Zephaniah 3:19

Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee,.... Or, "I will do" (w); their business for them; "slay" them, as the Vulgate Latin version; and make an entire destruction of them, as the Targum; bring them to utter ruin.

Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.

Behold; mark well. I will undo; I will deal with them, do their work for them, as we say, I will break their power and dissolve their kingdom. All that afflict thee; Babylonians who afflicted the Jews. and who were undone by Cyrus and his Persians. I will save her that halteth; who is in great trouble and ready to fall, as ,17; who is under greatest distress, and hath least strength to bear, or get out. Driven out; by force of the enemy, carried away captives, and scattered into far remote countries. Get them praise and fame; vindicate them, as a people that are not rejected of their God, as the people of the great God of heaven and earth, as . In every land; among all people with whom they dwelt as strangers. Where they have been put to shame; were scorned and reproached as slaves and abjects, whose God could not, or would not, help them, or had cast them off, and none other would take care of them. But now, gathered together by the Lord, they shall appear to be still his peculiar people and his delight.

Zephaniah 3:19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.Ver. 19. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee] Heb. Behold me; look not to thyself as unworthy or unlikely to inherit such precious promises; for, "not for your sakes do this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you; but for mine own holy name’ s sake," Ezekiel 36:22; Ezekiel 36:32 : your unworthiness shall serve for a foil to set forth the freeness of my love; your unlikeliness the greatness of my power; "my grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is perfected in thy weakness," 2 Corinthians 12:9. Again, look not to thine enemies, how many and mighty they are, how witty and wealthy, how active and combined ( loricatus incedit Satan et cataphractus, saith Luther), let thine eyes be upon me, as Jehoshaphat’ s were, when he knew not whither else to look, 2 Chronicles 20:12; let thine heart be lift up in my ways, as his was, 2 Chronicles 17:6; behold me, behold me, Isaiah 65:1. Look not downward on the rushing and roaring streams of miseries and troubles which run so swiftly under thee, for then thou wilt be giddy; but look upward, and steadfastly fasten on my power and promise; believe in the Lord thy God, so shalt thou be established; believe his prophets, so shalt thou prosper, 2 Chronicles 20:20; thine enemies also shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places, Deuteronomy 33:29. I will undo them, saith God here; Heb. I will do them ( per antiphrasin); or, I will bruise them and break them in pieces, as R. David rendereth it, by comparing Ezekiel 23:3; Ezekiel 23:21. I will not only repress them, but root them out. Those that offer violence to the Church, like blind Samson, they lay hands upon their pillars, to pluck the house upon their own heads. And I will save her that halteth] As enemies shall not hinder the Church’ s happiness, so neither shall her own infirmities. Grant she be lame and luxated, maimed and disjointed, so that she goeth sidling and halteth downright, Psalms 38:17; say she be driven out of her country as an exile, out of all companies, as an outcast (whom no man seeketh after, Jeremiah 30:17), and out of all good conceit of herself, as an abject, vile in her own eyes not fit for the communion of saints or kingdom of heaven; yet I will save her, I will gather her, like as the gathering host in the wilderness took up the lame, feeble and those that were left behind, see Micah 4:6, and Ezekiel 32:16; I will seek that which was lost and reduce that which was driven away.

(19) I will undo.—Better, I will deal with, as in Ezekiel 23:25. The clauses following are based on Micah 4:6; Deuteronomy 26:19.

Verse 19. I will undo all that afflict thee] They who have persecuted you shall be punished for it. It shows much malignity and baseness of mind, to afflict or reproach those who are lying under the chastising hand of God. This was the conduct of the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, when the Jews were in adversity; and how severely did the Lord punish them for it! And he gave this as the reason for the severity of the punishment. The first clause here is translated thus by Abp. Newcome: "Behold I will work with thee for thy sake at that time." The original is obscure; and it may bear the above sense. I will save her that halteth] See Micah 4:6, where there is a parallel place. And gather her that was driven out] By captivity. The reference may be to renewing the covenant with the Jews, who were considered as an unfaithful spouse divorced by her husband. I will bring her back to my house. I will get them praise and fame in every land] They shall become a great, a good, and a useful people. And as they are now a proverb of reproach, full of base wiles and degrading selfishness, they shall lose this character, and be totally changed; and they shall be as eminent for excellence, as they were before for baseness, in those countries where they had sojourned.

19. I will undo all that afflict thee] As R.V., I will deal with all. I will save her that halteth] The people are spoken of under the metaphor of a flock, in which are some that are lame, and to which belong some that have been driven away. Hence the use of the fem. gender. Comp. Ezekiel 34:16, “I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back again that which was driven away.” Micah 4:6-7. I will get them praise] As R.V., I will make them (to be) a praise and a name. Jeremiah 33:9, “and this city shall be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for a glory before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them.” Cf. Jeremiah 13:11. The precise sense is not clear. In the passages in Jer. the people, being righteous and blessed, are the source of praise and renown to Jehovah, whose people they are. But the meaning might be that the people themselves are the object of praise by the nations; Isaiah 61:9; Isaiah 62:7. Both ideas are elsewhere expressed; Jehovah bestows His glory on Israel (Isaiah 60:2), and this glory is reflected back upon Him, and He is glorified in Israel (Isaiah 44:23; Isaiah 49:3; Isaiah 60:21; Isaiah 61:3). In every land … put to shame] A.V. marg., Heb. (every land) of their shame. R.V. renders: whose shame hath been in all the earth. Both renderings are possible, but both are unnatural. R.V. lays an unnatural emphasis upon the pronoun: “I will make them a praise and a name, whose shame,” &c., whereas “them” seems rather to refer back to “her that halteth” and “her that was driven away,” or, to the people generally. On the other hand, the construction assumed by A.V. is ungrammatical, although occasional instances of it appear. The Sept. rightly felt that the natural sense of the passage was: and I will make them a praise and a name in all the earth (Zephaniah 3:20), and so rendered. The Heb. word their shame, still remaining undisposed of in this rendering, the Sept. attached to the next verse: and they shall be ashamed at that time. This is quite unsatisfactory. But the analogy of Zep 3:20, a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, suggests that the expression their shame is not original.

Behold, at that time I will undo - (Literally, I deal with . While God punisheth not, He seemeth to sit still Isaiah 18:4, be silent Habakkuk 1:13, asleep Psalms 44:23.

Zephaniah 3:18-20 do not contain the song of rejoicing sung by Jehovah, but rather a series of promises made by him to the redeemed community. Zephaniah 3:18 is very obscure.