The Pulpit Commentary — Zephaniah — Section 20

Vers. 1-18.-Thejudgment threatened. We learn from ver. 1 that Zephaniah received from the Lord his message to Judah in the days of Josiah, the last of the godly and reforming kings, who, after the gross corruption of the preceding reigns of Manasseh and Amon, restored to a large extent the purity of the worship of God, and was the means of bringing about a ~ertain kind and degree of repentance and amendment in the people. Probably, however, the major part of Zephaniab's prophecy belongs to the early part of Josiah's reign, before his greatest public reformation was begun; for there is no allusion to that hopeful work in the book of the prophet, and there is no mention of Zephaniah in the history, where Jeremiah and Huldah the prophetess are described as aiding and guiding the ki ug's efforts to bring the people back to god! iness. Bnt the word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah doubtless prepared the way for the work of full reformation, though the messenger may not have been spared to take part and rejoice in it. His message is, first, an announcement of the jndgment of Jehovah against the people, which occupies the whole of eh. i.; and ver. 7 may be taken as its central point, containing the lessou of duty, on which all that precedes and follows it converges. We shall best feel the force of this lesson if we begin from the outside of this oracle, the more obvious and manifest appearance of the judgrnent of Jehovah here announced, which the prophet puts at the beginning and end (vers. 2, 3, 14-18). I. THE NATURE OF THIS JUDGMENT. At the very outset it is described in a way fitted to startle and alarm; for it is to be of a most sweeping and universal nature (vers. 2, 3). The words remind us of nothing less than the universal deluge, by which the old world was swept away. A destruction like that is impending over Judah. There had been many chastisements sent on the people before; the land had been invaded, the royal treasuries rifted, the country laid waste. No fewer than ten of the twelve tribes of Israel had been not very long before carried away into Assyria. Still, these visitations had been only partial; a remnant had al ways been left; and many were apt to trust that so it would ever be. Because God had given Israel the land, they thought that some pa.rt of it at least must always be theirs. But now they are wamrd that this is a false confidence, and that, in spite of the gift of the land to Abraham's seed, the corrupt race that now inhabit it shall be utterly cut off. Moreover, this judgment, that is to be so sweeping, is also very near at hand. In the old world the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah; but now he has waited long and sent messenger after messenger; and at last the time of delay is nearly exhausted, and the judgment is close at hand, for their iniquity is all but full. The day of the Lord is represented as basting to meet them; the sound of its coming is already heard, and very soon it will be here. Have not all these lesser judgments been foretastes of it ?-the capture of Galilee by Tiglath-Pileser, the removal of the whole northern kingdom by Shalmaneser or Sargon, the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib? and has not each one of these been more sweeping and for-reaching than the forill:er ? Are not these sif!;ns and harbingers of tho great day of the Lord here announced? Tnen how terrible and irresistible is this judgment (vers. 15-18) ! Physical strength and powor shall not deliver the guilty n[ltion. There aro, indeed, fortified cities in the land, and high towers to bar tho entrance of au enemy; and it may seem as if behind these they ZEl'IIANIAU. 0 18 THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH, [on, 1. 1-18.