2), that they may all of them call upon the name of the Lord, that they may serve Him with one consent (Heb. shoulder, LXX. yoke). From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia—there follows a very obscure phrase, עֲתָרַי בַּת־פּוּצַי, suppliants (?) of the daughter of My dispersed, but Ewald of the daughter of Phut—they shall bring Mine offering.
[182] Wellhausen despair.
[183] Heb. the jubilant ones of thine arrogance.
[184] See vv. 4, 5, 11.
[185] Heb. the.
[186] מִשְׁפָּטַיִךְ. But Wellhausen reads מְשׁוֹפְטַיִךְ, thine adversaries: cf. Job ix. 15.
[187] Reading תִּרְאִי (with LXX., Wellhausen and Schwally) for תִּירָאִי of the Hebrew text, fear.