Zephaniah 1

Coming Judgment

Zephaniah opens with a prophetic claim—he had heard God speak and was about to deliver that word to the nation. After revealing his heavenly mandate, he gave the most thorough genealogy of any prophet in the Bible, linking his lineage back to Hezekiah. In essence, Zephaniah was linking Hezekiah, his great-great-grandfather, to Josiah, showing the shared lineage between himself and the king (1).

Ultimate Judgment (2-3)

Zephaniah began to lay out the catastrophic scope of the “Day of Yahweh”; it would affect everything (2). 

Zephaniah laid it out in reverse-creation order—humanity would be swept away, then beast, then fowl, then fish. 

Finally, Yahweh would get at the source of humanity’s problem, “rubble” or “stumbling blocks” (NKJV); most scholars believe this refers to idols. Eugene Peterson paraphrases the end of verse three to read, “... anything and everything that causes sin—will go, but especially people” (3 MSG).

Before Zephaniah delved into the specific and the current, he laid out the ultimate and timeless.

A universal judgment was coming, but until then, impromptu judgments along the way would steady the course and corruption of the world. Judah was facing one of those impromptu judgments that would be devastating. 

Judah’s Judgment (4-6)

Against the backdrop of a nation that considered it impossible for Yahweh to judge them because they were Yahweh’s chosen, Zephaniah delivered a huge blow. 

• Yahweh would stretch out his hand against Judah and Jerusalem, meaning he would leave nothing back. 

• Yahweh would cut off all forms of idolatry from the greatest to the least, especially Canaanite Baalism. 

• Yahweh would cut off and destroy the system of idolatry, perpetuated by the idolatrous priest, by destroying the priests of the idols (4). 

• Yahweh would destroy those who worshiped stars and astral deities.

• Yahweh would destroy those engaged in dual worship—in Judah’s case, to Yahweh and Moloch (5). 

• Yahweh would destroy those who perhaps hadn’t given themselves to idols but had turned back from following Yahweh to passively believing in Him while engaging in self-worship and pursuing their own wishes (6). 

The Day Described (7-18)

The day was approaching. It was so near that Israel was like a sacrifice ready for slaughter. Those who were going to do the slaughtering were like guests consecrated for performing the sacrifice (7).

When the day of sacrifice arrived, the day of judgment, rank and riches would not shield any from what was to arrive. Those princes of God who clothed themselves like foreigners, meaning they acted like the heathen, would experience Yahweh’s awful day. Those who dressed like foreigners had clothed themselves with the values and standards of those alien to a love for Yahweh as the Center of their being (8). Others in Israel to be visited with judgment were those believing in fate and superstition (“leaps over a threshold”), seizing the property of others with violence, and harming others for gain and power (9).

Zephaniah further described “that day” as a day when wailing would be heard from the Fish Gate, the Second Quarter, and Mortar; all of these allusions concerned the merchants of Judah and the leaders in commerce. They would wail profusely over their losses and inability to do business (10-11). Sinners, those complacent who sought to hide from Yahweh on that day, assuming He would be indifferent toward them, would be searched for with “lamps” and found (12). 

All would be plundered—homes destroyed, vocations laid waste—the joy and cheer of life would come to an end (13). Zephaniah made it clear that the day was not only near but was coming at them fast. It would come at them with such bitter fierceness that even the most brave among them would cower in fear (14). 

Zephaniah further described the “great day of the Lord,” the ultimate day of judgment, with a poetic device putting three sets of adjectives together to describe the day’s intensity; then he used three sets of activities, which would be seen and heard during the “day of wrath.”

Zephaniah listed out the intensity of trouble the day of the Lord would bring: 

• Physical and psychological pressure

• Economic and agricultural plunder

• Hopelessness and helplessness

• God’s hiddenness and obscurity (15) 

• War and warnings of war

• All human defense falling (16) 

All of this would cause men to be so confused that they would live like blind men, not knowing where to go or what to do. Of course, this actually happened to the last king of Judah; Zedekiah watched Nebuchadnezzar execute his son and then have his own eyes put out (2 Kings 25:7).

All of this disaster was coming upon Judah because they were sinning against Yahweh; sin has a profound effect, reaping consequences in nature and in the political world. 

Those of Judah would come under terrible judgment, die, and then have their bodies shown no more respect than the dung of animals (17). 

The money of the wealthy would have no ability to pay tribute and buy off their enemies; nothing could ultimately delay Yahweh’s wrath. Because Yahweh was not the exclusive Center of Judah’s worship and love, they would act with such violence and wickedness that Yahweh’s jealousy for His creation would lead Him to allow Judah to be destroyed politically and economically. All of this destruction would happen so that many could be saved from their treachery, greed, and savagery.  

Of course, in all of this, Zephaniah was looking far beyond the fall of Judah and Jerusalem, all the way to the great day of judgment at the end of the age. The destruction of Judah and Jerusalem was only forecasting a great day that Zephaniah promised was yet to come (18). 

Zephaniah 2

Humbling

Hope for the Humble (1-3) 

Chapter two begins with hope. Zephaniah called Judah to cease acting with such cavalier shamelessness and to gather together to repent.

Zephaniah warned them that they had time before the ordered decree took effect. The word for gathering bears the thought of gathering stubble or straw. Zephaniah was telling Judah to humble themselves, using the term “before” three times to emphasize they had time for prayer, but that time was quickly coming to an end. They could stoop and pick up the straw of repentance before it was blown away, and that time would swiftly come to an end (1-2). 

Those who honored God’s word, who acknowledged God’s justice in judging Judah and sought to cling to mercy, were the humble or meek of the earth (Matthew 5:5). They were given the promise that if they humbled themselves, they would be hidden from the day of anger. They were thus to seek Yahweh, His justice, and humbleness of heart as though it were their highest prize. It would be their only hope for survival (3). 

Nations Humbled (4-15) 

Zephaniah prophesied concerning the humbling of the nations: 

• The four surviving cities of the Philistines would experience desolation and homelessness during the day of Yahweh’s wrath (4).

• The Cherethites, a group of people closely related to the Philistines, would be destroyed until no inhabitant was left, and they would be destroyed as the old Canaanites who had originally occupied that land. This coastal area was at one time a great area of enterprise and commerce, but would be reverted to a place where flocks would pasture (5-6).

• Zephaniah inserted a prophecy concerning the remnant who would survive the judgment, those who had humbled themselves. They would be given the seacoast land where the Philistines and Cherethites had once lived. Yahweh would restore the fortunes of the remnant by giving them these seashore cities and pastures.

  Interestingly, the Maccabeans conquered the seashore towns after the exiles had returned, and, during the first century, Christianity thrived in this area (7).

• The sister nations of Moab and Ammon were to become like the land of Gomorrah. Oddly, the fathers of both nations were born because their parents had to flee Sodom and Gomorrah. After leaving the twin cities area and when safely in the mountains, the daughters of Lot got him drunk so he would impregnate them, and the consequence was the birth of Moab and Ammon. 

  These two nations had no respect for Israel; they constantly had their eyes on their land for themselves. Zephaniah made it clear that the lands of Moab and Ammon would experience constant desolation. The remnant of Judah who survived the coming day of judgment would plunder Ammon and Moab. Indeed, they did, during the Maccabean period. Their judgment was due to their pride against God’s people. The nations of Moab and Ammon constantly disrespected Israel, forming alliances against them, and perpetually seeking to conquer Israel and take their land (8-10). 

  In the end, all nations would come and bow down to Yahweh, grateful for His awesome removal of all the false gods of the earth, leaving no God but Yahweh. It is as if Zephaniah was saying the day of judgment was worth the outcome (11). 

• Cush or Ethiopia would be slain in battle (12).

• Assyria and Nineveh were to be made desolate, meaning the nation and its capital were going to be politically and economically devastated (13). Instead of a land thriving with cities, it would revert to a wild place for the beasts to roam; owls would nest on the columns and in windows of the ruined palaces. The great palaces would be uninhabitable by humans (14). The city that had boasted of being the envy of the earth and impenetrable would come to utter ruin and become the home of animals and the joke of those who passed by and shook a fist in triumph (15).