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In Zephaniah 2, the prophet’s condemnation of nations was used as a rhetorical device. Listeners in Judea would have readily agreed with the prophet about the urgent need to punish their enemies. As covenant people, they presumptuously expected their own pardon. Assyria had destroyed the Kingdom of Israel a century earlier, but Judah felt impervious to judgment. Judah boasted of Jerusalem, the place of God’s presence. Even when Assyria had encroached upon the very gates of Jerusalem, God had saved her, showing her mercy. In the minds of the people, mercy, once shown, was taken for granted.
Accountability of the chosen
In Zephaniah 3, the prophet narrows his focus and points the finger at his listening audience. God was angry with Jerusalem for mirroring the same sinful behavior as the nations. Zephaniah preached, “Woe, soiled, defiled, oppressing city! It has listened to no voice; it has accepted no correction” (3:1-2). Jerusalem had become so self-exalting that the once-chosen city was no longer capable of hearing God’s voice.
God had chosen Israel to be a light to the world. He had entrusted his laws to them on Mount Sinai so they could create a just, free, and fair society in a covenant relationship with him, but by Zephaniah’s day, they had neglected both the revelations of God and his fellowship. The world outside of Judah lacked a standard for moral and ethical behavior. Despite that, God was holding them accountable for their arrogance and violence. How much more culpable was Judah, who knew the ways of God and had been entrusted with the highest standard of moral and ethical behavior.
When Yahweh had delivered his people out of Egypt, he commanded them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in how I command you, so that it may be well with you” (Jer. 7:23). The prophets’ job was to alert people when they were not following God’s ways. Their rebellion and misdeeds were all the more glaring, considering that Yahweh’s presence dwelled in their midst. Zephaniah wrote, “The Lord within it is righteous” (3:5).
By naming four groups as targets—officials, judges, prophets, and priests—Zephaniah gravely announced the commencement of God’s judgment. His oracle contrasted the failures of Judah’s leaders with the faithfulness of Yahweh. In the first two stanzas of his poem, Zephaniah described the actions of Israel and her leaders. In the third and fourth stanzas, he was portraying God’s faithful partnership. Israel was guilty of not drawing near to him while Yahweh abided in their presence (3:2-5). The officials were depicted as roaring lions who devoured their own, while Yahweh never neglected his duties (3:3-5). Israel’s judges were “evening wolves that leave nothing until the morning” (3:3). They had disregarded the welfare of the people, only thinking of themselves. Yahweh, on the other hand, remained a fair judge over the community.
Zephaniah preached, “Every morning he renders his judgment, each dawn without fail” (3:5). The false prophets in Judah had lied and lacked integrity while God did no wrong (3:4-5). The implication is that God had provided a model for them of selfless, ever-present, loving, wise leadership, while the leaders of Zephaniah’s day lacked all of those assets.
Prophets such as Hosea blamed the whole nation for forsaking the covenant. All of Judah and Israel were guilty. Hosea lamented, “there is no truth, no love, and no knowledge of God in the land” (Hos. 4:1). Zephaniah’s words were in accordance with those of the prophet Amos. Zephaniah and Amos both targeted the powerful and wealthy for judgment, while maintaining the innocence of the powerless and poor.
By judging a few select nations first, Yahweh intended for Judah to awaken, repent, and return. Yahweh coaxed, “Surely the city will fear me; it will accept correction” (3:7). Instead of receiving the correction, however, Judah became “more eager to make all their deeds corrupt” (3:7). Zephaniah’s emphasis on the eagerness of the people to do evil signaled their sin was beyond mere complacency. Their hearts had become callous towards God. In earlier times, the prophet Micah had accused the greedy of Judah of plotting injustices in their beds and waking up early to get a head start on their corrupt plans. Because Yahweh could not continuously countenance evil, the wheels of his judgment inevitably were set in motion. He declared, “For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all the heat of my anger” (3:8).
In his book, Zephaniah referred to the day of the Lord 21 times. His book requires a careful reading to discern when the prophet is envisioning a “day” of near judgment, and when he is speaking of a “day” of future judgment. Much of the time, the prophet alluded to the temporal realm. Like his contemporary Jeremiah, Zephaniah expected that the Assyrian Empire was going to collapse (2:13), and the Babylonian rampage would destroy Jerusalem and turn the region on its head. For Zephaniah, the end of Jerusalem would be the end of his known world.
Purge and purification
Previously, Zephaniah had offered, in his own voice, a glimmer of hope for escape from judgment. He had exhorted the people to pursue righteousness and seek humility so God might save them (2:3). This spark reappears in the book’s concluding oracle.
God gave this consolation in the divine voice after his pronouncement of judgment. Zephaniah often switched between his own prophetic speech and God’s divine perspective, sometimes within one stanza. Change of voice was common throughout the prophets, who were intertwining messages from Yahweh and about Yahweh. Admittedly, the switching of points of view within a chapter can make the reading of Zephaniah difficult.
In his final oracle, Zephaniah transitions from a day of judgment to a day of salvation, striking two extremely different chords. In the first chapter, he had anticipated judgment; in the last, he was proclaiming salvation. Zephaniah reaches out to both ends of the spectrum in his display of God’s wrath and love. The prophets were not contradicting themselves by presenting God’s message of wrath alongside his desire to extend mercy. The divine coin had two sides, each reflecting an aspect of God’s nature.
In the salvation portion of the book, Zephaniah was no longer addressing the “proudly exultant ones” of Jerusalem (3:11). As explained in the Psalms, the wicked prospered for the moment, but they would become “chaff that the wind drives away” (Ps. 1:4). The subject of his address switched to the future remnant, the protected ones of Jerusalem. Yahweh promised to preserve the meek and humble (2:4). Instead of rebuking them, he provided them with encouragement. He assured them that restoration awaits those who wait for the Lord and endure judgment (3:8). Zephaniah built his theology around the idea that divine punishment was the smelting process that led to purification. Once Yahweh had eradicated the proud, his anger would be resolved. He would then be free to restore his relationship with Israel, and with the entire world.
Zephaniah presents a universal vision of a time when Yahweh would set the world right. Yahweh assured, “I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord” (3:9). Zephaniah was predicting a reversal of the judgment he had pronounced on the builders of the Tower of Babel. In the story of Babel, a coalition of the prideful had tried to out-build God. By confusing their speech, God displayed his power and ended their intention to build a tower “that reaches to the heavens” (Gen. 11:4). In Zephaniah, all the nations who had been summoned for judgment would join together in one voice and one language to submit to him. In the final world order, people’s speech would be clarified by God, not confused.
The passage also contains a return to Eden, where Yahweh will abide with his people. Their submission and obedience will occasion a world built on justice, where all will feel safe and at peace. Zephaniah announced, “On that day you shall not be put to shame because of all the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. For I will live in the midst of you, a people humble and lowly” (3:10-11).
For the fourth time, Zephaniah casts a side-glance at a story from Genesis. He begins by using flood language for the coming universal judgment (1:2-3). He describes the destruction as if it were a reversal of the creation process. In his earlier judgment of the nations, he had connected the plight of the Ammonites and Moabites to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (2:9). In his final passage, he imagines a reversal of the Tower of Babel.
Cush also returns to the story, not as a place of judgment but as the place “from beyond the rivers” where Yahweh’s “scattered ones” would return and bring an offering (3:10). The prophet was likely speaking of the exiles of the Northern Kingdom, who had been dispersed all over the ancient Near East by Assyria. Exile was the greatest source of shame for an ancient nation, proof that their national god had forsaken them. Yahweh promised he would “save the lame” and “gather the outcast” (3:19). They would no longer be ashamed. The return from exile would have the added effect of exalting Yahweh and exposing the pagan gods.
The last seven verses of Zephaniah are a self-contained psalm. In Zephaniah’s vision of the future, a remnant rejoice over their reconciliation. On the day of restoration, Yahweh speaks of Jerusalem as his personified city. Twice, Yahweh reiterates that he has been the Lord their God, dwelling “in their midst” (3:15, 17). Earlier in Zephaniah, the people had accused Yahweh of being absent, unable to do good or harm (1:12). In this last oracle, all praise Yahweh for his constant presence as a source of peace, renewing the people with his love (3:17).
New Testament
The New Testament never quotes Zephaniah. Likewise, sermons rarely mention Zephaniah. The New Testament does, however, reflect the essence of Zephaniah, particularly the embrace of the meek and humble. Zephaniah had praised the “humble of the land” for obeying God’s requirements (2:3). He believed Yahweh lived amid the “lowly and humble” (3:12). Like Zephaniah, Jesus also exalted the lowly and “poor in spirit” in his Sermon on the Mount, promising that the future would be theirs (Matt. 5:3).
Zephaniah taught that overreliance on wealth and power hindered the kingdom mindset. In Jesus’s interaction with the rich, young ruler, he told him to go sell what he owned and give the money to the poor. Jesus said, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:23). James echoed Zephaniah in his place of primacy for the poor in the kingdom. He wrote, “Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up” (James 1:9).
Zephaniah envisioned a day when “distant nations will bow down to him, all of them in their own lands” (2:11). His universal mindset was ahead of his time. Rabbi Heschel wrote, “It was not an emperor, but a prophet, who first conceived of the unity of all men.”[1]
Zephaniah foretold Yahweh’s rescue plan for the world. Just as future punishment would be universal, so would restoration. Interestingly, Zephaniah did not place a messianic figure in his prophetic promises. We find the messianic prophecies in Micah, Isaiah, and Zechariah. Zephaniah’s contribution to messianic understanding was his concern for the world, not just his own nation.
I appreciate Zephaniah’s message. I am not Jewish, and I do not claim the land and covenant promises given to the Jews for myself. What I do claim is the “pure lips” of Zephaniah, his reversal of the Tower of Babel. I join shoulder to shoulder with the nations, not to build a tower to demonstrate our own power, but to yield to Yahweh, the creator of the universe.
[1] Heschel, The Prophets, 215.