ZEPHANIAH THEME: Days of Desolation and Deliverance MEMORY CHALLENGE OUTLINE: I. PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDGMENT (ZEPHANIAH 1:2 3:8) II. PROPHECIES CONCERNING BLESSING (ZEPHANIAH 3:9-20) KEY CHAPTERS: The Day of the Lord (Zephaniah 1:14-18) Israel s Future Restoration (Zephaniah 3:14-18) KEY PASSAGES: Zephaniah 1:7 Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near, For the LORD has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests. Zephaniah 1:14-16 Near is the great day of the LORD, near and coming very quickly; Listen, the day of the LORD! In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day, A day of trouble and distress, A day of destruction and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities And the high corner towers. Zephaniah 2:3 Seek the LORD, All you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the LORD'S anger. a plea for repentance in order to find salvation from the Day of the Lord Zephaniah 3:14-15 Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away His judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; You will fear disaster no more. description of Israel s future deliverance during the millennial age in which Christ will reign in her midst KEY PEOPLE: Zephaniah prophet of God to the southern kingdom of Judah whose name means the Lord hides or protects I. INTRODUCTION: I. TITLE: The Book of Zephaniah, like the other prophetical books, bears the name of its author who proclaimed the Word of the Lord in the days of Josiah, king of Judah (1:1). The name Zephaniah means hidden of the Lord or protected of the Lord, which is exactly what God will do for his remnant people who remain faithful and obedient to Him and His Word. In this time of trouble that will come upon the earth, the great and terrible Day of the Lord that Zephaniah prophecies of, God will hide/protect His 139
remnant people. The Lord will watch over, care for, and ultimately, restore these to Himself. II. AUTHOR: The son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, Zephaniah is one of only two prophets of royal ancestry, Isaiah being the other as a likely brother to King Amaziah and cousin of King Uzziah. This long genealogy found in the opening superscription (1:1) indicates that Zephaniah was the great-great-grandson of good King Hezekiah. As such, this would have meant that the prophet would have been a cousin of King Josiah, who served as king of Judah during Zephaniah s prophetic ministry. Given this relationship with the king and the fact that he was a resident of Jerusalem, Zephaniah would likely have had access to the royal court and knew well the religious climate of Judah. Furthermore, this genealogy indicates that Zephaniah s ancestors were evidently very godly royals as three of the four generations bear names ending in ah, an abbreviation used exclusively for the divine (e.g. Jehovah - YHWH). Tradition holds that Zephaniah was born during the reign of Manasseh (c. 650 B.C.) and died at the hands of his Babylonian captures (c. 586 B.C. ). III. DATE: Zephaniah ministered to the southern kingdom in the days of Josiah king of Judah who reigned from 640-609 B.C. Given this fact and the close family ties with the king, it is thought that Zephaniah s prophetic ministry occurred early in the years of Josiah s reign (approximately 636-623 B.C.), but prior to the destruction of Nineveh (612 B.C. Zeph. 2:13-15). Tradition holds that Zephaniah s influence and witness to King Josiah may have led to his seeking the God of his father David at age sixteen (2 Chron. 34:1). Also and possibly as a direct result of Zephaniah s godly influence upon the king, Josiah began to institute sweeping reforms across Judah, which were completed in the eighteenth year of his reign (c. 622 B.C. ref. 2 Kgs. 22:3; 2 Chron. 34:3, 8). Many of the same sins that are recorded in the Kings and Chronicles corpus, which Josiah lamented over, are the same sins, which Zephaniah now condemns in his oracle of judgment (e.g. idolatrous practices and lawlessness, Zeph. 1:3-6). With this said, it is believed that the Book of Zephaniah was composed sometime around 627 B.C., the same year in which Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry. IV. OVERVIEW: Zephaniah was a contemporary of the early ministry of Jeremiah, whose ministries parallel that of Micah and Isaiah. At this time, the Assyrian Empire was crumbling, and Babylon was beginning to assert itself as a dominant, world power. Simultaneously, Judah was still suffering from the apostasy and sacrilege brought about by the evil king Manasseh (695-642 BC). Simply put, the nation of Judah was horribly corrupt and terribly weak politically, morally, religiously, and spiritually. Under Manasseh s 53-year rule, the Judeans were steeped in Baal worship and the land was fully inundated with idolatrous practices and religious syncretism. Worse still, Manasseh so muffled the voice of the prophets and hampered any prophetic activity during his reign that after his death, the voice of God was desperately needed to call the nation to repentance and warn of the coming Day of the Lord. Such was Zephaniah 140
God s appointed prophet for God s appointed hour. With Zephaniah, then, came a resurgence of prophetic witness to the people of Judah. Josiah, the grandson of Manasseh and last of the good kings of the south, began his 31- year reign at the young age of eight, following over half a century of bloodshed and moral corruption under Manasseh and Amon. In an attempt to purge the nation of the sins of Manasseh, Josiah gathered the people for covenant renewal upon rediscovering the Book of Law, which Manasseh had almost singlehandedly destroyed all copies of (2 Chron. 34:14-33). With this said, the prophet Zephaniah condemns the very sins that Josiah is striving to purge the nation of. Although reform comes as a result of Zephaniah and Josiah, the people will eventually revert to their old ways. As such, Zephaniah issues an alarming warning concerning the imminent Day of the Lord, a day of great wrath and judgment that will come upon Judah and find its temporal fulfillment in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and Babylonian captivity (586 B.C). V. THEME: Zephaniah was one of the last prophets of Judah before the nation fell to the Babylonian invaders. Given that God had provided the nation of Judah with spiritual guidance through both Zephaniah and Josiah, the sin of the nation in rejecting this spiritual light from God marks one of the darkest and ominous chapters in their history, a time immediately preceding their ruin and exile. With this in mind, judgment is the central theme found throughout Zephaniah s prophetic message. Specifically, his unmitigated emphasis involves the Day of the Lord, stressing its fury and calling upon the people to repent. In the OT, the phrase, Day of the Lord, occurs nineteen times by eight different authors (Isa. 2:12; 13:6, 9; Oba. 1:15; Joel 1:15; Amos 5:18; Ez. 13:5; 30:3; Zeph. 1:7, 14; Zech. 14:1; Mal. 4:5) and always concerns judgment and war against the ungodly, which can be seen as a necessary purging of sin before righteousness can reign. Although eight of the prophets speak of this great and terrible day, it is specifically central to three of the prophet s messages (Joel, Zephaniah, Malachi) who served roughly 200 years apart during similar times of spiritual apostasy in Judah, and in every case, warned of the fiery judgment of the Lord, pointing to the Lord as the place of refuge for the repentant of heart. The Day of the Lord involves God s special intervention in the affairs of human history. It is an expression used by the prophets to indicate a distinctive time when the current state of affairs will be replaced by the Lord s supernatural ordering of things. With this in mind, there are three discernable facets concerning the day of the Lord: 1) the historical; that is, God s intervention in the affairs of Israel (Zeph. 1:14-18;) as well as Gentile nations (Zeph. 2:4-15; 3:8); 2) the symbolic or illustrative; that is, whereby a historical incident represents a partial fulfillment of the eschatological Day of the Lord (Zeph. 1:7; 2:7, 13;); and 3) the eschatological; which includes the time of the Great Tribulation (Zeph. 3:8; Mal. 4:5), the second coming of Christ, and the Millennial Reign of Christ (Zeph. 3:9-20). 141
To be sure, Zephaniah s recorded prophecy is devoted wholly to this theme of judgment. Indeed, his work provides one of the fullest treatments of the Day of the Lord found anywhere in the Old Testament. In fact, it has been observed by one OT commentator that if anyone desires to see all the secret oracles of the OT prophets reduced into one short summary, he has only to read the Book of Zephaniah. In other words, Zephaniah summarizes the broad features of prophecy in striking pronouncements of finality and is especially emphatic and definitive in his language. Though Micah, Nahum, and Habakkuk also introduce the Lord God as a great and powerful Judge, the portrait of God s wrath given by the prophet Zephaniah is arguably the most awesome description found anywhere in Scripture. For example, the description of Zeph. 1:18 and 3:8 is like the final crash of the entire universe. Here Almighty God, the Sovereign Lord, is seen devouring the whole earth in the fire of His indignation because of the sin and stubbornness of men. Perhaps there is no more stern and sobering of passages found anywhere else in the Bible. In short, Zephaniah solemnly and directly confronts the hearts of men with the harsh reality of their imminent meeting with an outraged God who is about to obliterate rebellious, idolatrous man. His message is Dante s Inferno meets Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God all rolled into one!!! VI. PURPOSE: The purpose of this prophecy was to issue an eleventh hour call for repentance to the nation of Judah, and in modern times to all nations, by condemning their idolatry and warning them of the great day of God s wrath that is soon to come upon this world. Beyond this judgment, however, Zephaniah did emphasis the final result of Israel s/judah s judgment, namely, that she would be brought out as a remnant people that had been purified, humbled, and restored by the Lord. In short, the prophet s message spans from the day of wrath to the day of deliverance from I will utterly consume (1:2) to I will save the lame and gather the outcast (3:19). Thus, while the day of the Lord yet waits, Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord s anger (Zeph. 2:3). II. OUTLINE OF ZEPHANIAH: I. THE DAY OF THE LORD: REVEALING GOD S WRATH (ZEPHANIAH 1) a. THE TARGETS OF GOD S WRATH (Zeph. 1:1-9) i. All nature will feel God s fury (vv. 1-3) 1. A warning of God s universal judgment on the earth ii. All Judah will be purged of idolatry (vv. 4-9) 1. A warning of God s judgment against Judah and Jerusalem. 2. Here, the prophet catalogs the religious sins of the nation: a. Worshippers of Baal and other Canaanite deities b. Worshippers of nature, the sun, moon, and stars c. Syncretistic religions who presume to worship the Lord, but others as well 142
i. Zephaniah condemns Judah s syncretistic worship of both YHWH and the Ammonite deity Milcom (1:5) as the people of Judah worshipped, swore by both. In fact, Solomon built a temple for Molech worship (1 Kgs. 11:7), which was later desecrated by Josiah in his efforts for reform (2 Kgs. 23:13). d. Those who willfully abandoned the worship of God altogether e. The indifferent who have not concerned themselves with God s demands to obey them 3. This purging of God s people would find its temporal fulfillment in the Babylonian captivity (586) and subsequent returns to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. b. THE TERRORS OF GOD S WRATH (Zeph. 1:10-18) i. All classes of sinners will be destroyed (vv. 10-13) 1. References to the Fish Gate, Second Quarter, and Mortar give indication that God is speaking of all kinds of people regardless of the district in which they live in Jerusalem (e.g. upper, middle, and lower class). God will judge all kinds of people, without regard to social and economic status. ii. All of the earth will be entirely devoured (vv. 14-18) 1. The Day of the Lord, which finds eschatological fulfillment in the judgment of the nations at Christ s Second Coming (Zech. 3:8; Matt. 25:31-32). II. THE DAY OF THE LORD: REPAYING GOD S ENEMIES (ZEPHANIAH 2:1-3:8) a. THE TRULY REPENTANT WILL FIND GOD S MERCY (Zeph. 2:1-3) i. Like many of the prophets, God s purpose in declaring judgment upon the nation is an effort to call the nation to repentance in the hope of satisfying God s wrath. ii. In this, God s judgment is the black velvet backdrop upon which the diamond of His grace and mercy can be better seen His people iii. 2:3 harkens back to Isa. 55:6, Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. b. THE PAGAN NATIONS WILL BE JUDGED FOR TAUNTING GOD S PEOPLE (Zeph. 2:4-15) i. The prophet now turns his attention away from Judah and issues sweeping indictments and verdicts of judgment upon all Gentile nations. 1. Judgment against Philistia (2:4-7) 2. Judgment against Moab & Ammon (2:8-11) 3. Judgment against Ethopia (2:12) 143
4. Judgment against Assyria (2:13-15) ii. Zephaniah s ordering of these nations is from west, to east, to south, to north. This is to say, these four nations are representative of all nations from the four corners of the globe. iii. Besides the prophet Amos, Zephaniah is the only minor prophet to feature a series of oracles against the nations (ref. Amos 1:3-2:16). c. THE CITY OF JERUSALEM WILL BE JUDGED FOR REJECTING GOD S WORD (Zeph. 3:1-7) i. Jerusalem is referred to as a tyrannical city, which is on par with what you would expect with say Nineveh perhaps. ii. The prophet now indicts Jerusalem for her sins her leaders, false prophets, priests all are corrupt and spiritually bankrupt in God s eyes. iii. Even God s judgment on the neighboring Gentile nations should have served as a warning to Judah. But Judah thought to highly of herself. The people took greater stock in their ancestry (sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and not enough stock in their covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Because of their chosen status, they truly believed that they were above God s judgment. They honestly did not believe God would judge them in the same manner in which he dealt with Gentile nations. iv. Tragically, Judah did not even heed God s Word when King Josiah rediscovered the Book of the Law in the temple (2 Chron. 34:14-33). Though reform came for a season, the people ultimately rejected God s Word and remained disobedient. d. THE ENTIRE EARTH WILL BE JUDGED FOR REJECTING GOD S MERCY (Zeph. 3:8) i. This universal declaration of judgment will be fulfilled in the Great Tribulation climaxing with the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 16:14), after which will be the judgment of the nations at Christ s Second Coming. III. THE DAY OF THE LORD: RESTORING GOD S PEOPLE (ZEPHANIAH 3:9-20) Zephaniah, like many of the prophets, also prophesied concerning Israel s future restoration in that day. This deliverance and purging of God s chosen remnant was fulfilled in part, when God led His people back into the Promised Land at the end of their Babylonian captivity beginning in 536. But the full extent of Israel s restoration, the fulfillment of their inhabitance and inheritance of the Promised Land on the grand scale, will be realized during the millennial age. Some of the blessings that Israel will experience in the Day of the Lord, this millennial kingdom are: pure worship (3:9) in contrast to the blasphemy of idol worship; re-establishment as a nation (3:10-13); Christ personally reigning in their midst (3:15); security from their enemies (3:16); vindication from their oppressors (3:19); full inheritance of the Promised Land (3:20). In this day, His coming will be to them a source of great joy and exultation as He restores their fortunes from reproach to praise and renown in all the earth (1:19). 144
a. ISRAEL S RESTORATION TO RIGHTEOUSNESS (Zeph. 3:9-13) i. A nation characterized by purity (vv. 9-13) ii. A nation cleansed of pride (v. 12) b. ISRAEL S RESTORATION TO REJOICING (Zeph. 3:14-20) i. Her festivities will be restored by Messiah (vv. 14-18) ii. Her fortunes will be restored by Messiah (vv. 19-20) 1. At the time of Christ s Second Coming and the establishment of His thousand-year millennial reign upon the earth, God will fulfill His covenant promise to the nation of Israel at which time she will inherit and inhabit the entirety of the Promised Land as described in Joshua 13-19. 2. At no point in history did Israel or has Israel ever inhabited her allotment of land given to her by God. Remember, God told the tribes to finish conquering the land that He had given to them, but the nations did not obey God and thus, never took possession of its full boundaries, which from all indications stretches from Egypt to Turkey, to Saudi Arabia, to Iran. 145