This shall befall them for their pride: because they have blasphemed, and have been magnified against the people of the Lord of hosts.

This is to them for their arrogancy, Because they have reproached, And they magnify themselves against the people of Jehovah of Hosts.

This will be their fate because of their pride, because they have said evil, lifting themselves up against the people of the Lord of armies.

This shall they have for their pride, Because they have taunted and spoken boastfully Against the people of the LORD of hosts.

This will come upon them for their arrogance, because they have blasphemed and have been magnified over the people of the Lord of hosts.

Hoc illis pro superbis sua, quia exprobrarunt et insultarunt super populum Jehovae exercituum.

This shall they have for their pride - Literally, "This to them instead of their pride." Contempt and shame shall be the residue of the proud man; the exaltation shall be gone, and all which they shall gain to themselves shall be shame. Moab and Ammon are the types of heretics . As they were akin to the people of God, but hating it; akin to Abraham through a lawless birth, but ever molesting the children of Abraham, so heretics profess to believe in Christ, to be children of Christ, and yet ever seek to overthrow the faith of Christians. As the Church says, "My mothers children are" "angry with me" Song 1:5. They seem to have escaped the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah (pagan sins), and to have found a place of refuge (Zoar); and yet they are in darkness and cannot see the light of faith; and in an unlawful manner they mingle, against all right, the falsehood of Satan with the truth of God; so that their doctrines become, in part, "doctrines of devils," in part have some stamp of the original truth.
To them, as to the Jews, our Lord says, "Ye are of your father the devil." While they profess to be children of God, they claim by their names to have God for their Father (Moab) and to be of His people (Ammon), while in hatred to His true children they forfeit both. As Moab seduced Israel, so they the children of the Church. They too enlarge themselves against the borders of the Church, rending off its children and making themselves the Church. They too utter reproaches and revilings against it. "Take away their revilings," says an early father , "against the law of Moses, and the prophets, and God the Creator, and they have not a word to utter." They too "remove the old landmarks which the fathers" (the prophets and Apostles) "have set." And so, barrenness is their portion; as, after a time, heretics ever divide, and do not multiply; they are a desert, being out of the Church of God: and at last the remnant of Judah, the Church, possesses them, and absorbs them into herself.

Because they have reproached - See on Zephaniah 2:8 (note).

This shall they have for their pride,.... This calamity shall come upon their land, the land of the Moabites and Ammonites, for their pride, which often goes before a fall; and has frequently been the cause of the ruin of kingdoms and states, and of particular persons; and indeed seems to have been the first sin of the apostate angels, and of fallen man. Of the pride of Moab see Isaiah 16:6,
because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts; they looked with disdain upon them, as greatly below them; and spoke contemptibly of them, of their nation, and religion; and "made" themselves "great", and set up themselves "above" them, opened their mouths wide, and gave their tongues great liberties in blaspheming and reviling them: what was done to them is taken by the Lord as done to himself; see Jeremiah 48:42.

(Compare Zephaniah 2:8).
their pride--in antithesis to the meek (Zephaniah 2:3).