I. MEANING OF HIS NAME. Zephaniah, "One whom Jehovah hides." Hiding in the day of calamity a blessing promised to them that fear Go(Psalm 31:19, 20), who are therefore styled God's hidden ones (Psalm 83:4), and may confidently reckon upon God's extending to them his protecting care in the midst of peril (Psalm 27:5), yea, may even boldly flee unto him to hide them (Psalm 143:9).

II. THE DIGNITY OF HIS PERSON. The scion of a kingly house, "the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah." Mentioned here, not because they had been prophets, but probably because they had been celebrated persons, perhaps good men, these ancestors of Zephaniah - three of them, like himself, with Jehovah in his name - may have been introduced to show that the prophet, while descended from the good King Hezekiah, belonged to a different branch of the family from Manasseh and Amon; proceeded from the line in which Hezekiah's goodness was transmitted, and thus had more than royal blood in his veins (not always an advantage) - hereditary piety in his soul.

III. THE TIME OF HIS APPEARING.

1. The age fixed.

(1) "The days of Josiah, the son of Amen, King of Judah;" i.e. not before B.C. 640, when Josiah began to reign.

(2) Before the fall of Nineveh (Zephaniah 2:13), which took place in B.C. 625.

(3) Probably after Josiah's reformation had begun and before it was completed, since the prophet speaks of a "remnant of Baal" as existing at the time when he began to prophesy.

(4) Hence the date of Zephaniah may be placed between Josiah's twelfth and eighteenth years, or between B.C. 628-622 (Hitzig, Keil, and Delitzsch), though by some interpreters (Ewald, Havernick, Pusey) it has been fixed earlier - to wit, prior to Josiah's twelfth year.

2. Its character declared.

(1) Generally, as regards the whole land of Judah, an age of widely spread, deeply seated, and well nigh incurable wickedness, of deplorable religious apostasy, of intensely debasing idolatry, of shameless hypocrisy, and of gross worldliness and indifference to Divine things (ver. 4).

(2) Particularly, as regards Jerusalem, an age of rebellion, disobedience, irreligion, prayerlessness, unbelief, violence, treachery, desecration of Jehovah's sanctuary, insensibility to correction, and deep-seated immorality (Zephaniah 3:1-4), with all of which the metropolis and its inhabitants were chargeable (cf. Jeremiah 5.; 6.).

IV. THE SOURCE OF HIS INSPIRATION. "The word of Jehovah." Whether this came to him by direct revelation through voice (Jeremiah 1:4) or vision (Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 2:1), or indirectly by meditation on the moral and political condition of his countrymen as well as on the character of Jehovah and the laws of righteousness by which he governs the universe, is not said and need not be inquired into. It suffices to know that the prophet claimed for his message that it had been expressly given him - put into his heart and mouth - by Jehovah; while his predictions certainly were such as could not have been announced without the aid of Divine inspiration.

V. THE BURDEN OF HIS PROPHECY. Judgment.

1. Divine. The instrument is not mentioned; the first cause alone is placed in the foreground - "I will utterly consume;" "I will cut off;" "I will stretch out mine hand." The present day tendency is to set God in the background, if not to deny his agency altogether, alike in the production of material phenomena and in the superintendence of the social, moral, and political worlds, and to concentrate attention principally, if not exclusively, upon what are merely God's instruments. The prophet's way of looking at men and things accorded more with sound philosophy and true science, not to say sincere religion, than the practice prevailing in many so called enlightened circles today.

2. Universal. The judgment should embrace the wide earth. "All" - "man and beast, the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, the stumbling blocks and the wicked" - should be arraigned at Jehovah's bar. If the language pointed not to a general judgment of men and nations at the end of the world, it at least emphasized the thought that no part of the world, no age or nation, could escape the ordeal of appearing before Heaven's tribunal or elude the grasp of Divine retribution. The terms in which Jehovah declares his purpose to visit the wicked with destruction are such as to show that the complete fulfilment of the prophecy can only be reached in the great and terrible day of the Lord at the close of time (cf. Isaiah 24:1-23).

3. Particular. While enclosing the whole world in its sweep, the threatened judgment should fall with a special stroke upon Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem - as it were beginning with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). That the instruments of judgment would be the Scythians of whom Herodotus (1:15, 103, 106; 4:10, 12) speaks as having invaded Upper and Higher Asia (Hitzig, Ewald, Bertheau), is not supported by sufficient evidence, whilst the fact that neither Herodotus nor the Old Testament reports any conquest of Jerusalem by them seems decisive against their being considered the executors of Jehovah's wrath. The agents actually employed were the Chaldeans (2 Kings 25:9), though it was not Zephaniah's purpose to indicate by whom the judgments should be carried out.

4. Complete. Thorough going; upon both the world in general and Judah in particular. "I will utterly consume all from off the face of the ground, saith Jehovah."

(1) As regards the world, the destruction should be as wide sweeping as had been that of the Deluge (Genesis 7:21).

(2) As regards Judah and Jerusalem, the purgation as effective. "The remnant of Baal should be cut off," i.e. root and branch, extirpated, or the work of extirpation, if already begun, should be carried forward till not a vestige of the hated idol worship should be seen.

(a) First, the idolatrous priests of both kinds should be swept away - the Chemarim, or "the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places round about Jerusalem" (2 Kings 23:5; Hosea 10:5); and the priests, not "the idolatrous priests in the stricter sense" (Keil), but the unworthy priests of Jehovah who had either secretly or openly favoured the prevailing Baal worship (Fausset, Farrar).

(b) Next, the idol worshippers of both kinds should be cut off - the thorough paced devotees of the heathen cultus, who worshipped the host of heaven upon the house tops, and the temporizers who tried to combine the worship of Jehovah with that of Baal, offering oaths of allegiance partly to Jehovah and partly to their king, i.e. Baal.

(c) And finally, apostates and open despisers of the Jehovah religion should be punished - those who had turned back from serving Jehovah, and those who had never served him at all (ver. 6). Learn:

1. The value of an honoured and pious ancestry.

2. The light the Word of God (contained in Scripture) can cast upon the

future.

3. The certainty of a day of judgment fur men and nations.

4. The impossibility of eluding the just judgment of God.

5. The inevitable ruin of them who will not serve God.

6. The impossibility of trying to serve God and idols.

7. The danger of neglecting religion hardly less than that of apostatizing from it. - T.W.

It would not be easy to find words more fully charged and surcharged with terror than these. Nor do they grow less sombre and dreadful as we consider either the men against whom they are launched, or the occasion that gave them form. In the time of Zephaniah the Jews were incredibly corrupt. The occasion of Zephaniah's writing was the invasion of Asia by the Scyths. As he looked out from the walls of Jerusalem and saw the goodly land stripped and devoured before them, and recalled the havoc they had carried through neigh-bouring kingdoms, he found the very symbol of judgment which would best express his thought. Jehovah would sweep everything from the face of the whole earth, even as the Scythians, with fire and sword in their train, were sweeping away the fruits and the wealth of the East. The conception which the passage suggests is that, angered beyond endurance by the sins of men, Jehovah is about to storm through the earth like a mighty Scythian chieftain destroying empire after empire, sweeping the whole world bare and empty. But these words, when rightly understood, are found to breathe a most catholic charity, a most tender humanity, and a mercy wholly divine.

I. A MOST CATHOLIC CHARITY. His view extended over the whole civilised world, over the whole world the prophet knew. We commonly conceive of the Hebrew prophets as the most narrow and exclusive of men, as devoted solely to the affairs and interests of the Hebrew race. And in so conceiving of them we do them a grave wrong. They were patriots, indeed, and patriots of the sincerest and noblest strain. Instead of being the most exclusive, they were really the most catholic of men. There is no one of them who does not look beyond the limits of his own country and desire the welfare of the world. And men ought to rejoice that the judgments of man are abroad in the whole earth, especially when they can see that Divine judgments veil purposes of mercy. This is the true catholicity, which desires not only the good of all men, but the highest good of all.

II. A MOST NOBLE AND TENDER HUMANITY. They exalt man, and yet they take thought for beasts. They are at once human and humane. It is now too much the fashion to regard man as the mere creature of the vast natural and cosmic forces amid which he stands and moves. It is assumed that physical laws govern his whole being. The Hebrew prophets breathed another, and surely a higher spirit." "To them it seemed that man was the lord of natural forces and laws, though himself "under authority." This high conception of man, as standing with only God above him, and the whole world beneath his feet, though it was the conception of a pre-scientific age, accords with the profoundest intuitions, and satisfies the deepest cravings of our hearts.

III. A MERCY WHOLLY DIVINE. Though the words of the text sound so stem and judicial, all the Hebrew prophets are rooted and grounded in the conviction that the meaning of judgment is mercy, that all the sorrows and calamities of human life are designed to reach an end of compassion and love. That it was the mercy of judgment which Zephaniah had in mind when he rejoiced that "their offences" were to be swept away with the sinners of his time, that men were to suffer in order that man might be saved, is evident so soon as we permit him to interpret himself. In passages of an exquisite tenderness and beauty he expands his opening words. See Zephaniah 2:11; Zephaniah 3:9. It was because the Hebrew prophets were so strong in this conviction of the beneficent uses of "judgments" that they could dwell on them, and even exult in them, as they undoubtedly do. Let us learn of Zephaniah the mercy of the Divine judgments. They simply sheathe and convey the saving health of the Divine compassion and love. With Zephaniah let us welcome and rely on the conviction that, when God sweeps the face of the earth, it is that He may renew the heart of the world, and gladden us with larger disclosures of His grace.

(Samuel Cox, D. D.)

Why did God turn His wrath against fishes and other, animals? This seems to have been a hasty and unreasonable infliction. But let this rule be first borne in mind, that it is preposterous in us to estimate God's dealings according to our judgment, as froward and proud men do in our day; for they are disposed to judge of God's works with such presumption that whatever they do not approve they think it right wholly to condemn. But it behoves us to judge modestly and soberly, and to confess that God's judgments are a deep abyss; and when a reason for them does not appear we ought reverently and with due humility to look for the day of their full revelation. This is one thing. Then it is meet at the same time to remember that as animals were created for man's use, they must under, go a lot in common with him; for God made subservient to man both the birds of heaven and the fishes of the sea, and all other animals. It is, then, no matter of wonder that the condemnation of him who enjoys sovereignty over the whole earth should reach to animals. The reason is sufficiently plain. Why, the prophet speaks here of the beasts of the earth, the fishes of the sea, and the birds of heaven; for we find that men grow torpid, or rather stupid in their own indifference, except as they are forcibly roused. It was therefore necessary for the prophet, when he saw the people so hardened in their wickedness, and that he had to do with men past recovery, to set clearly before them these judgments of God.

( John Calvin.)

Amariah, Amon, Amoz, Cushi, Gedaliah, Hezekiah, Hizkiah, Josiah, Malcham, Milcom, Molech, ZephaniahFish Gate, Jerusalem, Mortar, Second QuarterAffirmation, Air, Along, Animal, Animals, Beast, Birds, Causing, Consume, Cut, Cutting, Declares, Downfall, Evil-doers, Face, Fish, Fishes, Fowl, Fowls, Ground, Heaps, Heaven, Heavens, Mankind, Overthrow, Remove, Rubble, Ruins, Says, Sky, Stumblingblocks, Stumbling-blocks, Surface, Sweep, Wicked1. The time when Zephaniah prophesied.
2. God's severe judgments against Judah.

Zephaniah 1:3

     4605   animals, religious role
     4642   fish

Zephaniah 1:2-3

     5150   face

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