Zephaniah 3:4

Her prophets [are] light [and treacherous persons,.... The false prophets, as the Targum and Kimchi explain it: these seem to design the lawyers spoken of in the New Testament, whose business it was

Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. Her prophets are light - persons in whose life and teaching there is no truth gravity, or steadiness.

Her prophets; by education, profession, and unwarranted practice called so, false prophets; such Zedekiah, and probably Chenaanah, &c., were. Are light; unstable and inconstant, ready to comply with humours which they should have reproved, . Treacherous persons; men of treacheries, whatever pleasing temper they seem to be of, yet still they design treachery; the Hebrew seems to run it higher, treacheries in the abstract. Her priests, of the house of Levi, of the stock of Aaron, have polluted the sanctuary; bound by office to keep holy the sanctuary, have defiled it, and all that is holy. Have done violence to the law; wresting it by perverse interpretation to what sense best serveth a corrupt mind.

Zephaniah 3:4 Her prophets [are] light [and] treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.Ver. 4. Her prophets are light] Rash, headlong, futilous, debauched (as the French translateth it), aerial, fantastic, weightless, worthless men, such as in whose doctrine there is no authority, in whose life no gravity, staidness, severity, constancy (Rodulphus, Archbishop of Canterberry next after Anselm, was surnamed Nugax for his jesting and toying): like the planet Mercury, they can be good in conjunction with good, and bad with bad; like that French apostate of whom Beza saith that he had religionem ephemeram, for every day a new religion, ab his ad illos, ab illis ad hos leviter iens et levius transiens, double-minded and unstable in all his ways, James 1:8. And treacherous persons] Viri perfidiarum, most perfidious persons. This is their true title, whom the world counteth and calleth facile, facetious, fair conditioned, comporting, condescending, people pleasing preachers. Can there be a worse treachery than to betray men’ s souls, as your Aiones and Negones do, that cry peace, peace, and so betray men to hell. Her priests have polluted the sanctuary] Or holy services. “ Cum coelum terrae commiscent sacra profanis. ” God looks to be sanctified in all those that draw nigh unto him, Leviticus 10:3, that they should be singularly holy, handling the word, sancte magis quam scite with greater reverence than knowledge, (as one once told the wanton vestal), and living so that malice itself may be silenced. God of old appointed both the weights and measures of the sanctuary to be twice as large as those of the commonwealth; to show that he expects much more of those that serve him there than he doth of others. See 1 Kings 7:15 cf. 2 Chronicles 3:15. They have done violence to the law] sc. By their crafty and perverse glosses, setting it on the rack, as it were, and so making it speak more than it would; tawing it with their teeth, as shoemakers do their upper leather, forcing it two miles when it would go but one, yea, murdering it, as Tertullian saith of some, quod caedem scripturarum faciant, that they slaughter the Scriptures to serve their own purposes; for which cause also he calleth Marcion the heretic, Murem Ponticum, the Rat of Pontus, for his arroding and gnawing the text.

(4) Light and treacherous persons.—Better, braggarts and men of treachery.

Verse 4. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons] They have no seriousness, no deep conviction of the awful nature of their office, no concern for the immortal souls of the people. Treacherous persons - they betray the souls of the people for the sake of worldly honour, pleasure, and profit. Even in our own enlightened country we find prophets who prefer hunting the hare or the fox, and pursuing the partridge and pheasant, to visiting the sick, and going after the strayed, lost sheep of the house of Israel. Poor souls! They know neither God nor themselves; and if they did visit the sick, they could not speak to them to exhortation, edification, or comfort. God never called them to his work; therefore they know nothing of it. But O, what an account have these pleasure-taking false prophets to render to the Shepherd of souls! They have done violence to the law.] They have forced wrong constructions on it in order to excuse themselves, and lull the people into spiritual slumber. So we find that it was an ancient practice for men to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction.

4. Her prophets are light] Both the idea and the expression find a parallel in Jeremiah 23:32, “I am against them that prophesy false dreams, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness” (R.V. vain boasting); cf. Lamentations 2:14; Ezekiel 22:28. The figure expressed by “light” is that of the boiling over of water (Genesis 49:4; Judges 9:4), and the word characterizes the prophets as vapourers, extravagant and arrogant in their own imaginations and conceits, their minds lacking the restraint of the word of God under which the true prophets spoke. treacherous persons] lit. men of treacheries, or, perfidiousnesses. The precise sense is not clear. The verb to deal treacherously is often used of falsehood or perfidy toward God; Jeremiah 3:20, “as a wife dealeth treacherously against her husband so have ye dealt treacherously against me O house of Israel;” Hosea 6:7. The idea, however, that the prophets dealt unfaithfully with God in giving out the imaginations of their own heart as His word to men (Hitzig), is rather strained. In the ethical writings of the Old Testament, such as the Proverbs, “treacherous dealer” is often parallel to “wicked” (Proverbs 2:22; Proverbs 11:6; Proverbs 21:18; cf. Habakkuk 1:13), and means one who acts untruly or wrongfully in regard to moral law. Jeremiah frequently taxes the prophets of his day with immoral conduct (Jeremiah 23:14, Jeremiah 29:23). have polluted the sanctuary] Rather: have profaned that which is holy. Ezekiel 22:26 offers a complete parallel: “Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned mine holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and profane, between the clean and the unclean.” The last words explain at least one way of doing “violence” or wrong to the law. Jeremiah 2:8 makes similar charges against the various official classes.

Her prophets are light - , boiling and bubbling, up, like water boiling over , empty boasters claiming the gift of prophecy, which they have not; “boldly and rashly pouring out what they willed as

WOE UPON THE CITY OF , Zephaniah 3:1-7.In Zephaniah 3:1, the prophet turns once more to Jerusalem, “the rebellious and unclean, the city of oppression.” He strikes the same notes as in chapter i,