Zephaniah 2
Butler14. The day will try every man’s work, every man’s foothold, of what sort it is. There must be something to hold by. A “belief” will not do it if it is a belief too short to reach from the intellect to the heart and will. A doctrinal theory, a pew in church, an outward conformity, handsome words about your ecclesiastical order spiced with sarcasms on the ways of your neighbors, along with a life intensely absorbed in your business, your family, your reputation, will not answer. There will shine at last a great and scorching light, before which the secrets of all hearts will be opened. There can be no illusion about the right hand and the left. Forewarnings of that separation are written all over your common scenery. The stream sweeps on. Familiar forms vanish. The graves open and close. Your body shows symptoms of wearing out. Whatever the changes may be, is there not “one thing” that is a preparation for them all, and makes a man superior to them all? F. D. H.
18. The destruction of that day will be unavoidable and universal. There shall be no escaping it by ransom; neither their silver nor their gold, which they have hoarded up so covetously against the evil day, or which they have spent so prodigally, to make friends for such a time, shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath. Another prophet borrowed these words from this, with reference to the same event (Ezek. 7: 19). Riches profit not in the day of wrath (Prov. 11: 4). Nay, riches expose to the wrath of men (Eccles. 5: 13), and riches abused to the wrath of God. There shall be no escaping by flight or concealment. H.
The withdrawing of God’s presence is the presence of His wrath. While He stays to reprove, there is favor in His displeasure; but when He leaves either man or church there is no hope but of vengeance. The final absence of God is hell itself. When He forsakes us, though for a time, it is an introduction to His utmost judgment. Bp. II.
To that merciful Jesus whom the superficialness of the present day so often opposes to the wrathful God of the Old Testament, it is to Him that this striking expression is applied in the New: “The wrath of the Lamb.” They who deny God the faculty of indignation deny Him, as a direct consequence, the faculty of love, of sincere love; they substitute for the living God a lifeless notion, a dumb idol of the intellect. Godet.
The greatness of Divine wrath appears in this, that though we may attempt it in our thoughts, yet we cannot bring it within the comprehensions of our knowledge. Survey the expressions of Scripture, and see it there clothed and set forth in “fire and brimstone,” in “the worm that never dies,” in “utter darkness,” in “weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” But what are all these but shadows! mere similitudes, and not things! condescensions, rather than instructions to our understanding! poor figurative essays, where, contrary to the nature of rhetoric, the figure is still beneath the truth. Fire no more represents God’s wrath than the picture of fire itself represents its heat; and for the proof of this, let the notional believer be an unanswerable argument, who reads, sees and hears all these expressions, and yet is not at all moved by them: which sufficiently shows that there is no hell in the description of hell. South.
We do but deceive ourselves with names. Hell is nothing but the orb of sin and wickedness, or else that hemisphere of darkness in which all evil moves; and heaven is the opposite hemisphere of light, or else the bright orb of truth, holiness and goodness; and we do actually, in this life, instate ourselves in the possession of one or other of them. Take sin and disobedience out of hell, and it will presently clear up into light, tranquillity, serenity, and shine out into a heaven. Cudworth.
2:1 GATHER yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation that hath no shame; 2 before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the 3 LORD come upon you, before the day of the LORD’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the
LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgement; seek righteousness, 4 seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger. For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noonday, and 5 Ekron shall be rooted up. Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Chere- thites! The word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, the land of the Philistines; I will 6 destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea coast shall be pastures, with 7 cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed their flocks thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening; for the LORD their God shall visit them, and bring again their cap- 8 tivity. I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, wherewith they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. 9 Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my 10 nation shall inherit them. This shall they have for their pride, because they have reproached 11 and magnified themselves against the people of the LORD of hosts. The LORD will be terri- ble unto them; for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, 12 every one from his place, even all the isles of the nations. Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be 13 slain by my sword. And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assy- 14 ria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like the wilderness. And herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the chapters thereof: their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall 15 be in the thresholds: for he hath laid bare the cedar work. This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none else beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand.
3:1, 2 Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near 3 to her God. Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening 4 wolves; they leave nothing till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous per- 5 sons: her priests have profaned the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. The LORD in the midst of her is righteous; he will not do iniquity; every morning doth he bring 6 his judgement to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame. I have cut off nations, their battlements are desolate; I have made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. 7 I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive correction; so her dwelling should not be cut off, according to all that I have appointed concerning her: but they rose early and cor- 8 rupted all their doings. Therefore wait ye for me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the king- doms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall 9 be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the peoples a pure lan- guage, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent. 10 From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall 11 bring mine offering. In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee thy proudly 12 exulting ones, and thou shalt no more be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD. 13 The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daugh- 15 ter of Jerusalem. The LORD hath taken away thy judgements, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not fear evil 16 any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: O Zion, let not thine 17 hands be slack. The LORD thy God is in the midst of thee, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. 18 I will gather them that sorrow for the solemn assembly, who were of thee: to whom the bur- 19 den upon her was a reproach. Behold, at that time I will deal with all them that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven away; and I will make them a praise and a name, whose shame hath been in all the earth. At that time will I bring you in, and at that time will I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I bring again your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD.
Chap. 2. This chapter aims to enforce repentance: 1. By the shortness of time yet remaining before otherwise the shafts of vengeance must fall. 2. By the fact that desolating judgments were coming upon other nations contiguous. This fact should assure them that the Lord was about to take in hand the work of retribution upon guilty nations on a broad scale; that He had His agencies in readiness; and that Judah and Jerusalem could by no means hope to escape. H. C.—This chapter contains an exhortation to earnest repentance and amendment of their former life, to the end they may escape the threatened evils. For those whom God reproves, except the fault be in themselves, He means to save. Let men change their deeds, and I, saith the Lord, will change My purpose. And this exhortation is often repeated in the present chapter, to the end that those who remained obstinate and stubborn might be without excuse. Danaus.
1-3. In the first section of this poem (chap. 1) Zephaniah denounces on the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the doom which their idolatries and immoralities had provoked; he denounces that doom with a stern vigor and passion which give his words an edge so keen that even to this day they pierce and wound our hearts. But in the second section he changes his voice; he modulates it into a key more tender and pathetic. Tones of judgment and righteous indignation still fall on our ears; but under these, struggling up against them and through them, at times triumphing over them, we catch a strain of compassion. The threatenings of judgment melt into an invitation to repentance. The gracious intention of the Divine “doom” is disclosed. A fruitful rain falls on the soil through which the plough-share has been driven. Healing balms are laid on the wounds that have been probed and searched. Though his voice still trembles with indignation against “the sinners and their offences,” the prophet calls on them to abandon their sins, to seek righteousness and humility; and, to induce them to repentance and amendment, he declares that the judgment which is soon to sweep across the whole earth will reach its end only as “all the inhabitants of the earth, every one from his place,” acknowledge Jehovah to be God and worship Him. This is the theme of the second section. The call to repentance is given in chap. 2, verses 1-3. The general contents of these verses may be summed up thus: The men of Judah, with the fear of God before their eyes, are to consider and test themselves. They have been hardened and unabashed in their iniquity. The Divine judgment is coming on them to compel them to reflection, that they may put themselves and their modes of thought and action to the proof. It is coming quickly, so quickly that they must not think to escape it. Now, if ever, the occasion must be seized, the place for repentance must be found, occupied, secured. They have forgotten and abandoned the Lord their God; let them seek the Lord. They have been unrighteous; let them seek righteousness. They have been proud and self-confident; let them seek humility. In this radical change of spiritual character, attitude, bias, lies their only hope, their sole chance of escaping destruction. Cor.
2. “Before” this execution of the Lord’s wrath there was a short moment for repentance. The prophet exhorts the people to seize and improve it. H. C.
3. In the midst of the guilty nation there were those who would listen to the warning voice. The meek of the land, not the poor or the afflicted, but those who were humble toward God, considerate and forbearing toward man. They are further described as having wrought His judgment, not simply obediently to the law in general, but doing what was right in each case. Yet though they have a single eye, they are imperfect. Hence the threefold injunction, Seek the Lord, seek righteousness, seek meekness, to strive after higher and higher attainments in that very virtue of which they already possess enough to deserve to be called meek. B. C.
“It may be you shall be hid; if any be hid, you shall.” Good men cannot be sure of temporal preservation, for all things come alike to all, but they are most likely to be hid, and stand fairest for a distinguishing care of Providence. It is expressed thus doubtfully, to try if they will trust the goodness of God’s nature, though they have but the “it may be” of a promise; and to keep up in them a holy fear and watchfulness, lest they should seem to come short, and should do anything to throw themselves out of the Divine protection. Note: Those that hold fast their integrity in times of common iniquity have reason to hope that God will find out a hiding-place for them, where they shall be safe and easy in times of common calamity. H.
By his “peradventure ye may be hidden” the prophet does not intend to cast any doubt on the security of the humble and the righteous. He intends, rather, to suggest the extreme rigor of the doom he foresees, the difficulty of escaping it, the improbability that a people so callous and proud will seek and find the sole refuge from the storm. All the more he urges them to seek it, nor has he any doubt that if they seek they will find. For why should the prophet call the sinful to repentance if repentance were to be of no avail? why urge the good to new ardors of righteousness if even these were to be of no avail? Even thus early we hear the tones of mercy and invitation blending with the tones of denunciation and rebuke, not dominant as yet, yet sounding forth no doubtful promise that the key, the mode, is changing, and that we shall soon be gladdened with a more cheerful and melodious strain. Even thus early we are taught, at least by implication and suggestion, that the judgments of God, however stern, however wide and deep of reach, are sent to summon the wicked to self-examination and repentance, and the good to more earnest and fruitful endeavors after that which is right before God. Cox.
4. Proceeding by the coast on the edge of the cultivated plain, about twelve miles north of Gaza, we arrive at Ashkelon, the second Philistine city, close to the shore, and still bearing the name of Askulan. Gardens and vineyards fringe the old crusading walls landward, but the sand is rapidly encroaching on them and drifting up to the foot of the ancient fortifications on the south. There is a large village, El Jurah, to the north, but the site of Ashkelon itself is absolutely without inhabitant. “Ashkelon shall be a desolation” (Zeph. 2: 4). “Ashkelon shall not be inhabited” (Zech. 9: 5). Tristram.
4-15. In these verses the prophet adds fresh motives for repentance. He unfolds the punishment that was hanging over the enemies of Israel on the west (4-7), on the east (8-11), on the south (12), and on the north (13-15). If the calamities inflicted upon Israel by their enemies did not bring them back to God, what must their end be? (Cf. Amos 1, 2.) If the heathen were punished for their transgressions, what did the people of God deserve (3: 6, 7)? B. C.
5-7. Every epithet in this fifth verse is selected with a view of deepening the gloom of its terrible denunciation with veiled suggestions of a judgment beyond the power of words to express. And yet, mark once more how moods of mercy struggle up against the tide of his burning indignation; how the tender tones of compassion blend with and soar above the tones of judgment. What soft pastoral images break upon us in verse 6! This once fertile tract by the sea, thickly dotted with the crowded hives of human industry, with fair cities inhabited by free brave men, afterward a desert accursed by God and abandoned by man, “shall become pastures, with huts for shepherds and folds for sheep.” Through the mountain gorges the flocks of the restored Hebrews will descend on the green flowery plains, knowing no want, fearing no evil, because the shepherds go before them with staff and rod. And how the suggestions of peace and hope breathed by this verse are confirmed by the next (verse 7)! As yet, indeed, we hear of no mercy for the Philistines; but we do hear, amid the thunders of judgment, a voice which speaks comfortably to Israel. A remnant of Judah is to be saved, and to possess the gates of its enemies. This note of mercy toward Judah we shall hear again and again, amid the angry discords of the doom which destroys their enemies, until, at last, it swells into a song of mercy for all races, even for those who have been most hardy in their defiance of heaven. Cox.
8-10. The parallel prophecies against Moab are Num. 24: 17; Isa. 15, 16; Amos 2: 1-3; Jer. 48; against Ammon, Amos 1: 13-15; Jer. 49; Ezek. 25: 1-7. Moab and Ammon had the same origin. They had the same hostility to the people of God. They would suffer the same punishment. The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah was a type of utter destruction (De. 29: 23; Isa. 1: 9; 13: 19). The Moabites and Ammonites were descended from him who had been rescued by God’s mercy, and lived near the scene that should constantly have reminded them alike of God’s severity and goodness; but the warning was unheeded. B. C.
9,10. Just as the elect people are to find pastures in the tract by the sea, “with huts for shepherds and folds for sheep,” to feed on the substance of the Philistines, and to lie down in the deserted houses of Ashkelon; so also they are to grow rich on the spoils of Moab and Ammon, and to reduce even these inveterate and insolent foes to bondage. There is a promise in this doom, then, a promise bright with hope for as many of the Hebrews as were loyal to their Divine King. But does God care only for Hebrews? Is the whole world to be sacrificed to them? “Have we not all one Father,” whatever our race or blood? and must not the universal Father have mercy and grace for all? So far from sacrificing the whole world to the Hebrews, when they finally refused to be the ministers and prophets of His saving truth to all the families of the earth, He sacrificed them to the good of the world. If they were chosen, it was that they might serve, that they might be a blessing to the human race; if they are cast away, it is because they were perverting the blessing that was in them to a curse. Terrible as are the judgments he denounces on heathen empires, Zephaniah reserves his heaviest doom for the elect race; “judgment begins at the house of God;” and whether he denounce judgment on heathen or Hebrew, he is sure that judgment is mercy, and the precursor of mercy—that it is but as the knife which wounds that it may heal. Cox.
11. The course of thought here should be noted. God becomes terrible to idolatrous nations when He famishes—i.e., wastes away and destroys their gods; for when a nation’s gods are gone, what have they more? On the other hand, and as a result of destroying both the idol gods of those nations and their incorrigible worshippers as well, men everywhere, over all the isles of the Gentiles, shall worship the true God. H. C.
The immense value of this verse consists in the fact that it reveals a law, a constant and invariable law, of the Divine government. The verse stands alone, and is complete in itself. It is, so to speak, a place of vantage, a point of rest, to which the prophet has risen, and from which he contemplates not simply the dooms of which he had spoken, or the dooms of which he is about to speak, but the whole course of the Divine Providence. And as he looks before and after, as he recalls the past and projects himself into the future, he finds this to be a law of human history, that the judgments of God are a necessary part of the scheme of redemption; that God intends them to recover men from error to truth, from sin to holiness. They answer to the convulsions and storms of the natural world, and serve to disperse the foul infections which brood over the homes of men, to raise them to happier conditions, and to pour round them a more vital air. God is terrible, he says, but terrible only that He may be merciful. He famishes the false gods, whose service is bondage, starves them out of the world, that men may freely worship the only wise and true God. For the moment, at least, the Hebrew seer rises far above all local or national prejudices, and proclaims a blessing which belongs not to the Jew only, but to all the world. This is the law of the Divine method, of the way God takes with men. And the great comfort, the great value of it is, that it is a law, that God will act on it whatever men do or forbear to do. That there is a pure, Divine, Almighty will penetrating and pervading the whole course of the human story, working in and through all men toward a foreseen end of mercy, an end which comprises the salvation of mankind—this is a solid ground on which to build our hopes, whether for ourselves or for the world. And it surely is very striking that this law should be stated here, that this light of life should arise in a darkness so profound; that, amid the harsh thunders of a doom launched against all the empires of the ancient world, we should hear a harmony so clear and sweet and full that it makes all discords tributary to itself; that even as the storm of judgment goes crashing round the whole horizon we should see, even for a moment, the gracious bow of hope shining in peaceful splendor across the darkened sky, making the very lightnings look dull and coarse before a beauty so pure, so supreme.
12-15. Assyria, although so strong and so proud in its strength, is to be utterly laid waste. The mistress of the world, the most populous, warlike, ambitious and cultivated of Eastern races, is to be exterminated. And Nineveh, its wonderful capital, so massively built, so splendidly and curiously adorned, so secure in its impregnable defences, is to become an arid and barren waste, over which men will pass without so much as dreaming of the ruins and treasures that lie beneath their feet. So complete was the destruction, that, with a startling abruptness, the great city vanished from the face of the earth, and its very ruins were hidden from the eyes of men. Only two centuries afterward, Xenophon, in the famous retreat of the ten thousand, passed over its site without so much as learning its name, though he heard some dim tradition of its former greatness and its fate. And till fifty years ago it remained buried in oblivion, as in sand. It was not till the year 1842 that Layard, Rawlinson and Botta dug into these mounds and exhumed and interpreted the remains which tell the story of the city’s ancient greatness and luxury and culture with a power beyond that of words. This doom, then, the doom on Assyria, was themselves out of the Divine protection. Note: Those that hold fast their integrity in times of common iniquity have reason to hope that God will find out a hiding-place for them, where they shall be safe and easy in times of common calamity. H.
By his “paradventure ye may be hidden” the prophet does not intend to cast any doubt on the security of the humble and the righteous. He intends, rather, to suggest the extreme rigor of the doom he foresees, the difficulty of escaping it, the improbability that a people so callous and proud will seek and find the sole refuge from the storm. All the more he urges them to seek it, nor has he any doubt that if they seek they will find. For why should the prophet call the sinful to repentance if repentance were to be of no avail? Why urge the good to new ardors of righteousness if even these were to be of no avail? Even thus early we hear the tones of mercy and invitation blending with the tones of denunciation and rebuke, not dominant as yet, yet sounding forth no doubtful promise that the key, the mode, is changing, and that we shall soon be gladdened with a more cheerful and melodious strain. Even thus early we are taught, at least by implication and suggestion, that the judgments of God, however stern, however wide and deep of reach, are sent to summon the wicked to self-examination and repentance, and the good to more earnest and fruitful endeavors after that which is right before God. Cor.
4. Proceeding by the coast on the edge of the cultivated plain, about twelve miles north of Gaza, we arrive at Ashkelon, the second Philistine city, close to the shore, and still bearing the name of Askulán. Gardens and vineyards fringe the old crusading walls landward, but the sand is rapidly encroaching on them and drifting up to the foot of the ancient fortifications on the south. There is a large village, El Jurah, to the north, but the site of Ashkelon itself is absolutely without inhabitant. “Ashkelon shall be a desolation” (Zeph. 2: 4). “Ashkelon shall not be inhabited” (Zech. 9: 5). Tristram.
4-15. In these verses the prophet adds fresh motives for repentance. He unfolds the punishment that was hanging over the enemies of Israel on the west (4-7), on the east (8-11), on the south (12), and on the north (13-15). If the calamities inflicted upon Israel by their enemies did not bring them back to God, what must their end be? (Cf. Amos 1, 2.) If the heathen were punished for their transgressions, what did the people of God deserve (3: 6, 7)? B. C.
5-7. Every epithet in this fifth verse is selected with a view of deepening the gloom of its terrible denunciation with veiled suggestions of a judgment beyond the power of words to express. And yet, mark once more how moods of mercy struggle up against the tide of his burning indignation; how the tender tones of compassion blend with and soar above the tones of judgment. What soft pastoral images break upon us in verse 6? This once fertile tract by the sea, thickly dotted with the crowded hives of human industry, with fair cities inhabited by free brave men, afterward a desert accursed by God and abandoned by man, “shall become pastures, with huts for shepherds and folds for sheep.” Through the mountain gorges the flocks of the restored Hebrews will descend on the green flowery plains, knowing no want, fearing no evil, because the shepherds get before them with staff and red. And how the suggestions of peace and hope breathed by this verse are confirmed by the next (verse 7)? As yet, indeed, we hear of no mercy for the Philistines; but we do hear, amid the thunders of judgment, a voice which speaks comfortably to Israel. A remnant of Judah is to be saved, and to possess the gates of its enemies. This note of mercy toward Judah we shall hear again and again, amid the angry disceeds of the doom which destroys their enemies, until, at last, it swells into a song of mercy for all races, even for those who have been most hardy in their defiance of heaven. Cor.
8-10. The parallel prophecies against Moab are Num. 24: 17; Isa. 15, 16; Amos 2: 1-3; Jer. 48; against Ammon, Amos 1: 13-15; Jer. 49; Ezek. 25: 1-7. Moab and Ammon had the same origin. They had the same hostility to the people of God. They would suffer the same punishment. The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah was a type of utter destruction (De. 29: 23; Isa. 1: 9; 13: 19). The Moabites and Ammonites were descended from him who had been rescued by God’s mercy, and lived near the scene that should constantly have reminded them alike of God’s severity and goodness; but the warning was unheeded. B. C.
9,10. Just as the elect people are to find pastures in the tract by the sea, “with huts for shepherds and folds for sheep,” to feed on the substance of the Philistines, and to lie down in the deserted houses of Ashkelon; so also they are to grow rich on the spoils of Moab and Ammon, and to reduce even these inveterate and insolent foes to bondage. There is a promise in this doom, then, a promise bright with hope from the and the Hebrew is that the whatever is reformed by in the three Hebrews, the substance of all the than in the pre- It was that he a blood and were the blood with or on the other one on down to in the two seems yet over that you of mercy— wounds from H. The much, little million with and it always picks on your other back, and the old man is glits would over all the the true God. The more the fact the verbally has been made is, so long not, he will which he is of which he he is where the living is and does it bless of age of human life are a human free. The one then may be moved to strongly more bless than in man from over the Gila, but breath, the writings for as many of the Hebrews as were loyal to their Divine King. But does God care only for Hebrews? Is the whole world to be sacrificed to them? “Have we not all one Father,” whatever our race or blood? and must not the universal Father have mercy and grace for all? So far from sacrificing the whole world to the Hebrews, when they finally refused to be the ministers and prophets of His saving truth to all the families of the earth, He sacrificed them to the good of the world. If they were chosen, it was that they might serve, that they might be a blessing to the human race; if they are cast away, it is because they were perverting the blessing that was this them to a curse. Terrible as are the judgments he denounces on heathen empires, Zephaniah reserves his heaviest doom for the elect race; “judgment begins at the house of God;” and whether he denounces judgment on heathen or Hebrew, he is sure that judgment is mercy, and the precursor of mercy—that it is but as the knife which wounds that it may heal. Or.
11. The course of thought here should be noted. God becomes terrible to idolatrous nations when He fanisies—i.e., wastes away and distress their gods; for when a nation’s gods are gone, what have they more? On the other hand, and as a result of destroying both the idol gods of these nations and their incorrigible worshippers as well, men everywhere, over all the labs of the Gentiles, shall worship the true God. H. C.
The immense value of this verse consists in the fact that it reveals a law, a constant and invariable law, of the Divine government. The verse stands alone, and is complete in itself. It is, so to speak, a place of vantage, a point of rest, to which the prophet has risen, and from which he contemplates not simply the dooms of which he had spoken, or the dooms of which he is about to speak, but the whole course of the Divine Providence. And as he looks before and after, as he recalls the past and projects himself into the future, he finds this to be a law of human history, that the judgments of God are a necessary part of the scheme of redemption; that God intends them to recover men from error to truth, from sin to holiness. They answer to the convulsions and storms of the natural world, and serve to disperse the foul infections which brood over the homes of men, to raise them to happier conditions, and to pour round them a more vital air. God is terrible, he says, but terrible only that He may be merciful. He fanisies the false gods, whose service is bondage, starves them out of the world, that men may freely worship the only wise and true God. For the moment, at least, the Hebrew user rises far above all local or national prejudices, and proclaims a blessing which belongs not to the Jew only, but to all the world. This is the law of the Divine method, of the way God takes with men. And the great comfort, the great value of it is, that it is a law, that God will act on it whatever men do or forbear to do. That there is a pure, Divine, Almighty will penetrating and pervading the whole course of the human story, working in and through all men toward a foreseen end of mercy, an end which comprises the salvation of mankind—this is a solid ground on which to build our hopes, whether for ourselves or for the world. And it surely is very striking that this law should be stated here, that this light of life should arise in a darkness so profound; that, amid the harsh thunders of a doom launched against all the empires of the ancient world, we should hear a harmony so clear and sweet and full that it makes all disconis tributary to itself; that even as the storm of judgment goes crashing round the whole horizon we should see, even for a moment, the gracious bow of hope shining in peaceful splendor across the darkened sky, making the very lightnings look dull and coarse before a beauty so pure, so supreme.
12-15. Assyria, although so strong and so proud in its strength, is to be utterly laid waste. The mistress of the world, the most populous, warlike, ambitious and cultivated of Eastern races, is to be exterminated. And Nineveh, its wonderful capital, so massively built, so splendidly and cariously adorned, so secure in its impregnable defences, is to become an arid and barren waste, over which men will pass without so much as dreaming of the ruins and treasures that lie beneath their feet. So complete was the destruction, that, with a startling abruptness, the great city vanished from the face of the earth, and its very ruins were hidden from the eyes of men. Only two centuries afterward, Xenophon, in the famous retreat of the ten thousand, passed over its site without so much as learning its name, though he heard some dim tradition of its former greatness and its fate. And till fifty years ago it remained buried in ablivion, as in sand. It was not till the year 1842 that Layard, Rawlinson and Botta dug into these mounds and exhumed and interpreted the remains which tell the story of the city’s ancient greatness and luxury and culture with a power beyond that of words. This doom, then, the doom on Assyria, was speedily and literally fulfilled. But, surely, a larger fulfilment awaits it. For in Nineveh, as in other ancient empires, the Hebrew prophets saw the representative for the time then present of all the great world-powers which exalt themselves against God. Till the kingdoms of this world rise and merge into the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, the triumph of these ancient prophecies, their final and victorious fulfilment, will not have come. Cox.
15. The final downfall of Nineveh is wonderfully foreshadowed in Nahum 3, where he compares it to the capture of Thebes, indicating the action of fire, which all the Ninevite remains so illustrate. Even more distinct as to a final desolation is Zeph. 2:15: “This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss and wag his hand.” The dreary solitude of the mounds from which such precious treasures have been dug could not have been more terribly expressed. Yet the words of Nahum were written about n.c. 630, when the reign of Assurbanipal was at its zenith; and those of Zephaniah, who is generally placed some thirty years later, could not possibly be suggested by any long continued overthrow. Cairns.
Chap. 3. This chapter opens with further statements of the guilt and doom of Jerusalem (verses 1-4); of God’s justice in her punishment (verse 5); of His judgments on other nations (verses 6-8); then turning to words of mercy, the Lord promises to convert the nations (verses 9, 10), and to restore and bless most abundantly the remnant of His people (verses 11-20). H. C.
1,2. The appeal opens with a brief denunciation of “woe,” which contains three epithets that Jerusalem should have been the last city in the world to deserve. Chosen of God to be His people, “a holy people, zealous of good works,” instead of doing His will, its inhabitants straitened and hardened themselves against Him; instead of being a holy people, they were stained with the foulest vices; instead of loving and serving one another, they oppressed and devoured each other. Jerusalem is a rebellious city, a polluted city, an oppressing city.
These epithets are explained and vindicated in verse 2. “She hath not hearkened to the voice” of God, as uttered in the law of Moses, and in the remonstrances and appeals of the prophets. “She accepts no chastisement,” so that even the infinite patience of Jehovah is exhausted, and He is weary of correcting her in vain. And as law and punishment have failed of their proper effect, so also have promise and invitation. She has no faith in the gracious offers of Divine mercy, does not “trust” them nor Him who makes them, nor suffer them to “draw” her “near to her God.” Cox.
3,4. If the city were such as the prophet represents, the guilt lay chiefly with those whose rank and office gave them influence: princes, judges, prophets and priests.
5. Morning by morning doth He bring His judgment to light. As each morning the rising sun sheds light upon the world, so each morning, day by day, there were clear proofs to all who would see that they had among them a righteous Governor, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked. B. C.
7. What aggravated their guilt till it became intolerable, and put them beyond all mercy save the “mercy of judgment,” was that God had given them a pure law of life, and Himself administered it among them; that, in the destruction inflicted on neighboring kingdoms, He had constantly warned them of the inevitable results of violating that law; and that He had not spared to correct them so often as they went astray, and to plead with them, and to urge them to repentance and obedience. They had seen race after race cut off, the battlements of their fortified places laid waste, their cities battered down, their streets reduced to such ruinous desolation that no man dwelt in them, no man so much as passed through them. And what were these Divine judgments but the law of God “writ large” and illustrated on a scale so vast and impressive as to arrest the attention of the most heedless, and to rouse a saving fear in the stubborn and impenitent? But even these glaring and portentous illustrations of the wrath of God against evil, and all who cleave to it, had been wasted on the stiff-necked nation. They had stood under these shocks and alarms unmoved, or moved only for the moment. And now what was there, short of a judgment more severe than any they had ever yet seen or known, that could constrain them to penitence, and through penitence to righteousness, through righteousness to peace? Cox.
They were not won upon by gentle methods, nor had severe ones any effect, for they rose early and corrupted all their doings; they were more resolute and eager in their wicked courses than ever; more studious and solicitous in making provision for their lusts, and let slip no opportunity for the gratification of them.