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Zephaniah 1 Bible Commentary
Bible Commentary
John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
Zephaniah 1
John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
<< Zephaniah
Zephaniah 1
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Zephaniah 1
After the title of the book,
Zephaniah 1:1
, follows the Lord's threatening of the land of Judea with an utter consumption of it, and of all creatures in it, for the sins of its inhabitants, especially their idolatry and apostasy,
Zephaniah 1:2
, and this is represented under the notion of a sacrifice, to which guests are bid; and which even princes, and those of the blood royal, should not escape, nor ministers of state, or such who filled their masters' houses with violence,
Zephaniah 1:7
. Some particular places are mentioned, where there should be a great noise of crying and howling, and especially Jerusalem, which should be diligently searched, and its goods become a booty, and its houses desolate,
Zephaniah 1:10
. This destruction is spoken of as near at hand, and is described as very terrible and distressing,
Zephaniah 1:14
and as inevitable; nothing would be able to deliver from it,
Zephaniah 1:18
Verse 1.
The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi
,.... This is the title of the book, which expresses the subject matter of it, the word of the Lord; the word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum; and shows the divine authority of it; that it was not of himself, nor from any man, but was of God; as well as describes the penman of it by his descent: who or what this his father was; whether a prophet, according to the rule the Jews give, that, when the name of a prophet and his father's name are mentioned, he is a prophet, the son of a prophet; or, whether a prince, a person of some great family, and even of the blood royal, as some have thought, is not certain; or who those after mentioned:
the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah
; which last name, consisting of the same letters with Hezekiah, king of Judah, some have thought, as Aben Ezra, that he is intended; and that Zephaniah was a great-grandson of his; and which some think is confirmed by his style and diction, and by the freedom he used with the king's family,
Zephaniah 1:8
but it is objected, that, if so it was, Hizkiah, or Hezekiah, would have been called king of Judah; that it does not appear that Hezekiah had any other son besides Manasseh; and that there was not a sufficient distance of time from Hezekiah for four descents; and that, in fact, there were but three generations from him to Josiah, in whose days Zephaniah prophesied, as follows; though it is very probable that these progenitors of the prophet were men of note and character, and therefore mentioned, as well as to distinguish him from others of the same name, who lived
in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah
: not Amos, as the Arabic version: Amon and Manasseh, who reigned between Hezekiah and Josiah, were both wicked princes, and introduced idolatrous worship among the Jews; which Josiah in the twelfth year of his reign began to purge the people from, and endeavoured a reformation; but whether it was before or after that Zephaniah delivered out this prophecy is not certain; it may seem to be before, by the corruption of the times described in it; and so it may be thought to have some influence upon the after reformation; though it is thought by many it was after; since, had he been in this office before the finding of the book of the law, he, and not Huldah the prophetess, would have been consulted,
2 Kings 22:14
nor could the people so well have been taxed with a perversion of the law, had it not been as yet found,
Zephaniah 3:4
and, besides, the reformation seems to be hinted at in this prophecy, since mention is made of the remnant of Baal, which supposes a removal of many of his images; and also notice is taken of some that apostatized after the renewal of the covenant,
Zephaniah 1:4
moreover, the time of the Jews' destruction and captivity is represented as very near,
Zephaniah 1:7
which began a little after the death of Josiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; to which Dr. Lightfoot {f} adds, that the prophet prophesies against the king's children, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, for their new fashions, and newfangled apparel,
Zephaniah 1:8
and therefore it must be in the latter part of his reign; and, if so, it shows how a people may relapse into sin after the greatest endeavours for their good, and the best of examples set them. Mr. Whiston {g} and Mr. Bedford {h} place him in the latter part of his reign, about 611 or 612 B.C.: there were three that prophesied about this time, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Huldah the prophetess; of whom the Jewish Rabbins say, as Kimchi quotes them, Jeremiah prophesied in the streets, Zephaniah in the synagogues, and Huldah among the women.
{f} Works, vol. 1. p. 117. {g} Chronological Tables, cent. 9. {h} Scripture Chronology, p. 674.
Verse 2.
I will utterly consume all [things] from off the land, saith the Lord.
That is, from the land of Judah, by means of the Chaldeans or Babylonians: this is a general denunciation of the judgments of God, the particulars follow: or, "in gathering I will gather"; all good things out of the land; all the necessaries of life, and blessings of Providence; all that is for the sustenance and pleasure of man, as well as all creatures, by death or captivity; and so the land should be entirely stripped, and left naked and bare. The phrase denotes the certainty of the thing, as well as the utter, entire, and total consumption that should be made, and the vehemence and earnestness in which it is expressed.
Verse 3.
I will consume man and beast
,.... Wicked men for their sins, and beasts for the sins of men; and, as a punishment for them, the creatures whom they have abused to the gratifying of their lusts:
I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea
; so that there shall be none for the use of man, which are both delicate food; the latter were not consumed at the general deluge. Kimchi thinks this is said by way of hyperbole; but it is possible for these to be consumed, as men by famine, pestilence, and captivity, and beasts by murrain; so the fowls of the air by the noisomeness of it; and the fishes of the sea, that is, such as were in the sea of Tiberias, and other lakes in Judea, by the stagnation of the waters, or by some disease sent among them; unless wicked men, comparable to them, are intended; though they are expressly mentioned, both before and after:
and the stumblingblocks with the wicked
: that is, idols, which are stumblingblocks to men, and cause them to offend and fall; these, together with those that made them, and the priests that sacrificed unto them, and the people that worshipped them, should be consumed from off the land: or, "the stumblingblocks of the wicked"; for
is sometimes used as a sign of the genitive case, as Noldius {i} observes; and so the Vulgate Latin version and the Targum render it:
and I will cut off men from off the land, saith the Lord
: this is repeated for the certainty of it; or else this designs another sort of men from the former; and that, as before wicked men are designed, here such as are not perfectly wicked, as Kimchi observes; yea, the righteous should be carried captive, so that the land should be left desolate, without men, good or bad; for even good men may fall in a general calamity, and be cut off from the land, though not from the Lord. The Septuagint indeed here render it wicked men. The phrase, "saith the Lord," is twice expressed, for the certain confirmation of it; for it may be concluded it will be, since God has said it again and again that it shall be.
{i} Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 122.
Verse 4.
I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah
,.... Under whom the tribe of Benjamin is comprehended, which are only designed; the ten tribes having been carried captive in Hezekiah's time many years before this: not "to Judah," as beckoning to come and hearken to him, as calling to repentance and reformation; this he had done, but was rejected, and therefore determines to stretch out his hand "upon" them; nor "over Judah," to protect and defend them; but "upon Judah," exerting his power, stirring up his wrath, and executing his vengeance; and this is dreadful and intolerable to bear! and when his hand is stretched out, it cannot be turned back; and when laid on, can never be removed, till he pleases:
and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
; the metropolis of Judea, the royal seat of the kings of the house of David; where were the temple of the Lord; the ark, the symbol of his presence; the altar, where his priests sacrificed, and the place where his people worshipped; and yet these inhabitants should not escape the hand of the Lord, having sinned against him; nor should these things be any security to them:
and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place
; either what of the idolatry of Baal, or belonging to it, remained among the Jews after the ten tribes were carried captive; which must be the sense, if this prophecy was before the reformation was begun by Josiah; or, if after, the meaning is, what was left unremoved by him, as any of the images of Baal, or altars erected for his worship, or vessels consecrated to his service, or groves that were for his use; all which would be cut off and destroyed by the Chaldeans, as well as the worshippers of him that remained:
[and] the name of the Chemarims with the priests
; that is, the priests of Baal, with the priests of the tribe of Levi, who sometimes tampered and officiated with them in idolatrous service; for the word "Chemarim" is translated "idolatrous priests,"
2 Kings 23:5
said to be put down by Josiah, in whose days Zephaniah prophesied; and must be the same with these, and it is used for such in
Hosea 10:5
so called, either from the black garments they wore, as some think; or from the colour of their faces, smutted with the smoke of the incense they frequently offered; or of the fires in which they sacrificed, or made the children to pass through to Molech. Hillerus {k} thinks they are the same with those heathen priests called "Phallophori"; deriving the word from one in the Arabic language, which has the signification of the "Phalli"; which were obscene images, carried about in an impudent manner by the priests of Bacchus, in the performance of his sacred rites: the carrying of them was first instituted by Isis, as Plutarch {l} says; and if this was the case here, it is no wonder they should be so severely threatened. Some take them to be a sort of servants or ministers to the priests of Baal, who waited on them at the time of service; and so are distinguished from them in this clause, taking the word "priests" in it to design the priests of Baal; and the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "the name of sextons with the priests." The word is used now by the Jews for Popish monks that live in cloisters; and Elias Levita {m} thinks these here are so called from their living in such like recluse places. The Targum is, "and the name of their worshippers with their priests;" one and the other; priests of Baal, and apostate priests of the Lord; the worshippers of Baal, and those that attend upon his priests, shall all feel the weight of Jehovah's hand, and the lighting down of his arm with indignation.
{k} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 113. {l} De Iside & Osiride. {m} Tishbi, p. 163. Vid. Buxtorf. Lex. Talmud. in voce
Verse 5.
And upon them that worship the host of heaven upon the house tops
,.... The sun, moon, and stars, which some worshipped upon their house tops; the roofs of their houses being flat, as the roofs of the houses of the Jews generally were; from hence they had a full view of the host of heaven, and worshipped them openly; and fancied, the nearer they were to them, the more acceptable was their service; see
Jeremiah 19:13
and them that worship, [and] that swear the Lord, and that swear by Malcham
; that is, that worship the true God, or at least pretend to do so, and swear by him when they take an oath: or, "that swear to the Lord"; as the words {n} may be rendered; that swear allegiance to him, to be true and faithful to him, to serve and obey him, and to keep his statutes and ordinances; and yet they swear by Malcham also, or Milchom, or Melchom, the same with Molech, or Moloch, the god of the Ammonites. These were such as partly worshipped God, and partly idols; they divided their religion and devotion between them, sometimes served the one, and sometimes the other; they halted between two opinions, and were a sort of occasional conformists; and such were as detestable to God as those that worshipped idols; as the Papists are, who pretend to worship God and their images, or God in them, and with them; and so all such persons that seek for justification and salvation, partly by their own works, and partly by Christ, are displeasing to the Lord, and miss of the thing; stumbling at the stumbling stone, and so fall and perish.
hwhyl Myebvnh
"qui jurant Domino," Drusius; "qui jurant Jehovae," Cocceius; "jurantes Domino Jehovae," Burkius.
Verse 6.
And them that are turned back from the Lord
,.... Who once were worshippers of him, but now become apostates, and had turned their backs on him and his worship. Some think this describes those who renewed their covenant with God in Josiah's time, and after that revolted from him, who must be very abominable to him; and therefore he threatens to stretch out his hand, and pour out his wrath upon them:
and [those] that have not sought the Lord, nor inquired for him
; profane abandoned sinners, that lived without God in the world, and as if there was no God; never concerned themselves about the worship of him, having no faith in him, love to him, or fear and reverence of him; so far were they from seeking him in the first place diligently, zealously, and with their whole heart, that they never sought him at all; nor took any pains to get any knowledge of him, or of his mind and will, and manner of worship; but were altogether careless about these things, and unconcerned for them.
Verse 7.
Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God
,.... When he comes forth, and appears in the way of his judgments, do not dispute the point with him, or pretend to offer reasons against his proceedings, or in order to disprove the justice of them; stand in awe and reverence of him, who is the Lord God omniscient and omnipotent, holy, just, and true; humble yourselves under his mighty hand; be still, and know that he is God; and let not one murmuring and repining word come out of your mouth. The Targum is, "let all the wicked of the earth perish from before the Lord God:"
for the day of the Lord [is] at hand
; the time of his vengeance on the Jewish nation for their sins, which he had fixed in his mind, and had given notice of by his prophets: this began to take place at Josiah's death, after which the Jews enjoyed little peace and prosperity; and his successor reigned but three months, was deposed by the king of Egypt, and carried thither captive, and there died; and Jehoiakim, that succeeded him, in the fourth year of his reign was carried captive into Babylon, or died by the way thither; so that this day might well be said to be at hand:
for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice
: his people the Jews, who were to fall a victim to his vengeance, and a sacrifice to his justice, to atone in some measure for the injury done to it by their sins; thus they that had offered sacrifice to idols, and neglected the sacrifices of the Lord, and especially the great sacrifice of Christ typified by them, the only proper atoning one, should themselves become a sacrifice to the just resentment of God; this he had prepared in his mind, determined should be done, and would bring about in his providence; see
Isaiah 34:6
he hath bid his guests
: or "called ones" {o}; the Chaldeans, whom he invited and called to this sacrifice and feast: or whom he "prepared," or "sanctified" {p}; he prepared them in his purpose and providence; he set them apart for this service, and called them to it; to be the sacrificers of this people, and to feast upon them; to spoil them of their goods and riches, and enjoy them. These guests may also design, as Kimchi observes, the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, invited to feast upon the slain; see
Ezekiel 39:17
"vocatos suos," Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Burkius; "invitatos suos," Vatablus, Tigurine verson, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius. {p}
"praeparavit," Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so Ben Melech; "sanctificavit," V. L. Montanus, Cocceius, Burkius.
Verse 8.
And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's sacrifice
,.... When the above sacrifice prepared shall be offered, and the slaughter of his people made, when his wrath shall be poured out upon them, within the time of its beginning and ending:
that I will punish the princes, and the king's children
; either the children of Josiah, who, though a good prince, his children did evil in the sight of the Lord, and were punished by him: Jehoahaz, after a three months' reign was carried down to Egypt, and died there; Jehoiakim, his elder brother, that succeeded him, rebelling against the king of Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign, fell into his hands, and died, and was buried with the burial of an ass; and Jeconiah his son was carried captive into Babylon, and there remained to the day of his death; and with him were carried the whole royal family, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour,
2 Kings 24:14
or else the children of Zedekiah, another son of Josiah, and the last of the kings of Judah, who was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who before his eyes slew his sons, and all the princes of Judah, and then put out his eyes, and bound him in chains,
Jeremiah 52:10
and thus this prophecy had its accomplishment:
and all such as are clothed with strange apparel
; either which they put on in honour of the idols they worshipped, as Jarchi; so the heathens wore one sort of garments for one idol, and another sort for another; or these were men of a pharisaical cast, who wore garments different from others, that they might be thought to be very holy and religious, which sense is mentioned by Kimchi; or they were such, which he also observes, who, seeing some to have plenty of good clothes, stole them from them, and put them on; or such who arrayed themselves in garments that did not belong to their sex, men put on women's garments, and women clothed themselves with men's, and both strange apparel; or rather this points at such persons, who, in their apparel, imitated the fashions and customs of foreign nations; which probably began with the king's children and courtiers, and were followed by others. The Targum is, "and upon all those that make a noise at the worship of idols."
Verse 9.
In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold
,.... Not in a ludicrous way, who, by dancing and leaping, made sport for persons, and brought their masters much gain, as the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination did,
Acts 16:16
rather, that entered rashly and irreverently into the house of God; or else in an idolatrous way, who, when they went into an idol's temple, did not tread upon the threshold, but leaped over it, as the priests of Dagon, after the fall of that idol on the threshold,
1 Samuel 5:4
. So the Targum, "and I will visit all those that walk in the laws (or according to the customs) of the Philistines;" whose idol Dagon was: but it seems better to interpret it of such, who, seeing houses full of good things, in a rude, bold, insolent manner, thrust themselves, or jumped into them, and took away what they pleased; or when they returned to their masters' houses with their spoil, who set them on, and encouraged them in these practices, leaped over the threshold for joy of what they had got, as Aben Ezra observes; which agrees with what follows:
which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit
; that is, with goods got by rapine and force, and by fraudulent ways and methods: this is to be understood of the servants of great men, who, to feed the ambition and avarice of their masters, used very oppressive methods with inferior persons to get their substance from them, and gratify their masters. Cocceius interprets these "three" verses of the day of Christ's coming in the flesh being at hand, when the true sacrifice should be offered up, and God would call his people to feed by faith upon it; when all civil power and authority in the sanhedrim and family of David should be removed from the Jews; and all friendship with the nations of the world, signified by likeness of garments; and the priestly dignity, the priests, according to him, being those that leaped over the threshold; that is, of the house of the Lord, the temple, and filled it with the spoil of widows' houses, unsupportable precepts, and false doctrines.
Verse 10.
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord
,.... In the day of the Lord's sacrifice, when he shall punish the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; which, as well as what follows, shall surely come to pass, because the Lord has said it; for not one word of his shall pass away, but all be fulfilled:
[that there shall be] the noise of a cry from the fish gate
; a gate of the city of Jerusalem so called, which suffered as the rest in the destruction of the city by the Babylonians, and, after the captivity, was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah,
Nehemiah 3:3
according to Jerom, it was on the west side of the city, and led to Diospolis and Joppa; and was the nearest road to the Mediterranean sea, or any of the roads to Jerusalem, from whence fish were brought, and brought in by this gate; and very probably the fish market was near it, from whence it had its name; though Cocceius places it in the north corner of the east side of the city, and so was nearer Jordan, the sea of Tiberias, and the city of Tyre, from whence fish might be brought hither, and sold,
Nehemiah 13:16
however, be it where it will, the enemy it seems would attack it, and enter in by it; upon which a hideous cry would be made, either by the assailants, the Chaldeans, at their attack upon it, and entrance through it; or by the inhabitants of it, or that were nearest to it, upon their approach, or both:
and an howling from the second
; either from the second gate; and if the fish gate is the same with the first gate,
Zechariah 14:10
then this may be pertinently called the second. Jarchi calls it the bird gate, which was the second to the fish gate. So the Targum, "from the bird, or the bird gate;" though some copies of it read, from the tower or high fortress: or else this designs the second wall, and the gate in that which answered to the fish gate; for Jerusalem was encompassed with three walls; the fish gate was in the outermost, and this was in the second, to which the Chaldeans came next, and occasioned a dreadful howling and lamentation in the people that dwelt near it. Kimchi interprets it of the school or university that was in Jerusalem; the same word is rendered the cottage in which Huldah the prophetess lived,
2 Kings 22:14
and there, by the Targum, "the house of doctrine or instruction;" so then the sense is, a grievous outcry would be heard from the university or school of the prophets; the enemy having entered it, and were slaying the students, or seizing them in order to carry them captive:
and a great crashing from the hills
; either that were in Jerusalem, as Mount Zion and Moriah, on which the temple stood; or those that were round about it, as Gareb, and Goath, and others; though some interpret this of the houses of nobles that stood in the higher parts of the city, where there would be a shivering, a breaking to pieces, as the word signifies, of doors and windows without, and of furniture within.
Verse 11.
Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh
,.... The name of a street in Jerusalem, as Aben Ezra; perhaps it lay low in the hollow of the city, and in the form of a mortar, from whence it might have its name, as the word {q} signifies; which is used both for a hollow place and for a mortar,
Judges 15:19
unless it might be so called from such persons dwelling in it, that used mortars for spice, and other things. The Targum is, "howl, all ye that dwell in the valley of Kidron;" and Jerom thinks the valley of Siloah is intended, which is the same; which, Adrichomius {r} says, was broad, deep, and dark, and surrounded the temple in manner of a foss, or ditch; and was disposed in the form of a mortar, called in Hebrew "machtes"; in Latin, "pila"; in which merchants and tradesmen of all kinds dwelt. It is thought by others to be the same which Josephus {s} calls "the valley of the cheese mongers," which lay between the two hills Zion and Acra. The reason of their howling is,
for all the merchant people are cut down
; either cut to pieces by the sword of the enemy, and become silent, as the word {t} sometimes signifies, and the Vulgate Latin version here renders it; become so by death, and laid in the silent grave, and no more concerned in merchandise; or else stripped of all their wealth and goods by the enemy, and so cut down, broke, and become bankrupt, and could trade no more. The word for merchant signifies a Canaanite; and the Targum paraphrases it thus, "for all the people are broken, whose works are like the works of the people of the land of Canaan:"
all they that bear silver are cut off
; that have large quantities of it, and carry it to market to buy goods with it as merchants; these shall be cut off, and so a great loss to trade, and a cause of howling and lamentation; or such that wear it in their garments, embroidered with it; or rather in their purses, who are loaded with this thick clay, abound with it. The Targum is, "all that are rich in substance shall be destroyed."
"mortarii," Vatablus, Tigurine version; "cavi," Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "loci concavi," Calvin. {r} Theatrum Terrae Sanctae, p. 163. {s} De Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 4. sect. 1. {t}
"conticuit," V. L. "in silentium redactus est," Drusius.
Verse 12.
And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with candles
,.... To find out the sins of the inhabitants of it, and the authors of them, and punish them for them, however hid and concealed from the eyes of others, or thought to be: this must be understood consistent with the omniscience of God, who knows all persons and things; nothing is hid from him; men may fancy their sins are hid, being privately and secretly committed; but all will be manifest, sooner or later; if not now, yet at the day of judgment; and sometimes they are made manifest by God in this life, as here; for what the Lord here says he would do, he did it by instruments, by the Chaldeans, whom he sent to Jerusalem; and to whom the gates of the city, the doors of houses, and the innermost recesses of them, were opened and plundered by them; and all for the sins of the people, which were hereby exposed. So the Targum, "and it shall be at that time that I will appoint searchers, and they shall search Jerusalem, as they that search with candles;" and no doubt but this was literally true of the Chaldeans, who with candles might search vaults and cellars, and such like dark places, where they supposed goods and riches were concealed. The allusion may be to the searching with lamps for leaven on the fourteenth of Nisan, when the passover began, in every corner of a house, and, when they found it, burnt it {u}; or in general to searching for anything which lies concealed in dark places, where the light of the sun comes not, and can only be discovered by the light of candles; and denotes that nothing should escape the sight and knowledge of God, by whom a full discovery would be made of their persons and sins, and cognizance taken of them in a vindictive way, as follows:
and punish the men that are settled on their lees
; like wine on the lees, quiet and undisturbed; in a good outward estate and condition, abounding in wealth and riches, and trusting therein; and which, as the Targum paraphrases it, they enjoy in great tranquillity; Moab like, having never been emptied from vessel to vessel,
Jeremiah 48:11
and so concluded they should ever remain in the same state, and became hardened in sin, or "curdled," and thickened, as the word {w} signifies; and were unconcerned about the state of religion, or the state of their own souls; and fearless and thoughtless of the judgments of God; but should now be visited, disturbed in their tranquil state, and be troubled and punished:
that say in their heart
; not daring to express with their lips the following atheism and blasphemy; but God, who searched and tried their hearts, knew it:
The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil
; which is a flat denial of his providence; saying that he takes no notice of what is done by men on earth, whether good or bad; and neither rewards the one, nor punishes the other. So the Targum, as Kimchi quotes it, "it is not the good pleasure of God to do good to the righteous, or to do evil to the wicked;" than which nothing is more false! the Lord does good to all in a providential way, and to many in a way of special grace; and rewards with a reward of grace all good men, both here and hereafter; and though he does not do any moral evil, yet he executes the evil of punishment in this world, and in that to come, on evildoers.
{u} Vid. Misn. Pesachim, c. 1. sect. 1, 4. {w}
"concreti sunt," Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "congelati," Calvin; "coagulatos," Montanus, Cocceius; "qui concreverunt glaciei, [vel] casei ad instar," Burkius.
Verse 13.
Therefore their goods shall become a booty
,.... To the enemy; the riches they trusted in, and thought themselves so secure of; and therefore denied divine Providence, which ought to be depended upon amidst the greatest affluence; or otherwise the Lord has various ways by which he can soon strip men of all their enjoyments, and dispose of them to others:
and their houses a desolation
; be pulled down by the enemy; or left uninhabited, they being killed or carried captive, even their whole families:
they shall also build houses, but not inhabit [them]
; not long, at least; not always, as they expected, and promised themselves when they built them:
and they shall plant vineyards, and not drink the wine thereof
: but before the vines planted by them bring forth grapes, and these are pressed, and wine made of them, they should fall into the hands of the enemy, who would drink it, and not they; and all this agreeably to what was threatened them in the law of Moses, which they ought to have regarded,
Deuteronomy 28:30
Verse 14.
The great day of the Lord [is] near, [it is] near, and hasteth greatly
,.... Not the day of judgment, but the day of God's vengeance upon the Jews, which yet bore some resemblance to that day of the Lord, and it may be therefore so called; as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans had some likeness to it, and therefore the signs of the one and of the other are given together by our Lord in
Matthew 24:1
and this was a day in which he would do great things, by the Chaldeans, and against the Jews; and this is represented as very "near"; and repeated again for the confirmation of it, and to arouse the thoughtless and careless about it, and who put away this evil day far from them; yea, it is said to make great haste, and to fly away swiftly, even faster than time usually does; though in common it has wings ascribed unto it:
[even] the voice of the day of the Lord
; in which the Lord's voice will be heard; not his voice of grace and mercy, as in the day of salvation; but of wrath and vengeance, which will be terrible; hence it follows:
the mighty men shall cry there bitterly
; not the voice of the mighty men besieging the city, making a hideous noise to animate the soldiers in making the assault, as some; but the mighty men within the city of Jerusalem besieged, who, when they see the city broken up, would be in the utmost terror, and cry bitterly, like women and children, being quite dismayed and dispirited; even the men of war upon the walls, and in the garrisons, with their officers and generals; and if this would be the case with them, how must it be thought to be with others, the weak and timorous?
Verse 15.
That day [is] a day of wrath
,.... Both of the wrath of God against his people for their sins; these judgments being the effects of his wrath, provoked by their iniquities; and of the wrath and cruelty of the Chaldeans, exercised in a furious manner:
a day of trouble and distress
; to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they being taken and led captive, their houses plundered and demolished, and the whole city and temple laid in ruins:
a day of wasteness and desolation
; of the whole country of Judea, and the metropolis of it; of their houses, fields, and vineyards:
a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness
: as it might be in a natural sense; the displeasure of God being shown in the very heavens, by the darkness and gloominess of them, and the thick clouds with which they were covered; and made still more dark and gloomy by the burning of the city, and the smoke of it; and, in such circumstances, gloominess and melancholy must sit upon the minds of men: and thick clouds and darkness portend greater troubles and calamities coming on; and the whole is expressive of great adversity; for, as light frequently designs prosperity, so darkness adversity.
Verse 16.
A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities
,.... The trumpet of the enemy, sounding the alarm of war against the fenced cities of Judea, which were taken before Jerusalem; calling and gathering the soldiers together, and animating them to the assault of them; and blowing them in a way of triumph; and as expressive of victory, having got possession of them:
and against the high towers
; or "corners" {x}; towers being usually built corner-wise, and full of corners, and on the corners of walls of cities; sometimes these signify princes, magistrates, and great men,
Zechariah 10:4
"pinnas," Montanus, Castalio; "angulos," Junius & Tremellius, Burkius.
Verse 17.
And I will bring distress upon men
,.... Not upon men in general, but particularly on the men of Judea, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; and especially those that were in the fenced cities and high towers; and who might think themselves safe and secure; but, being besieged, should be distressed with famine and pestilence, and with the enemy; and more especially when stormed, and a breach made, and the enemy just entering:
that they shall walk like blind men
; not knowing which way to go, where to turn themselves, what methods to take, or course to steer, no more than a blind man. The phrase is expressive of their being at their wits' ends, void of all thought and consultation:
because they have sinned against the Lord
; and therefore he gives them up, not only into the hand of the enemy, but unto an infatuation of spirit, and a judicial blindness of mind:
and their blood shall be poured out as dust
; in great quantities, like that, without any regard to it, without showing any mercy, and as if it was of no more value than the dust of the earth. The Targum is, "their blood shall be poured out into the dust;" or on it, and be drunk up by it:
and their flesh as the dung
; or their carcasses, as the same paraphrase; that is, their dead bodies shall lie unburied, and rot, and putrefy, and shall be cast upon fields like dung, to fatten them. The word for "flesh," in the Hebrew language, signifies bread or food; because dead bodies are food for worms; but in the Arabic language, as Aben Ezra and Jarchi observe, it signifies "flesh."
Verse 18.
Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath
,.... Which they have gotten in an unjust way, and have hoarded up, and put their confidence in; these were the lees on which they were settled; but now, as they would be disregarded by the Lord, as insufficient to atone for their sins, and appease his wrath, and procure his favour; see
Job 36:18
so they would be of no avail to them, to deliver from their enemies, who would not be bribed therewith to save their lives; the same is said of the Medes at the taking of Babylon,
Isaiah 13:17
but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy
; his zeal against sin, and for his own glory, shall burn like fire; which shall consume the whole land, and all the inhabitants of it, and was not to be stopped by anything that could be done by them; so furious and raging would it be:
for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land
; burn up at once all the briers and thorns, even all that offend, and do iniquity, and spare neither root nor branch; or, as when a field is cleared of the stubble on it, after the wheat is gathered in; or a grain floor of its chaff, after the wheat is separated from it; thus with the besom of destruction would the Lord sweep away the sinful inhabitants of Judea, and clear it of them, as he did by the sword, by famine, by pestilence, and by captivity.
<< Zephaniah
Zephaniah 1
Zephaniah 2 >>
Bible Commentary
John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
Zephaniah 1
Related Commentaries
Zephaniah 1
John Darby's Synopsis
The Geneva Study Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown
Matthew Henry Bible Commentary (complete)
Matthew Henry's Bible Commentary (concise)
Wesley's Explanatory Notes


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UNWTO and Facebook to Support Members States to Leverage Digital Marketing
Menlo Park, California, United States, April 18, 2021 / TRAVELINDEX / The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and Facebook have partnered to help global destinations make use of the power of digital marketing as they look to welcome tourists back safely.
Over the past year, the United Nations specialized agency for tourism has been supporting its Member States on a series of initiatives relating to market intelligence and marketing. Now, as tourism begins to restart in some parts of the world, a series of special sessions were held jointly with Facebook to deliver a range of key insights into how the effective use of digital marketing can help destinations gain a competitive advantage in the challenging months ahead.
• Read all the latest UNWTO News and Updates here.
Three sessions, one each in English, Spanish and French, welcomed participants from 30 countries. The sessions focused on Facebook and Instagram Communication Insights and Best Practices, with participants also given an overview of digital tools and tips for communicating with their target audiences, including through Messenger and WhatsApp. Alongside this, the sessions highlighted the importance of metrics and other key tools in measuring the success of digital marketing campaigns, and role of advertising and creativity in reaching new audiences.
Sandra Carvao, UNWTO Chief, Market Intelligence and Competitiveness, says: "We are very happy to have Facebook on board with us to bring the fundamentals and best cases of digital marketing to our Members. Our partnership will help destinations be better prepared for a new market framework and allow them to use data and digital marketing to reach new audiences and restart their tourism sectors.
• Read all the latest UNWTO News and Updates here.
Nicolai Gerard, Facebook EMEA Government Politics & NonProfit Marketing Solution Director says: "We are very pleased to work with UNWTO to help global destinations take advantage of all the benefits that digital solutions and tools can offered. In the times we are living, it is key for the travel industry to implement digital marketing strategies to accelerate the road to recovery. With this partnership, we believe that travel destinations will gain the necessary tools and skills that will allow them to use all the services available through our family of apps".

subset: commoncrawl


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Ethiopia to be affected by coffee species under threat from extinction
A new study has found that wild coffee species are now under threat from climate change.
Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens have found that 60 per cent of wild coffee species are at risk of extinction. This includes Arabica, the world's most widely traded coffee.
Ethiopia is the natural birthplace of wild Arabica coffee with an annual export value of $1 billion. It is an important source of seed stock for coffee farming but it could be in serious jeopardy if conservation action is not taken to protect the plant form a changing climate and deforestation.
The report states how despite the success of Arabica and Robusta coffee in the industry, they now face new threats of climate change, including the increasing incidence and duration of drought.
Dr Aaron Davis, Head of Coffee Research at Kew and lead author of the Science Advances paper, said:
"Among the coffee species threatened with extinction are those that have potential to be used to breed and develop the coffees of the future, including those resistant to disease and capable of withstanding worsening climatic conditions. The use and development of wild coffee resources could be key to the long-term sustainability of the coffee sector. Targeted action is urgently required in specific tropical countries, particularly in Africa, to protect the future of coffee."
Arabica coffee is paramount to Ethiopia and provides an annual income that, if threatened, could affect Ethiopia's economy.
Dr Justin Moat, Head of Spatial Analysis at Kew and one of the authors of the paper, said:
"Our initial evaluation of Arabica coffee suggested that it was not threatened with extinction in the wild. However, after factoring in climate change, it moved upwards by two categories to become an endangered species. These findings are so important as they indicate that the extinction risk to many other coffee species could be much worse if we consider climate change."
Read the full report here.
Join us for the AIDF Africa Summit in Nairobi, Kenya on 26-27 February 2019.
If you'd like to stay informed on the latest updates in aid and development, please sign up for the AIDF newsletter.


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Superstorm Sandy: Christian Relief Organizations Ready for Massive Deployment
Several Christian disaster relief organizations, including those focused on providing emotional support to victims, announced yesterday that they are ready to head into the heavily damaged areas of northeastern United States in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. As the storm made landfall a little after 8 p.m. EDT, it was declared a post-tropical cyclone with damaging winds reaching lower hurricane strength.
"Three mobile office units will leave Charlotte tomorrow morning headed into the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy," stated the Billy Graham Rapid Response team Monday afternoon. "We will have teams on the ground within 24 hours of the hurricane's passing. Please pray for safety in travel for the chaplain coordinators who will be driving the mobile units, and the volunteer chaplains coming from around the country."
The purpose of the response team, a part of the renowned evangelist's organization, is to "deploy chaplains who will bring a ministry of presence and prayer and appropriately share God's love, comfort, and hope with those affected by a man-made or natural disaster."
In terms of food and shelter relief, some Christian organizations such as the Salvation Army were already in place.
"The Salvation Army is mobilized and ready to serve," said Major George Hood, National Community Relations Secretary for The Salvation Army in the U.S. "Our mobile feeding units and staff are strategically positioned and already beginning to serve at shelter locations throughout the East Coast."
The Salvation Army maintains a fleet of disaster vehicles and supply warehouses across the nation to enable speedy mobilization. There are more than 300 emergency response vehicles in the eastern and southern U.S. alone and nearly 600 units nationwide.
Specific Salvation Army activities include:
• In New Jersey, The Salvation Army is serving meals, snacks and drinks at 11 shelters in five counties. A full fleet of emergency response vehicles is ready to deploy if needed. This includes 10 fully-stocked mobile feeding units (canteens), two service vehicles, and one mobile command unit. A canteen is embedded with Task Force 1, the State's official search and rescue team, at Lakehurst Naval Base and may travel with them as they are deployed throughout the state.
• In New York, The Salvation Army is coordinating with the local American Red Cross to provide volunteer support for shelters throughout Suffolk County. Eight canteens are equipped and ready to be deployed from the northern and western parts of the state.
• In Philadelphia, the Christian-based organization is working closely with the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management and as of yesterday was preparing three shelters within the city to help ensure those impacted by Hurricane Sandy will have access to essential services and safety.
Shelter from the group was already provided in Virginia since Saturday. Relief plans and help are in place in North Carolina and Maryland as well.
The Salvation Army's mission includes providing a ministry of presence that gives compassionate care to residents looking for hope in the midst of turmoil. Pastoral care is available for all those impacted, but is not a prerequisite for receiving assistance.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief leaders were ready yesterday for a large-scale response once the storm cleared, according to the Baptist Press.
"We worked through the weekend to make sure we have a solid plan in place," said Fritz Wilson, disaster relief team leader for the North American Mission Board. "And not only a plan, but we have already begun to make sure the people to work the plan will be in place to respond and meet needs."
Wilson transported one of NAMB's recovery units to Harrisburg, Pa., on Monday. Also yesterday, the organization said the Pennsylvania-South Jersey state convention's mission house in Harrisburg will serve as the area command center for the storm response. Given the wide range of possible damage and the potentially large area affected, Wilson said yesterday he fully expects multiple incident command centers to be established for the response.
Convoy of Hope's Rapid Response Team was in State College, Pa., on Monday. The team was scheduled to remain there overnight, then head east as soon as it's determined safe to assess areas with significant damage.
Around 80,000 pounds of additional relief supplies are in the queue and are tentatively scheduled to leave Convoy of Hope's World Distribution Center on Tuesday. The loads contain meals, drinks, cereal, trashcans and cleaning supplies.
On the Web
Salvation Army: http://blog.salvationarmyusa.org/, www.facebook.com/salvationarmyusa, or www.twitter.com/salvationarmyus.
Billy Graham Rapid Response: http://www.billygraham.org/rrt, or https://www.facebook.com/BGRapidResponseTeam.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief: http://www.namb.net/dr/, or https://twitter.com/SBDRnet.
Convoy of Hope's Rapid Response Team: http://www.convoyofhope.org, https://www.facebook.com/convoyofhope, or https://twitter.com/convoyofhope


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About Heidi
Join the Luce Scholars Community!
Apply NowGet InvolvedBecome a Luce Scholar Mentor
Interested in giving back to the Luce community? Sign up to become a mentor. We'll pair you with a current Scholar or a recent alumnus of the program.
Get in TouchAre you a Luce Alumnus?Share Your Story
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When results are on the line, make sure you're clean! High Voltage Premium Detox Drink is specially formulated with a unique blend of B-Vitamins, Creatine Monohydrate and numerous nutrients and herbal extracts to remove unwanted toxins and pollutants from your urinary tract. Our 16oz beverage takes effect within 30 minutes and can last up to 7 hours depending on one's metabolism and the amount of Toxins in their systems.
- Drink contents of High Voltage Premium Drink liquid and follow with 16oz of water.
- Wait 15 minutes then drink another 16 oz of water.
Product will start being most effective after three normal sized urination. If you are having trouble urinating you can increase your water intake by 16oz of water per hour. High Voltage Premium Drink will stay effective up to 7 hours.
For Maximum Results:
- Avoid unwanted toxins for a minimum 24-48 hours.
- Pre-cleanse period, the night before (12-24 hours Prior to consuming High Voltage) drink ten 8oz glasses of water over an 8 hour period.
- While using this product, urinate frequently to expel toxins.
Do not eat large meals or consume any food with Caffeine or Fruit Juices during the pre-cleanse period. - Avoid over the counter or non-prescribed medications, alcohol, acidic liquids (such as vinegar, pickle juice, coffee, etc), Vitamins or salty foods.
- Drink plenty of water on a daily basis
Recommended for persons under 240 lbs. If you are 240 lbs. and over this product is available in High Voltage Premium Detox Drink 32oz or you can try our High Voltage Detox Double Flush.


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Backed by award-winning MYAP and Kolimbo software, Benchmark Email Rewards pays out commissions of $5.50, $35, $65 and 25% for life.
Long Beach, CA (PRWEB), Oct. 30, 2007 – Benchmark Email, a leading, Web-based email marketing service, has just launched an entirely new MYAP/Kolimbo-backed affiliate program. Named Benchmark Email Rewards, the program will pay affiliates $5.50 per free trial sign up plus $35 or $65 for each paid sign up. The best Benchmark Email affiliates will eventually be invited to join the lifetime commissions program, getting 25% of each sale every single month.
"We are absolutely thrilled to announce our new Benchmark Email Rewards program," says Curt Keller, CEO of Benchmark Email. "Our new structure is extremely flexible, rewarding affiliates for free trials, paid plans, or both. For our very best affiliates, we're even offering 25% to life, every single month, as long as the person who signed up remains a Benchmark Email customer."
Benchmark's email marketing suite includes list management, list building, layout creation, campaign scheduling and robust reporting tools. The service requires no downloads and features a free, no-risk 30-day trial. Commissions are paid out when a minimum of $25 is reached and affiliates have 24/7 access to MYAP's tracking software, where they can view all their customer transactions. Potential affiliates can find out more by clicking here.
PR Contact Jennifer Perez (800) 430-4095 firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Copyright Information
Copyright © 2017 Katun Corporation. All rights reserved.
The content that KATUN provides on this web site ("Site"), including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images, and logos, is owned by either KATUN or the party that has provided the content to us, and is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. KATUN is the sole and exclusive owner of the compilation of content on the Site, and this compilation is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Except as stated in the Terms of Use, none of the material may be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of KATUN or the copyright owner.


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Sun, Nov 15
|Powerhouse Christian Center
Sunday Worship Service 11/15
We are now open with limited seating! Pre-Registration is REQUIRED to attend.
Time & Location
Nov 15, 2020, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
Powerhouse Christian Center, 110 Valley Rd, Clifton, NJ 07013, USA
About the Event
We are excited to announce we have reopened our church for in-person services! Due to NJ state guidelines, we will have a limited seating capacity of 34 attendees. Pre-Registration prior to attending each service is mandatory. Upon successful registration, you will receive a confirmation email. If max capacity is reached, you will be added to the waiting list. We will continue to livestream our services for those who are unable to reserve a seat.
Proper facial covering is required to attend an in-person service. Click here to read our full Reopening Procedures prior to attending. Thank you and God bless.


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My telephone was created with kraft card stock, blue patterned paper, and some hemp that I curled/heat set (instructions below).
I stamped "I'm Here for You" on a Chat Bubbles Die-namics.
Look at the sweet curled hemp.
Here is a peek inside.
I wanted to show you my phone cord method! I started out with some hemp. Make it longer than you think you need to.
Slide it through the top of your crystal heat-setting tool like this.
Hold down the piece you threaded through with your finger.
Start wrapping the hemp around the metal part on your crystal setting tool like this.
Hold it on there for about ten seconds. It'll start smoking... don't keep on it on there TOO long.
You'll be left with a perfectly coifed piece of hemp.
My crystal setting tool is from Michael's. It is Jolee's brand and was under $20.
My favorite part about it is the on/off switch. It's handy not to have to plug it in each time I want to use it.
Here is the sketch for you. I hope you'll play along. :)
Remember, you can get all the details by visiting the MFT Blog and the MFT forum on SCS (look for the most recent WSC thread). You'll need to upload your card in the SCS gallery using the keyword shown on the sketch. You will have the chance to win up to $20 in MFT money. One winner is chosen at random each week!
Go get sketchy with MFT!


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Google monitors deployed Actions to verify they're available and responding to user requests.
Each Action's endpoint is required to respond to a default, no parameter invocation. This supports the scenario where the user asks to talk to an Action without providing any additional information (for example, "I want to talk to invocation name").
Common questions
Do I need to implement anything specific to support the health checks?
No. Action health checks will function like a standard request to talk to an Action.
How often is my Action's health checked?
Your Action may be monitored throughout the day.
How can I detect that a request is a health check?
If you're using Actions Builder as your development platform, you receive a health check request similar to the snippet below:
{ "handler": { "name": "actions.handler.HEALTH_CHECK" }, "intent": { "name": "actions.intent.HEALTH_CHECK" }, "session": { "id": "actions.session.HEALTH_CHECK" }, "user": { "locale":"en-US" }, "device": { "capabilities": [] } }
When you receive this request, you should respond with a 200 response code; otherwise, your Action is considered unhealthy. The following snippet is an example of a properly formatted response:
If you're using Dialogflow as your development platform, Google adds an
argument and passes this to the intent. This argument is
found in the Input
object of the webhook request:
{ ... "originalDetectIntentRequest": { ... "payload": { ... "inputs": [{ ... "arguments": [{ "name": "is_health_check", "boolValue": true, "textValue": "1" }] }], ... } } }
What happens if Google detects an unhealthy Action? If Google detects that the Action is experiencing an outage, the Action is suspended. Users requesting the unhealthy Action will hear "ACTION_NAME is not available".
How will I be notified if an Action is marked as unhealthy? When Google detects an unhealthy Action, we send a notification email to the primary developer associated with the Actions project.
What happens if my Action that uses account linking is marked as unhealthy? Unlike other Actions, Actions that use account linking are not suspended after Google declares them unhealthy. Users can still access your Action for 7 days after you receive the notification email. However, if you have not fixed the account linking issue after 7 days, your Action will be taken down.
How can I check my Action's health status? You can check your developer console and see the status of your Action. Unhealthy Actions will have a status of Unhealthy. Healthy Actions will be marked as Deployed.
What's the process for returning an Action to the deployed state? You should review your deployment and address any issues that might be causing the Action to fail to respond to a launch intent.
Google will continue to periodically monitor the Action's health while it is unhealthy. When Google detects that the Action is responding as expected, the Action will return to the deployed state.


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To put something in your Shopping Cart, start by searching or browsing through any of our categories. When an item interests you, click the 'Add to Cart' button.
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Videos for #112868 KEN BLOCK 2013 GRC WR8 3.0
- HPI Racing's Ken Block Micro Gymkhana HPI presents the RC tribute to Ken Block's Gymkhana 6. All shot with the GoPro Hero3. Featuring the HPI Ken Block 2013 GRC Micro RS4 w/ Ford Fiesta H.F.H.V. Body with custom Gymkhana 6 livery and fifteen52 Turbo Mac wheels.
- The Ken Block WR8 FLUX in action at HPI Europe!


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Check Reorders
We offer three easy ways to order checks.
- Online (through our check provider)
- Call 1-800-335-8931
- Call or visit your local bank, our bankers are available to help you through the process.
If your account includes a check discount, please call or visit us to ensure you receive it.


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MWRatridge has uploaded 158 loops
These loops have been kindly uploaded by MWRatridge for your commercial and non-commercial use on a royalty free basis (subject to our terms and conditions). If you use any of these loops please leave your comments.
For details on how you can use any loops and samples (including details on the specific licences granted by the creators of loops), please see the loops section of the help area and our terms and conditions. If you have any questions about this file, please contact MWRatridge. If you think any of these file are in breach of copyright or our upload guidelines please contact support.


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Unique Apartment Gift Baskets
Creating an unique apartment gift basket, no matter what their contents are gifts that are always appreciated, but when the apartment gift basket is completely unique and unexpected it can create a lot of "buzz" and become a gift that is talked about for a long time.
Coming up with a truly unique apartment sized gift basket depends on what the occasion is and how creative the person is who is giving the gift. Sometimes, it isn't that the gift basket is full of never before seen items, but rather that it is obvious that a lot of thought and planning went into the gift.
Here are some gift basket ideas that can be categorized as extremely unique. Some are unique because of the uncommon and unusual items that they are made up of. Some are defined as unique because of the occasion they were created for. And some are considered unique because of their "Awwwww, that's so sweet!" factor.
Gift Baskets
Let's begin at the very beginning, with new babies. When the announcement is made that a new baby is on the way, it is the same as shouting, "Let the present-giving commence!" There are so many occasions to present gifts connected with a new little one and rightly so. A new baby represents a major change in a family's life and it is very commendable for everyone who cares for this burgeoning family unit to want to help out wherever they can.
Even so, there are an awful lot of occasions connected with a new baby that call for some sort of gift. There is the baby shower, the first visit after the baby's birth. Sometimes, there is a baptism or christening and then in the coming year there are all of the holidays that are all "firsts" for the little tyke.
Finally, the first year ends on the toddler's first birthday. With all of these events and opportunities for all of the friends and relatives to give gifts, what are the odds that you will be able to come up with a gift that is truly unique and memorable?
Gift Baskets
Don't despair! Things are not as bleak as they seem. With all of the thousands of ideas out there, odds are that the person you wish to dazzle has not heard of them all. Coming up with a gift basket that is unique and exciting and fun just takes a little ingenuity. It can be done and here are some ideas to help get your imagination and ideas flowing so that you can take any of these and build on them or go ahead and duplicate them outright.
The first special baby gift basket is based on a theme and that theme is sleep. Ah, blessed sleep. Something that new parents never seem to get enough of. This gift basket will not only be very appreciated but its presentation makes it even more unforgettable. Purchase a small doll buggy or cradle from the toy department as the foundation to put all of the items in. If the baby is a little boy, and you don't feel comfortable giving a doll cradle, place all of the gifts in a "Moses basket". These are soft-sided long baskets with handles meant to place and carry newborns in.
Gift Baskets
Now that you have the base for your Sleepy Baby Gift Basket, place in it items that all relate to a good night's sleep for baby (and parents). Items to include could be super soft sleeper pajamas and a cuddly blanket and a small teddy bear. A white noise machine that emits a variety of water, nature, "whooshing" or heartbeat sounds can help lull the baby to sleep. This device is amazing because it not only helps put the baby to sleep, at the same time it helps keep him or her from hearing and waking at every noise or sound that emits from the rest of the activities in the house.
Another item that could be included is a device that shines the constellations on the ceiling as they slowly rotate and as it plays a quiet lullaby. Still other items to include are aromatherapy lotion, powder and cleanser set that is targeted to enhance relaxation and sleep and a baby pillow that has been personalized with the baby's name and includes a fabric photograph of the baby. These are just some of the ideas that you could include in this sleepy baby themed gift basket.
Gift Baskets
Another great baby or child gift basket idea is to take a small or regular sized red wagon and fill it with every young child's board games, puzzles and card games that you can. Every child enjoys games like Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders and would love to receive not only the games and puzzles, but also the wagon. One extra tip; personalized wooden puzzles of the child's name can be purchased at most craft sales or can be ordered online. This little item can really add that special touch.
One last idea for a new baby gift basket. This one may not be a cute as the other two, but it is very special and will provide the child with years of interest. The idea of this gift basket is to give the baby a head start on a hobby that may last a lifetime.
The choice is up to you. It could be stamp collecting, coin collecting, autograph collection, baseball cards or really anything that you feel the child might wish to take up and hopefully continue. For the "basket", purchase a small fireproof lock box that can be found at any office supply store to place the items in. Sure, this gift may not look as soft and cuddly as the other baby gifts, but it will probably be the most talked about gift. What is really great about this gift is that you can add to the child's collection every birthday or holiday.
Gift Baskets
Now, let's move on to a different occasion to give a apartment gift basket. It hurts a lot when someone that you care about isn't feeling well. They could really use a helping hand, maybe some company and definitely some cheering up. Get a small magazine rack from the housewares section of any department store and fill it with magazines, TV listing guide, puzzle books, cards or an electronic handheld game of solitaire, poker or Sudoku and some cans or packets of soup.
Do you have a child who is moving out on their own or leaving for college? A great gift basket is to buy a good quality hard-sided piece of luggage. Inside include items like an engraved brass luggage tag with their name, address and phone number on it, some gift certificates to nationwide restaurants and pizza chains and food for their apartment or dorm room like macaroni and cheese, raman noodles and microwave popcorn. (Because we all know that is what they will live on anyway.)
Also include an electric coin sorter. (Because we also know that they will sometimes need to gather all of their change in order to survive.) And if they will be living or attending school out of state, include favorite food items or even a subscription to the local hometown newspaper or anything that they may miss from home.
Gift Baskets
When someone graduates school and lands their first job, unique gift ideas are a "Decorate Your Apartment" gift basket. Include everything from tasteful to gaudy that they could use to decorate their new office or work area. Some of the more uncommon items could be including a bobble head figure for their desk that looks just like the recipient.
There are companies that can create this item by using a picture of the person that you provide. There are also companies that sell 1 share of stock of any company listed and include a framed stock certificate. You could include 1 share of stock in the new company that they now work for or of a company that may share their last name. Someone with the last name of McDonald would love to have a framed certificate that shows ownership in that company hanging on their office wall.
Gift Baskets
These are only some of the unique apartment sized gift basket ideas that you could use. Really, it is just the tip of the iceberg. The possibilities to create a unique and memorable gift are truly endless. Enjoy creating your own unique gift basket and if you become a pro at it, you may have just created a new business venture for yourself.


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The Christian World of The Hobbit by Devin Brown
The Hobbit's Sir Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman Talk Tolkien, Faith and Bilbo's Story
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: CBN.com's Movie Review
The Hobbit Fans Celebrate Tolkien Week
CBN.com - J.R.R. Tolkien's story about 'the one ring' doesn't start with Frodo Baggins as told in The Lord of the Rings. Before Frodo and Sam, Gandalf and Bilbo, along with a band of 13 dwarves, have a grand adventure to recover a lost inheritance. Bilbo's tale is the subject of Peter Jackson's latest trilogy based on Tolkien's The Hobbit. (Jackson's third installment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, formerly known as The Hobbit: There and Back Again, releases in December 17, 2014).
Author Devin Brown shares his thoughts on the life, faith and work of novelist J.R.R. Tolkien in his new book, The Christian World of The Hobbit. Here are excerpts from an interview CBN.com recently did with the Tolkien expert before the release of the first Hobbit movie:
Hannah Goodwyn: What was J.R.R. Tolkien's faith background?
Devin Brown: Tolkien was responsible for bringing C.S. Lewis to faith. That's one of the greatest unknown stories to the world. Here's Tolkien who was the real deal when it came to being a believer. He didn't just talk the talk, he walked the walk, but he did it in a very quiet way. He didn't write books called Mere Christianity or anything like that, but he lived it.
He was Roman Catholic. His mom converted; she had been an Anglican. His dad died. So, he went with her in the Catholic faith and was very devout, very pious. That said, when he helped bring Lewis to Christianity—he didn't bring him to Catholicism, he brought him to Christianity. Certainly, his commitment to Christ was first and his denomination second. But, yeah, he was very pious, went to church not just every Sunday, but often every day. He was one of those kind of people, that I don't know that very many of them exist anymore.
If you read his letters, he's very concerned, like all parents are, that his children really keep the faith, really have the faith first. His commitment to Jesus was just rock-solid; and he couldn't be separated from who he was.
HG: Your book states that Tolkien didn't purposely write The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings with Christian messages in mind.
DB: There is a famous letter where he says, The Lord of the Rings... someone had written about it, is a fundamentally Christian work, unconscious at first. But then he has this other line that I've thought a lot about, "but conscious in the revisions." If you know anything about it, it took him 12 years to write. So, over the revisions, and then he goes back and revises The Hobbit to match it up. So, this idea that he didn't consciously make it Christian is true at first. But as he revised it, he certainly did.
People say, "Look, God's not mentioned in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. There's no churches, no priest, no Bible. There's no Jesus. How can you say it's Christian?" And I said, "Here's the deal. You can't see that it's Christian because you live in the Christian world where there is right and wrong and there is truth. I don't know if you know any friends who don't believe that there's right or wrong and don't believe there's such a thing as truth. That's the non-Christian world." I mean, that's the world without God.
In Tolkien's Middle-earth, there is a right or wrong. There is a goodness. There's a providence.
HG: In The Christian World of The Hobbit, you talk how fiction is usually to entertain us, but that Tolkien had a serious purpose behind it.
DB: Yes. So, you're going to run into people, and I run into people all of the time, who think that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are some sort of literary equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons, entertaining, but nothing more.
W.H. Auden was a great poet; and W.H. Auden was a huge Tolkien fan and was one of the first to see, "Hey, this is really amazing!" So, he writes a review for the New York Times, and he says, "Look, you think this is a book about imaginary dwarves and elves and hobbits." And he says, "This is about us." And that's the quote, it's what Auden, in this wonderful way says. He says, "In Tolkien's fiction, he holds the mirror up to the only nature that he knows, which is human nature. He shows us the human heart. He shows us ourselves, as we struggle to decide what's right and wrong, and we struggle to do it, after we figure it out."
Then Lewis, who also wrote a couple reviews of each of the books, in his review of—it's called the dethronement of hearts, so it must be The Return of the King, he said, "Everybody says, 'Well, if you've got something to say about human nature, why do you put it in Middle-earth? Why don't you set it like our contemporary studio?'" He says, "There's something about moving it into this Middle-earth that helps us see it more clearly." And it's true, right? Lewis himself had that same experience. He said, "Look, some of you went to a great Sunday school or a great church. That's wonderful. That wasn't my case, I went to one that, at least maybe it was me, was boring." The Christian story boring? How can that be? And he said, "I hoped through the Narnia stories to recast it without what it was bad for me… Its stained glass associations, to really bring it to its full potency for the first time.
Tolkien does the same thing. He casts this idea of right and wrong, and all of these other what I would call, "Christian aspects" into Middle-earth. Where, somehow because they're not in our world, we see them more clearly, we feel them more powerfully, and we, oddly enough, identify with them. Bilbo and Frodo are not humans. They're hobbits. We're humans, not hobbits; but what we aren't, we're all the same.
HG: The Hobbit started with one sentence, didn't it?
DB: The story everyone tells, and I think it must be true; he's got his grading pen. In his creative, somewhat eccentric mind, he writes on this page. "In the hole in the ground, there lived the hobbit." So if he had been rich, didn't need to grade, or didn't have so many, or hadn't been so tired, or didn't have this blank page, he wouldn't have had that sentence. Once he has this sentence, he says, "My mind likes to make up, find out, where did that name of hobbit come from?" So, he makes up a story to tell where hobbits come from. He starts The Hobbit in the '30s, and it's an interesting story.
He likes to tell his stories to his kids, so The Hobbit was originally told to his kids there in the Oxford suburbs. Then his friends, Lewis and the rest of the inklings, say, "We like this story, you ought to read it to us." So he reads it to them, and eventually they say, "You should publish this."
There's a famous Tolkien letter where he said, "The debt that I owe to Lewis is unpayable. For long he was my only audience, and but for him, I would never have brought this whole project to completion. He was the one who convinced me that my stuff might be interesting to others, besides our little group here."
So, he encouraged him to submit The Hobbit, and it was quite a success, and they wanted a sequel. So, he starts on this new Hobbit; they called it the New Hobbit. Well, before long it grows out of control, it's not going to be that old story. There's not another Bilbo story, we have to tell it about Frodo. It becomes Lord of the Rings; it takes over. He quits twice, and twice Lewis comes and says, "Tolkers, where's your next chapter of the New Hobbit?" He says, "I'm done with that." "No, no, no," in a British way, he says, "Don't leave me hanging." He says, "I got a picture. I don't know where he stops. We don't know that." But it's like, "Merry and Pippin just got kidnapped by the Orcs, Sam and Frodo just got crossed the river, Boromir is dying in Aragorn's arms. You're going to leave me hanging here? You've got to finish it. This is going to be your great work."
HG: People who haven't read the books probably remember Bilbo's name from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But The Hobbit is his story. What are the lessons we learn from his adventure?
DB: Everyone who's seen The Lord of the Rings, knows that Bilbo was the one who found the Ring, originally from Gollum. In Lord of the Rings, he's writing the story of his adventure, "There and Back Again". He's this guy who's writing the red book. But The Hobbit is his story by himself. Frodo isn't around, he hasn't been born yet; he hasn't entered the scene. And so, Gandalf shows up, looking for someone who will go on an adventure with these dwarves; and of course, Gandalf is this emissary. Someone has sent him, we don't know who, but somebody big. Someone who loves Middle-earth and cares for Middle-earth, and that's why he's been sent. Clearly these dwarves are going to need somebody's assistance.
I love the Christian theme, "Not by power, nor by might." So, Bilbo's not very powerful, not very mighty, and he's going to help make this mission accomplishment. Here's the Christian thing I think about it, is the task that God has called us to, they're called to help other people, and in helping other people, we help ourselves. Someone asked somebody a question, "Does the Christian hero go out to save the world or to save himself?" The answer is both. In saving the world and dying to save the world, he saves himself.
So, Bilbo when we meet him, he's in his hobbit home. He's comfortable. He doesn't like adventures. He calls them nasty, disturbing things that make you late for dinner, and that sums him up. He doesn't like unpredictability. He doesn't like being disturbed. He doesn't like being late for dinner. When he runs off, he runs off without his pocket handkerchief. What's lovely, and people need to read this, it's not that he has to give up his tea, which he loves, and his pocket handkerchiefs and his waistcoat, but he's a slave to them. He can't bear to be without them.
At the end, when you get to the last chapter, he's got an even nicer waistcoat on, if you read carefully. He's got a red silk handkerchief that Elrond gave him, and then Gandalf shows up. He says, "Come on and have a tea, and let's have a pipe together." All of the things he loved in the beginning. This is the story where he renounces them, and leads some sort of hired life. But all of the good things in life that God has given him are still his and even better, but now he's not enslaved to them. He delights in them, but does not have to have them.
HG: What do you think kids and adults both could benefit from by reading this book?
DB: Besides all of these lessons that are quite encouraging is Bilbo never becomes Bard the Bowman. In other words, he doesn't do anything that you or I couldn't do if we tried really hard. At the end of the day, he has to work up some courage, but it's not courage that he doesn't have more than you or I could work up, and he has to have faith.
He just does what he can. So this idea of God uses the meek and lonely, yeah, just like you and just like me. At the very last line, Gandalf says to him that all these—they're talking about this prophecy coming true. He said, "Oh my gosh, I was part of that." He says, "Yes." Now, you're a small part of it." He says, "Well, thank goodness, I couldn't stand anymore." But the answer is that Bilbo's story is one thread in a great tapestry, just like all of ours. It's not something we're living on our own, and the fact that it's a thread in a tapestry, actually makes history I think more magnificent, just like our story. Without us, the tapestry's not complete. We have our own special part to play, and our story is part of a larger story, and without us, that story can't be written. So, that's one of my favorite themes, and I think that must be one of Tolkien's themes, using the lowly to confound the mighty because he returns to the exact story in The Lord of the Rings. We have four hobbits, each quite lowly, but accomplishing something spectacular, but not by power, nor by might.
Hannah Goodwyn serves as the Family and Entertainment producer for CBN.com. For more articles and information, visit Hannah's bio page.
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Authored by Scott Adams via Dilbert blog,
History is full of examples of Mass Hysterias. They happen fairly often. The cool thing about mass hysterias is that you don't know when you are in one. But sometimes the people who are not experiencing the mass hysteria can recognize when others are experiencing one, if they know what to look for.
I'll teach you what to look for.
A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it. The Salem Witch Trials are the best-known example of mass hysteria. The McMartin Pre-School case and the Tulip Bulb hysteria are others. The dotcom bubble probably qualifies. We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight. The curious lack of solid evidence for Russian collusion is a red flag. But we'll see how that plays out.
The most visible Mass Hysteria of the moment involves the idea that the United States intentionally elected a racist President. If that statement just triggered you, it might mean you are in the Mass Hysteria bubble. The cool part is that you can't fact-check my claim you are hallucinating if you are actually hallucinating. But you can read my description of the signs of mass hysteria and see if you check off the boxes.
If you're in the mass hysteria, recognizing you have all the symptoms of hysteria won't help you be aware you are in it. That's not how hallucinations work. Instead, your hallucination will automatically rewrite itself to expel any new data that conflicts with its illusions.
But if you are not experiencing mass hysteria, you might be totally confused by the actions of the people who are. They appear to be irrational, but in ways that are hard to define. You can't tell if they are stupid, unscrupulous, ignorant, mentally ill, emotionally unstable or what. It just looks frickin' crazy.
The reason you can't easily identify what-the-hell is going on in the country right now is that a powerful mass hysteria is in play.
If you see the signs after I point them out, you're probably not in the hysteria bubble.
If you read this and do NOT see the signs, it probably means you're trapped inside the mass hysteria bubble.
Here are some signs of mass hysteria. This is my own take on it, but I welcome you to fact-check it with experts on mass hysteria.
1. The trigger event for cognitive dissonance
On November 8th of 2016, half the country learned that everything they believed to be both true and obvious turned out to be wrong. The people who thought Trump had no chance of winning were under the impression they were smart people who understood their country, and politics, and how things work in general. When Trump won, they learned they were wrong. They were so very wrong that they reflexively (because this is how all brains work) rewrote the scripts they were seeing in their minds until it all made sense again. The wrong-about-everything crowd decided that the only way their world made sense, with their egos intact, is that either the Russians helped Trump win or there are far more racists in the country than they imagined, and he is their king. Those were the seeds of the two mass hysterias we witness today.
Trump supporters experienced no trigger event for cognitive dissonance when Trump won. Their worldview was confirmed by observed events.
2. The Ridiculousness of it
One sign of a good mass hysteria is that it sounds bonkers to anyone who is not experiencing it. Imagine your neighbor telling you he thinks the other neighbor is a witch. Or imagine someone saying the local daycare provider is a satanic temple in disguise. Or imagine someone telling you tulip bulbs are more valuable than gold. Crazy stuff.
Compare that to the idea that our president is a Russian puppet. Or that the country accidentally elected a racist who thinks the KKK and Nazis are "fine people." Crazy stuff.
If you think those examples don't sound crazy – regardless of the reality – you are probably inside the mass hysteria bubble.
3. The Confirmation Bias
If you are inside the mass hysteria bubble, you probably interpreted President Trump's initial statement on Charlottesville – which was politically imperfect to say the least – as proof-positive he is a damned racist.
If you are outside the mass hysteria bubble you might have noticed that President Trump never campaigned to be our moral leader. He presented himself as – in his own words "no angel" – with a set of skills he offered to use in the public's interest. He was big on law and order, and equal justice under the law. But he never offered moral leadership. Voters elected him with that knowledge. Evidently, Republicans don't depend on politicians for moral leadership. That's probably a good call.
When the horror in Charlottesville shocked the country, citizens instinctively looked to their president for moral leadership. The president instead provided a generic law and order statement. Under pressure, he later named specific groups and disavowed the racists. He was clearly uncomfortable being our moral lighthouse. That's probably why he never described his moral leadership as an asset when running for office. We observe that he has never been shy about any other skill he brings to the job, so it probably isn't an accident when he avoids mentioning any ambitions for moral leadership. If he wanted us to know he would provide that service, I think he would have mentioned it by now.
If you already believed President Trump is a racist, his weak statement about Charlottesville seems like confirmation. But if you believe he never offered moral leadership, only equal treatment under the law, that's what you saw instead. And you made up your own mind about the morality.
The tricky part here is that any interpretation of what happened could be confirmation bias. But ask yourself which one of these versions sounds less crazy:
1. A sitting president, who is a branding expert, thought it would be a good idea to go easy on murderous Nazis as a way to improve his popularity.
2. The country elected a racist leader who is winking to the KKK and White Supremacists that they have a free pass to start a race war now.
3. A mentally unstable racist clown with conman skills (mostly just lying) eviscerated the Republican primary field and won the presidency. He keeps doing crazy, impulsive racist stuff. But for some reason, the economy is going well, jobs are looking good, North Korea blinked, ISIS is on the ropes, and the Supreme Court got a qualified judge. It was mostly luck.
4. The guy who didn't offer to be your moral leader didn't offer any moral leadership, just law and order, applied equally. His critics cleverly and predictably framed it as being soft on Nazis.
One of those narratives is less crazy-sounding than the others. That doesn't mean the less-crazy one has to be true. But normal stuff happens far more often than crazy stuff. And critics will frame normal stuff as crazy whenever they get a chance.
4. The Oversized Reaction
It would be hard to overreact to a Nazi murder, or to racists marching in the streets with torches. That stuff demands a strong reaction. But if a Republican agrees with you that Nazis are the worst, and you threaten to punch that Republican for not agreeing with you exactly the right way, that might be an oversized reaction.
5. The Insult without supporting argument
When people have actual reasons for disagreeing with you, they offer those reasons without hesitation. Strangers on social media will cheerfully check your facts, your logic, and your assumptions. But when you start seeing ad hominem attacks that offer no reasons at all, that might be a sign that people in the mass hysteria bubble don't understand what is wrong with your point of view except that it sounds more sensible than their own.
For the past two days I have been disavowing Nazis on Twitter. The most common response from the people who agree with me is that my comic strip sucks and I am ugly.
* * *
The mass hysteria signals I described here are not settled science, or anything like it. This is only my take on the topic, based on personal observation and years of experience with hypnosis and other forms of persuasion.
I present this filter on the situation as the first step in dissolving the mass hysteria. It isn't enough, but more persuasion is coming.
If you are outside the mass hysteria bubble, you might see what I am doing in this blog as a valuable public service.
If you are inside the mass hysteria bubble, I look like a Nazi collaborator.
How do I look to you?
* * *
Adams wrote a book about how to persuade yourself to success. Based on reader comments, it is working. His upcoming book, Win Bigly, tells you how to persuade others. (For good.) That comes out October 31st.


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Learn Foundational Ethereum Topics with SQL
Many Ethereum tutorials target developers, but there's a lack of educational resources for data analysts or for people who wish to see on-chain data without running a client or node.
This tutorial helps readers understand fundamental Ethereum concepts including transactions, blocks and gas by querying on-chain data with structured query language (SQL) through an interface provided by Dune Analytics(opens in a new tab).
On-chain data can help us understand Ethereum, the network, and as an economy for computing power and should serve as a base for understanding challenges facing Ethereum today (i.e., rising gas prices) and, more importantly, discussions around scaling solutions.
A user's journey on Ethereum starts with initializing a user-controlled account or an entity with an ETH balance. There are two account types - user-controlled or a smart contract (see ethereum.org).
Any account can be viewed on a block explorer like Etherscan(opens in a new tab). Block explorers are a portal to Ethereum's data. They display, in real-time, data on blocks, transactions, miners, accounts and other on-chain activity (see here).
However, a user may wish to query the data directly to reconcile the information provided by external block explorers. Dune Analytics(opens in a new tab) provides this capability to anyone with some knowledge of SQL.
For reference, the smart contract account for the Ethereum Foundation (EF) can be viewed on Etherscan(opens in a new tab).
One thing to note is that all accounts, including the EF's, have a public address that can be used to send and receive transactions.
The account balance on Etherscan comprises regular transactions and internal transactions. Internal transactions, despite the name, are not actual transactions that change the state of the chain. They are value transfers initiated by executing a contract (source(opens in a new tab)). Since internal transactions have no signature, they are not included on the blockchain and cannot be queried with Dune Analytics.
Therefore, this tutorial will focus on regular transactions. This can be queried as such:
1WITH temp_table AS (2SELECT3 hash,4 block_number,5 block_time,6 "from",7 "to",8 value / 1e18 AS ether,9 gas_used,10 gas_price / 1e9 AS gas_price_gwei11FROM ethereum."transactions"12WHERE "to" = '\xde0B295669a9FD93d5F28D9Ec85E40f4cb697BAe'13ORDER BY block_time DESC14)15SELECT16 hash,17 block_number,18 block_time,19 "from",20 "to",21 ether,22 (gas_used * gas_price_gwei) / 1e9 AS txn_fee23FROM temp_tableಎಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ತೋರಿಸು
This will yield the same information as provided on Etherscan's transaction page. For comparison, here are the two sources:
EF's contract page on Etherscan.(opens in a new tab)
Dune Analytics
You can find dashboard here(opens in a new tab). Click on the table to see the query (also see above).
Breaking Down Transactions
A submitted transaction includes several pieces of information including (source):
- Recipient: The receiving address (queried as "to")
- Signature: While a sender's private keys signs a transaction, what we can query with SQL is a sender's public address ("from").
- Value: This is the amount of ETH transferred (see
column). - Data: This is arbitrary data that's been hashed (see
column) - gasLimit – the maximum amount of gas units that can be consumed by the transaction. Units of gas represent computational steps
- maxPriorityFeePerGas - the maximum amount of gas to be included as a tip to the miner
- maxFeePerGas - the maximum amount of gas willing to be paid for the transaction (inclusive of baseFeePerGas and maxPriorityFeePerGas)
We can query these specific pieces of information for transactions to the Ethereum Foundation public address:
1SELECT2 "to",3 "from",4 value / 1e18 AS ether,5 data,6 gas_limit,7 gas_price / 1e9 AS gas_price_gwei,8 gas_used,9 ROUND(((gas_used / gas_limit) * 100),2) AS gas_used_pct10FROM ethereum."transactions"11WHERE "to" = '\xde0B295669a9FD93d5F28D9Ec85E40f4cb697BAe'12ORDER BY block_time DESCಎಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ತೋರಿಸು
Each transaction will change the state of the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) (source). Transactions are broadcasted to the network to be verified and included in a block. Each transaction is associated with a block number. To see the data, we could query a specific block number: 12396854 (the most recent block among Ethereum Foundation transactions as of this writing, 11/5/21).
Moreover, when we query the next two blocks, we can see that each block contains the hash of the previous block (i.e., parent hash), illustrating how the blockchain is formed.
Each block contains a reference to it parent block. This is shown below between the hash
and parent_hash
columns (source):
Here is the query(opens in a new tab) on Dune Analytics:
1SELECT2 time,3 number,4 hash,5 parent_hash,6 nonce7FROM ethereum."blocks"8WHERE "number" = 12396854 OR "number" = 12396855 OR "number" = 123968569LIMIT 10ಎಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ತೋರಿಸು
We can examine a block by querying time, block number, difficulty, hash, parent hash, and nonce.
The only thing this query does not cover is list of transaction which requires a separate query below and state root. A full or archival node will store all transactions and state transitions, allowing for clients to query the state of the chain at any time. Because this requires large storage space, we can separate chain data from state data:
- Chain data (list of blocks, transactions)
- State data (result of each transaction's state transition)
State root falls in the latter and is implicit data (not stored on-chain), while chain data is explicit and stored on the chain itself (source(opens in a new tab)).
For this tutorial, we'll be focusing on on-chain data that can be queried with SQL via Dune Analytics.
As stated above, each block contains a list of transactions, we can query this by filtering for a specific block. We'll try the most recent block, 12396854:
1SELECT * FROM ethereum."transactions"2WHERE block_number = 123968543ORDER BY block_time DESC`
Here's the SQL output on Dune:
This single block being added to the chain changes the state of the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM). Dozens sometimes, hundreds of transactions are verified at once. In this specific case, 222 transactions were included.
To see how many were actually successful, we would add another filter to count successful transactions:
1WITH temp_table AS (2 SELECT * FROM ethereum."transactions"3 WHERE block_number = 12396854 AND success = true4 ORDER BY block_time DESC5)6SELECT7 COUNT(success) AS num_successful_txn8FROM temp_table
For block 12396854, out of 222 total transactions, 204 were successfully verified:
Transactions requests occur dozens of times per second, but blocks are committed approximately once every 15 seconds (source).
To see that there is one block produced approximately every 15 seconds, we could take the number of seconds in a day (86400) divided by 15 to get an estimated average number of blocks per day (~ 5760).
The chart for Ethereum blocks produced per day (2016 - present) is:
The average number of blocks produced daily over this time period is ~5,874:
The queries are:
1# query to visualize number of blocks produced daily since 201623SELECT4 DATE_TRUNC('day', time) AS dt,5 COUNT(*) AS block_count6FROM ethereum."blocks"7GROUP BY dt8OFFSET 1910# average number of blocks produced per day1112WITH temp_table AS (13SELECT14 DATE_TRUNC('day', time) AS dt,15 COUNT(*) AS block_count16FROM ethereum."blocks"17GROUP BY dt18OFFSET 119)20SELECT21 AVG(block_count) AS avg_block_count22FROM temp_tableಎಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ತೋರಿಸು
The average number of blocks produced per day since 2016 is slightly above that number at 5,874. Alternatively, dividing 86400 seconds by 5874 average blocks comes out to 14.7 seconds or approximately one block every 15 seconds.
Blocks are bounded in size. The maximum block size is dynamic and varies according to network demand between 12,500,000 and 25,000,000 units. Limits are required to prevent arbitrarily large block sizes putting strain on full nodes in terms of disk space and speed requirements (source).
One way to conceptualize block gas limit is to think of it as the supply of available block space in which to batch transactions. The block gas limit can be queried and visualized from 2016 to present day:
1SELECT2 DATE_TRUNC('day', time) AS dt,3 AVG(gas_limit) AS avg_block_gas_limit4FROM ethereum."blocks"5GROUP BY dt6OFFSET 1
Then there is the actual gas used daily to pay for computing done on the Ethereum chain (i.e., sending transaction, calling a smart contract, minting an NFT). This is the demand for available Ethereum block space:
1SELECT2 DATE_TRUNC('day', time) AS dt,3 AVG(gas_used) AS avg_block_gas_used4FROM ethereum."blocks"5GROUP BY dt6OFFSET 1
We can also juxtapose these two charts together to see how demand and supply line up:
Therefore we can understand gas prices as a function of demand for Ethereum block space, given available supply.
Finally, we may want to query average daily gas prices for the Ethereum chain, however, doing so will result in an especially long query time, so we'll filter our query to the average amount of gas paid per transaction by the Ethereum Foundation.
We can see gas prices paid for all transactions made to the Ethereum Foundation address over the years. Here is the query:
1SELECT2 block_time,3 gas_price / 1e9 AS gas_price_gwei,4 value / 1e18 AS eth_sent5FROM ethereum."transactions"6WHERE "to" = '\xde0B295669a9FD93d5F28D9Ec85E40f4cb697BAe'7ORDER BY block_time DESC
With this tutorial, we understand foundational Ethereum concepts and how the Ethereum blockchain works by querying and getting a feel for on-chain data.
The dashboard that holds all code used in this tutorial can be found here(opens in a new tab).
For more use of data to explore web3 find me on Twitter(opens in a new tab).
ಕೊನೆಯ ಸಂಪಾದನೆ: @pettinarip(opens in a new tab), ಡಿಸೆಂಬರ್ 4, 2023