Zephaniah 1:4

(Verse 4 and following) And I will stretch out my hand over Judah and over all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will destroy from this place the remnants of Baal, and the names of the idolatrous priests together with the priests, and those who worship on the rooftops the host of heaven, and those who worship and swear by the Lord, and swear by Melchom; and those who turn away from the Lord, and those who have not sought the Lord or inquired of him.

Those that will not humble themselves under God's mighty hand shall be humbled and brought down by it. Note, Even Judah, where God is known, and Jerusalem, where his dwelling-place is, if they revolt from him and rebel against him, shall have his hand stretched out against them. All wicked people, and all those things that are the matter of their wickedness (

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I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah,....

Jerusalem--the fountainhead of the evil. God begins with His sanctuary (Eze 9:6), and those who are nigh Him (Le 10:3). the remnant of Baal--the remains of Baal worship, which as yet Josiah was unable utterly to eradicate in remote places. Baal was the Phœnician tutelary god.

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I will also stretch out Mine Hand - As before on Egypt . Judah had gone in the ways of Egypt and learned her sins, and sinned worse than Egypt. “The mighty Hand and stretched-out Arm” Jer 2:10-11, with which she had been delivered, shall be again “stretched out,” yet, not for her but “upon” her, “upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” In this threatened destruction of all, Judah and Jerusalem are singled out, because “judgment” shall “begin at the house of God” 1Pe 4:17; Jer 25:29. They who have sinned against the greater grace shall be most signally punished. Yet, the punishment of those whom God had so chosen and loved is an earnest of the general judgment. This too is not a partial but a general judgment “upon “all” the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” And I will cut off the remnant of Baal - that is, to the very last vestige of it. Isaiah unites “name and residue” Isa 14:22, as equivalents, together with the proverbial, posterity and descendant. Zephaniah distributes them in parallel clauses, “the “residue” of Baal and the “name” of the Chemarim.” Good and evil have each a root, which remains in the ground, when the trunk has been hewn down. There is “a remnant according to the election of grace,” when “the rest have been blinded” Rom 11:5, Rom 11:7; and this is a “holy seed” Isa 6:13 to carry on the line of God. Evil too has its remnant, which, unless diligently kept down, shoots up again, after the conversion of peoples or individuals. The “mind of the flesh” remains in the regenerate also. The prophet foretells the complete excision of the whole “remnant of Baal,” which was fulfilled in it after the captivity, and shall be fulfilled as to all which it shadows forth, in the Day of Judgment. “From this place;” for in their phrensy, they dared to bring the worship of Baal into the very temple of the Lord 2Ki 23:4. […]