Zephaniah
The book of the prophet
Zephaniah.
Zephaniah lived during the final decades of
the southern Kingdom of Judah.
It was when king Josiah had attempted to
bring about real change in the land by
removing idols and restoring
the temple to the worship of Israel's
God alone.
But Israel was just too far gone. Worshipping other
gods was too entrenched in the life of
the people and it ended up that Josiah's
pride led him to a tragic death
on the battlefield, as he set
Jerusalem on a collision course with
Babylon. And Zephaniah?
He had seen all of this coming.
For years he had been warning the leaders of
Jerusalem. And this little book is a
collection of his poetry summarizing
his message. It's designed to have three (3) main
parts. The first focuses on the day of
the Lord's judgement coming on Judah and
Jerusalem. The second part is about
the day of the Lord's judgement on the nations
and Jerusalem again. And then the third section
explores the hope that remains
for the nations and for Jerusalem
on the other side of God's judgement.
The first section opens with this shocking
reversal of Genesis 1.
So God's good, ordered world
is going to descend back into
disorder and darkness and chaos,
becoming uninhabitable once again.
And as you keep reading you realize
Zephaniah is developing all of these
powerful poetic images to describe
how Jerusalem's world is
going to end. All of the city's institutions
for worshipping the gods
of the Canaanites will be destroyed.
All the leaders who perpetrated injustice,
all the economic centres where
crooked lending and borrowing took place,
all of it will be gone
along with the city's walls.
Zephaniah develops these almost apocalyptic
images to show the significance
of what's going to happen. It all
refers to a great army that is coming
to take out Jerusalem.
Now it's interesting that Zephaniah never mentions
whose army God's going to use
to bring this judgement.
Now we know from the other prophets Micah or Habakkuk
that it's Babylon. But Zepheniah
never mentions that. And it's
because he wants to highlight God's role
in orchestrating the rise and fall
of the city. And actually that's what gives
Zepheniah hope. Not that
Jerusalem as a whole can avoid its fate,
but in the closing poem of section one (1)
he calls on anyone in Jerusalem
who would seek the Lord.
And he says 'These will make up the faithful
remnant, the people who could be spared
if they repent'.
In the second section Zepheniah widens his
focus to include the nations around Judah.
So the Philistines, the Moabites
the Ammonites, even the Assyrians
He accuses all of them of
corruption and violence and arrogance
and he predicts that all of them will
fall before Babylon too.
And what's shocking is that the final people group
targeted in this section
are the Israelites in Jerusalem.
It's like the leaders and prophets and
priests of Israel are so corrupt and
violent, so estranged from their God,
that He doesn't even recognize
them as His people anymore.
And so this section ends with God's final
decision. He says He's going to gather up
all the nations, including Jerusalem
and pour out His burning
indignation. God's justice
becomes this consuming fire that
devours evil from the land.
Which is really intense. And so the following
line that bring us into the final
part of the book comes as a total surprise.
We discover that this burning
fire of devine judgement is
not aimed at destroying people.
Rather its purpose is to purify
the nations, including
Jerusalem. So this section
begins as God says that He's going to
heal and transform the rebellious
nations into one unified
family. And that after being purified
they are going to turn from their evil and call
upon the name of the Lord.
These images point to the fulfillment of God's promise
to Abraham, all the way back in Genesis 12,
that God would find a way to
bless the nations. And Jerusalem
as well. The conclusion of the book
focuses on the restauration of the city
at the centre of the nations. God's
presence is there in the restored city,
along with that faithful remnant
that's been humbled and transformed
by God's mercy. And they're called to sing
and rejoice. And then in the
striking image we're told that God is
a poet who wants to sing too.
'Your God will live among you and He
will celebrate you with
songs of joy', Zepheniah says.
The closing poem of the book ends with these
very powerful images about God
gathering up into His family
the outcast and the poor and the broken,
where He exalts them into a place of
honor, and that's how the book
ends. This little book
of Zepheniah, it contains some
of the most intense images of God's
justice ánd love that
you find anywhere in the prophets.
His justice is about His passion to
protect and to rescue His world
from the horror of human evil and violence.
God won't tolerate
the horrible things that humans
do to each other and to His world.
But He brings this justice in
order to restore, in order to
create a world where people can flourish
in safety and peace, because
of His love. And so Zepheniah
forces us to hold together
these two aspects of God's character.
His justice and His love.
And he wants us to discover that
together, they contain
the future hope of our World.
And that is what the book of Zepheniah is all about.