Zephaniah 2:3 Seek you the LORD, all you meek of the earth, which have worked his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness… This may be taken as the key-note of the second discourse of the prophet (Zephaniah 2:l-3:7), in which, after having uttered the solemn threatening of judgment in the former discourse, he gives more explicit directions as to what is the duty of the people in the view of this impending calamity. The call in ch. 1. had simply been "Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God," i.e. to recognize the reality, nearness, and justice of the judgment he announced; but now the prophet gives more particular and express admonitions as to what people should do. What he calls upon them to do is, in one word, to seek the Lord; but in this discourse he enlarges at some length on the grounds and the way of doing so. I. WHY OUGHT MEN, IN VIEW OF SUCH A JUDGMENT, TO SEEK THE LORD? 1. Because the judgment is universal. It is not merely a local visitation on the land of Israel, in which it alone is to suffer at the hands of some powerful and successful invader. In that case prudence might dictate the propriety of seeking escape by allying themselves with the conquering power, or taking refuge in some other land not exposed to its invasion. It might even be suggested by the idolatrous superstition of those days, that: the cause of the triumph or safety of other nations was the power of their gods, and that this might be a reason for worshipping or fearing them. But the judgment is to be from the Lord, the only living and true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and it is to show itself as such in this that it shall include all nations in its sweep; it is to be on the countries round about, as well as on Judah. The most prominent of the neighbouring nations are mentioned as involved in the calamity - the cities of the Philistines on the seacoast to the southwest (vers. 4-7), Moab and Ammon on the southeast (vers. 8-10). These had been old hereditary enemies of Israel, and were inclined to rejoice in her calamity, and boast themselves as if their old hatred was now to be gratified. But this very jealousy and pride offend the Lord and bring down his judgment on them too. Then even the more distant nations of the Ethiopians far to the southwest, beyond Egypt, and Assyria in the remote northeast, with the great luxurious and proud city of Nineveh, were to be visited too; so that there would be no quarter of the earth to which Israel could turn for safety (vers. 12-15). So it ever is when God visits men; he makes it to be felt that vain is the help of man, and that there are no devices of human power, or riches, or wisdom, by which his hand can be escaped. It does not always need universal and sweeping judgments to show this; and it is our wisdom to learn the lemons even from single and separate manifestations of the power of God's wrath; or from the records and threatenings of these old judgments and their lessons. 2. But this is only a negative motive; it shows us in what quarters we are not to turn - that we can find no help in man. But the prophet gives also positively a reason why we should seek the Lord, and that is because his judgments are sent with a view to mercy. This is pointed out both In regard to Judah (ver. 7) and in regard to the Gentiles (ver. 11); for not only is the captivity of Judah to be turned back, but all the isles of the heathen are to worship the Lord. Such is ever the design of God's judgments against sin in this world. They are, indeed, expressions of his wrath and foretastes of his curse against sin, and as such they are fitted and intended to produce fear, and to lead men to hold their peace at the presence of the Lord God, and to humble themselves under his mighty hand. But the design of them never is simply to destroy. It may be needful ultimately, for the glory of the Lord, that the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and that the wicked be no more; and that utter destruction shall surely overtake the impenitent, when the Lord shall destroy the stumbling blocks with the wicked, when "the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire" (Matthew 13:41, 42). That is the doom solemnly denounced against the impenitent. But is not the very denunciation of it, stern as it is, an act of mercy? It is a warning graciously sent in time, lest that doom should come upon them unforetold and unexpected - a call to them to flee from the wrath to come, a signal of danger ahead, that may lead sinners to arrest their onward and downward course. Now, if the warning in words is thus manifestly merciful, so also are these foretastes of judgment that are but warnings in deed given when those in words have been disregarded. Had Israel listened to the words of the prophets, and turned from their evil ways, it might not have been necessary that God should send on them the judgment of the Captivity; but when they would not take warning from the solemn words of the Lord denouncing judgment, it was needful that they should be made to feel that these were not mere words, and be taught by actual inflictions in deed. But these were also sent in mercy, like the famine that came on the prodigal son in the far land to which he had wandered and wherein he wasted his substance in riotous living. Suffering may pierce the heart which the mere threat of suffering, however solemn and earnest, had failed to touch; and in that case the suffering, as well as the warning of it, has a gracious end. Even to the heathen nations, the judgment is with a view to mercy. Had Israel been faithful to their God and their calling, they would have been a kingdom of priests to spread the knowledge of the true God and of his grace and mercy among the Gentile nations around. But since they would not do this willingly, in the way of faithfully walking in the covenant of their God, he shall bring it to pass that by the judgments they undergo they shall be the means of making known his way in the earth, and his salvation among all nations. The heathen shall learn in the ruin of Israel to recognize the justice of the Lord, and the very nations that destroyed Israel shall be taught that the hand of God is on them too, and that they cannot escape his righteous judgments. "The Lord will be terrible to them; for he will famish all the gods of the earth." When he sent a grievous famine on the far country where the prodigal was, this might lead some of the citizens of that country, as well as the prodigal himself, to see how vain and perishing was the abundance in which they bad been trusting, and might constrain him to look to that father's house from which he had gone away; when the heathen mariners in the ship in which Jonah was fleeing from the Lord found that none of their gods could save them from the great storm sent by the Lord against his disobedient servant, they cried to the Lord, and they "feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows." So when the heathen nations shall find that the judgments of God against his people for their sin come upon themselves also, and that none of their gods can save them, they too, says the prophet, "shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen." Thus the judgment, even as regards them, is with a view to mercy; and this is the strong positive reason that all have to seek the Lord. Are you suffering calamity or trouble of any kind, and does conscience tell you that this affliction is not undeserved, nay, that it is the natural consequence and the just punishment of your sin? Then do not on any account let this drive you to despair; do not think that there is no hope for you; do not give way to mere idle grief or vain regret of the past that cannot be recalled; believe and be assured that the suffering has been sent in mercy as well as judgment, that it is a proof that God has not yet pronounced against you that most awful of all sentences, "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone" (Hosea 4:17); and instead of hardening your heart in disobedience, or wringing your hands in despair, let God's judgments move you to "seek the Lord while he may be found, and to call upon him while he is near." II. But the prophet not only sets forth the strong motives which the impending judgment affords to seek the Lord; he also INDICATES THE WAY IN WHICH THIS IS TO BE DONE. More especially there are two parts of this duty that he emphasizes, the one religious and the other moral, both of which must be combined. 1. The more directly religious duty is humiliation and prayer to God (vers. 1-3a). The somewhat obscure language of ver. 1, in the exact rendering of which scholars differ, seems to indicate, in the way of general humiliation before God, either a public gathering for a day of fasting, such as that described by Joel (Joel 2:15-17), or more directly the feeling of shame and humiliation arising in the hearts of those who had before been strangers to it. Then the very expression, "Seek the Lord" (ver. 3), describes religious exercises of prayer and worship. If the judgment threatened against Israel, or any Divine judgment, is to have its right and designed effect, there must be a recognition of a personal God and of our personal relation to him. Seek righteousness, seek meekness. There is something more implied here than merely "a power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." Could we be called to seek such a power in any other way than by seeking righteous. hess? Yet seeking the Lord is here spoken of as something distinct, though not to be separated, from seeking righteousness; and the anger of the Lord, so repeatedly and emphatically mentioned in vers. 2 and 3, is not to be explained away as a mere figure for the infliction of punishment. The "power that makes for righteousness" is a Person in whose favour lies our only true happiness. Were it not so, the evils that follow on sin would be no call to humiliation or to shame, for they would be the result of a mere law or tendency. But since we have to do with a living Person, who not only punishes but is grieved and displeased at our sins, we have reason not only to fear but to be humbled and ashamed before him. Such feelings are essential to true repentance; they find expression in that confession of sin which everywhere in Scripture is made a requisite for its forgiveness. A true confession implies grief and shame for sin, and an acknowledgment of it, and expression of these feelings to God; and without this, even though the judgments that follow on sin could be removed, God's displeasure and wrath would not be turned away - there would be no reconciliation, and the offender would be no nearer to God than before. But where there is this humiliation before God as the living God with whom we and in a personal relation, then there can be also prayer to him, and this also is implied in the call to seek the Lord. We are not only to turn to him for refuge, as a Power that will save us; we are to speak to him as a Person, and ask him first and chiefly to forgive us for our past sins, and then, if it is his will, to save us from the judgments that they deserve. Such is the religious duty to which the prophet here calls Israel, and this movement of heart religion must ever enter into the exercises of soul to which we are impelled by God's judgments, if these are to have a salutary effect. 2. But this religious exercise must never be separated from the moral duty here enjoined along with it. Humiliation, confession, and prayer can never be sincere if they remain alone, or if the sense of sin prompts to nothing more than these; for the religious element of repentance, however important it is, cannot be made to supersede the moral. There must be a grief for sin, not only because it has offended God personally, but because of its intrinsic evil; for the offence that it gives to God does not spring from any mere arbitrary command on his part, but from his own eesential nature as the perfectly and unchangeably Holy One. Therefore that is no real approach to him that does not imply a hatred of and turning from sin and a seeking after righteousness. Hence the command, "Seek the Lord," is closely connected with "Seek righteousness, seek meekness;" only in this way can the God of Israel, who is essentially holy, be really sought. Righteousness and meekness are the virtues here specially mentioned, for these contain the sum of moral duty, and are opposed to the violence and deceit, the avarice and oppression, that had been depicted in ch. 1. as the evils which brought down the judgment of the Lord on Judah and Jerusalem. If we would truly seek the Lord, we must turn from the sins of which we have been guilty, and set about those duties that we have been neglecting. This may be no easy task. It may imply a seeking, a searching of heart with great diligence to detect the hidden roots of evil, a pursuit of holiness with labour and perseverance in order to overcome inbred habits of sin, and to acquire habits of goodness. The character is not to be renewed or changed by a single effort or in one day; it requires a lifelong effort to "put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and put on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth." But the work can and ought robe begun at once, and will be so begun if we really seek the Lord. If we know the Lord as the Holy One, and feel the evil of sin as it is in his sight, then our turning to him in repentance really implies a turning from all sin and a seeking righteousness and meekness. This too must be prompt and immediate. There is no time to be lost; the day of the Lord is at hand, his judgment is announced, his wrath has almost begun to burn, the dark thunder clouds are as it were big with the approaching storm. Therefore let there be no delay; make haste, and tarry not, before the decree brings forth its terrible execution. Judgment is still, as it were, in the womb of the Divine law and order, but ere long it must break forth, and the day of the Lord's wrath will sweep away all the wicked of the earth as chaff. Before that day comes, yet there is time, time enough to seek the Lord, but no time to waste in dallying with sin or halting between two opinions. Finally, be it remembered that this call is addressed to all alike, to the godly as well as to sinners. It is especially addressed to all the meek of the earth, who have wrought God's judgment, as well as to those who have still to seek righteousness and meekness. For, indeed, those who have most earnestly repented will most feel their need of the ever fresh and repeated call. That repentance is not genuine which is not virtually continued and actually repeated even to the very end of life, is a principle of Protestant theology, and most important for practical religion. We must not be content in this matter with any past experience or exercises of soul; as long as we have in us or about us anything of the sins that provoke God's anger, our repentance must be continual The whole of a Christian's life should be a turning from sin to God. In view of the sin that dwells in us, and our continual shortcomings of the righteousness and meekness required by God's Law, we must be constantly humbling ourselves before God and asking his forgiveness; and we must also be striving against sin, making it our earnest effort to abandon all practices and habits that are wrong, to eradicate passions and tempers of mind at variance with God's holy Law, and to acquire and cultivate the qualities required by it. We are to be putting off the old man and putting on the new, constantly day by day. Alas! how often do we forget this! How many days do we spend without conscious striving against sin or effort after holiness! Can we wonder that we should need rebuke and chastening from the Lord if we are thus neglecting what is an essential element of Christian life? Again, this repentance needs not only to be constantly going on as to the principle or power of it, but there are occasions when it needs to be actually renewed. One such occasion is when a believer falls into any grievous sin, such as wounds his conscience and destroys his peace. Then he must not be satisfied with a mere general acknowledgment of sinfulness; he must come once more, as he came at first, to God through Christ and anew, as at first, with the returning prodigal say, "Father, I have sinned," etc.; anew, as at first, turn from his sin to God with full purpose of heart and endeavour after new obedience No fresh burden of guilt is to be got rid of in any other way than that, and in that way all may be removed. Another occasion when we ought actually to renew our repentance is when we seek to enter into spiritual communion with God. Israel of old was commanded to keep a solemn day of fast and humiliation for sins just before the joyful Feast of Tabernacles, and in regard to the New Testament feast of the Lord's Supper it is said, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup." There cannot be faithful self-examination without a remembering and bringing to light of much sin, and that must needs call for humiliation and prayer for forgiveness, and renewed efforts after holiness. But if, thus searching and trying our ways, we turn unto the Lord, and lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens, we shall assuredly find him; we shall experience that mercy which he shows to those who confess their sins, and we shall be made more and more partakers of his holiness. Thus we shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger, for we shall be able to say to him, "Thou art my Hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." - C. Parallel Verses KJV: Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD'S anger. |
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