Albert Barnes Commentary Zephaniah 3:4

"Her prophets are light and treacherous persons; her priests have profaned the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law." — Zephaniah 3:4 (ASV)

Her prophets are light—boiling and bubbling up, like water boiling over, empty boasters claiming the gift of prophecy, which they do not have; “boldly and rashly pouring out what they willed as they willed;” promising good things which will not be. So they are “her” prophets, to whom they prophesy smooth things , “the prophets of this people” not the prophets of God; “treacherous persons” (literally, men of treacheries) wholly given to manifold treacheries against God in whose Name they spoke and to the people whom they deceived.

Jerome: “They spoke as if from the mouth of the Lord and uttered everything against the Lord.” The leaders of the people, those who profess to lead it aright, Isaiah says, are its misleaders (Isaiah 9:15; Isaiah 9:16 in English). Your prophets, Jeremiah says, have seen vain and foolish things for you; they have seen for you false visions and causes of banishment (Lamentations 2:14).

Her priests have polluted her sanctuary—Literally, “holiness,” and so holy rites, persons (Ezra 8:28), things, places (as the sanctuary), sacrifices.

All these they polluted, being themselves polluted. They polluted first themselves, then the holy things which they handled, handling them as they should not: carelessly and irreverently, not as ordained by God; turning them to their own use and self-indulgence, instead of the glory of God. Then they polluted them in the eyes of the people, making them to abhor the offering of the Lord (1 Samuel 2:17), since, living scandalously, they themselves regarded the Ministry entrusted to them by God so lightly.

Their office was to put difference between holy and unholy and between clean and unclean, and to teach the children all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by Moses (Leviticus 10:10–11); that they should sanctify themselves and be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (Leviticus 11:44; Leviticus 19:2, etc.).

But they on the contrary, God says by Ezekiel, have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no difference between holy and profane, and have taught none between clean and unclean (Ezekiel 22:26). “Holy” and “unholy” being the contradictory of each other, these changed what God had hallowed into its exact contrary. It was not a mere shortcoming, but an annihilation (so to speak) of God’s purposes.

Cyril: “The priests of the Church then must keep strict watch, not to profane holy things. There is not one mode only of profaning them, but many and diverse. For priests should be purified both in soul and body, and to cast aside every form of abominable pleasure. Rather, they should be resplendent with zeal in well-doing, remembering what Paul says, Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).”

They have oppressed, done violence, to the law—Openly violating it; or straining it, or secretly wresting and using its forms to wrong and violence, as in the case of Naboth and of Him, of whom Naboth to this extent bore the image. We have a law, and by our law He ought to die (John 19:7).

Law exists to restrain human violence; these reversed God’s ordinances. Violence and law changed places: first, they did violence to the majesty of the law, which was the very voice of God, and then, through profaning it, did violence to man.

In this, they were forerunners of those who, when Christ came, transgressed the commandment of God, and made it of none effect by their traditions (Matthew 15:6); omitting also the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith; full of extortion and excess! (Matthew 23:23, Matthew 23:25).