Zephaniah
Author: Zephaniah
Zephaniah, in the days of Josiah, announces a day of the Lord against Judah and the nations, and a remnant that sings.
Outline
The sweeping judgment (1)
The Lord says he will consume all things, and the day of the Lord is near upon Jerusalem.
Seek the Lord (2:1–3:8)
The meek are told to seek righteousness, and Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Cush, and Assyria are judged.
The singing remnant (3:9–20)
The Lord leaves a humble people, rejoices over them, and gathers those who had been scattered.
Key verses
Zephaniah 1:14
The great day of the Lord is near and hastens quickly.
Zephaniah 2:3
The meek of the land are told to seek the Lord, righteousness, and meekness.
Zephaniah 3:17
The Lord is in the midst of the remnant, rejoicing over them with singing.
Zephaniah prophesies in the days of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah. The genealogy in the opening verse reaches back to Hezekiah, so the book places itself inside the royal story even while it threatens the royal city. Josiah’s reign is the generation of the book of the law found in the temple and of a reform that tore down high places. Zephaniah does not write a chronicle of that reform. He writes as if the day of the Lord is still the fact Judah must face, because the habits the reform attacked are still the habits the prophet can name.
The Lord says he will utterly consume all things from the land: man and beast, the fowls, the fish, the stumbling blocks with the wicked, and he will cut off mankind from the land. The hand is stretched out on Judah and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He will cut off the remnant of Baal, the name of the idol priests, those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops, those who swear by the Lord and also by Malcham, and those who have turned back from the Lord and have not sought him. He will punish the princes who fill their masters’ houses with violence, and he will search Jerusalem with candles for the men who are settled on their lees and say in their heart that the Lord will not do good and will not do evil. Their goods become a spoil. The great day of the Lord is near. It is a day of wrath, trouble, distress, wasteness, darkness, the trumpet, and the alarm against the fenced cities. Neither silver nor gold will deliver. The whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy.
Before the nations are listed, a small command is given to the undesirable nation. Gather yourselves. Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness. Seek meekness. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger. The hiding is not promised as a certainty the proud can claim. It is held out to the meek. Then Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron are abandoned. Moab and Ammon, who reproached the Lord’s people, become like Sodom. Cush is slain by the sword. Assyria and Nineveh, the rejoicing city that said she sits as a queen, become a desolation where flocks lie down and the pelican and the bittern lodge.
Jerusalem is not spared by the fall of her enemies. Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city. She obeyed not the voice. She received not correction. Her princes are roaring lions, her judges evening wolves, her prophets light and treacherous, her priests polluting the sanctuary. The Lord is righteous in her midst and does not do iniquity. He brings his judgment to light. He says, wait for me, until I rise to the prey, for my determination is to gather the nations. After that gathering the speech of the peoples is turned to a pure language so that they may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one consent. The remnant of Israel will not do iniquity and will not speak lies. They will feed and lie down, and none will make them afraid.
The last movement is the Lord’s own joy. He has taken away the judgments. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst. He will rejoice over them with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over them with singing. He will gather the ones who sorrow over the solemn assembly, undo the affliction, save the lame, and get them praise in every land where they had been put to shame. At that time he will bring them in and make them a name and a praise among all people of the earth. Zephaniah’s day is severe enough to search the city with candles, and the end of the book is the Lord singing over a people who had been told to seek meekness if they hoped to be hid.