[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 לֵָכן 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_. [188] Lit. _hero_, _mighty man_. [189] Heb. _will be silent in_, יַחֲרִישׁ, but not in harmony with the next clause. LXX. and Syr. render _will make new_, which translates יַחֲדִישׁ, a form that does not elsewhere occur, though that is no objection to finding it in Zephaniah, or יְחַדֵּשׁ. Hitzig: _He makes new things in His love_. Buhl: _He renews His love_. Schwally suggests יחדה, _He rejoices in His love_. [190] LXX. _In the days of thy festival_, which it takes with the previous verse. The Heb. construction is ungrammatical, though not unprecedented—the construct state before a preposition. Besides נוגי is obscure in meaning. It is a Ni. pt. for נוגה from יגה, _to be sad_: cf. the Pi. in Lam. iii. 33. But the Hiphil הוגה in 2 Sam. xx. 13, followed (as here) by מן, means _to thrust away from_, and that is probably the sense here. [191] LXX. _thine oppressed_ in acc. governed by the preceding verb, which in LXX. begins the verse.