Zephaniah 1 commentary

ZEPHA IAH 1 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
I TRODUCTIO
Calvin’s Preface to zephaniah.
Zephaniah is placed the last of the Minor Prophets who performed their office
before the Babylonian Captivity; and the inscription shows that he exercised his
office of teaching at the same time with Jeremiah, about thirty years before the city
was destroyed, the Temple pulled down, and the people led into exile. Jeremiah, it is
true, followed his vocation even after the death of Josiah, while Zephaniah
prophesied only during his reign.
The substance of his Book is this: He first denounces utter destruction on a people
who were so perverse, that there was no hope of their repentance;—he then
moderates his threatening, by denouncing God’s judgments on their enemies, the
Assyrians, as well as others, who had treated with cruelty the Church of God; for it
was no small consolation, when the Jews heard that they were so regarded by God,
that he would undertake their cause and avenge their wrongs. He afterwards
repeats again his reproofs, and shortly mentions the sins which then prevailed
among the elect people of God; and, at the same time, he turns his discourse to the
faithful, and exhorts them to patience, setting before them the hope of favor,
provided they ever looked to the Lord; and provided they relied on the gratuitous
covenant which he made with Abraham, and doubted not but that he would be a
Father to them, and also looked, with a tranquil mind, for that redemption which
had been promised to them. This is the sum of the whole Book.
Commentary on the Book of Zephaniah
by Dr Peter Pett BA BD (Hons:London) DD
Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah, one of the best of the kings of
Judah. He reigned from 640 BC to 609BC. His reference to the future destruction of
ineveh (Zephaniah 2:13), which took place in 612 BC, fixes his writing before that
event So the prophet ministered somewhere between 640 and 612 BC. His
contemporaries were ahum, Habakkuk, and the young Jeremiah. Jeremiah's
ministry continued beyond the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
In view of his references to Baalism, and the lack of reference to Josiah’s reform,
most would place his writing before that reform which took place on discovery of
the book of the Law in the temple (around 622 BC), although some level of reform
had probably already taken place in the first place in order for the book to be

discovered.
The political situation in Judah during Josiah's reign was fairly peaceful. Following
Assyria's capture of Samaria in 722 BC, the Assyrian Empire first advanced to new
heights until it had overstretched itself, and then began to decline, and around one
hundred years later abopolassar, the first of the eo-Babylonian kings, (626-605
BC), began his campaign to free Babylonia from their grasp, in alliance with the
Medes and Scythians. They were successful and finally destroyed ineveh in 612 BC
(see our commentary on ahum), by which time the Assyrian empire was on its last
legs.
In 605 BC it met its final end at Carchemish in alliance with its old enemy Egypt
who feared the rise of Babylonian power. Josiah in fact met his end seeking to
prevent the Egyptians from joining the Assyrians.
But the fact that Zephaniah does not target the Babylonians (or the Medes) as the
instruments of God’s judgment suggests an early date for the prophecy, before they
came to prominence.
Josiah, who came to the throne at the age of eight, guided by the godly Hilkiah,
followed the evil king Manasseh who in his long reign had strongly encouraged the
worship of the Assyrian gods, and Josiah was able eventually to get rid of much of
the Assyrian religious practises, partly due to Assyria’s growing weakness.
(Conquerors usually insisted that their gods were prominently worshipped by
subject nations along woth their own). He extended Judah's territory north into
aphtali.
But while the Assyrian gods strongly affected temple worship, it was Baal, the
Canaanite god, and Melek (Moloch), the Ammonite god (who demanded human
sacrifice), who gripped the idolatrous hearts of the people outside Jerusalem,
something which the kings had never been able successfully to combat.
It was in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (622 B.C.) that Hilkiah the priest
discovered the Law of Moses in the temple, (probably Deuteronomy at least), and
when Josiah read it he instituted major reforms throughout Judah. Josiah's reforms
were good. He eliminated much of the idolatry in the land and revived the
celebration of the Passover, but unfortunately his reforms could not change the
hearts of all the people, and when he died they slipped back to their idolatry, as
Jeremiah reveals in his earlier prophecies.
So the people to whom Zephaniah ministered had a long history of formal and
syncretistic religion behind them without much real commitment to YHWH. And
God brought home to his heart that because of their formal religion and their
negligence with regard to God’s Law, and their willingness to compromise with
idolatry, God would have to chastise and punish them in order to produce a
remnant for the furthering of His purposes.

While we may see in what follows a pattern of the judgment to come in the final
days, we must take note that Zephaniah specifically relates it to Jerusalem and
Judah and the surrounding nations. It is not honouring to the word of God to make
it say more than it does in order to support a theory.
Finally we should note that Zephaniah was a member of the royal house. He had
influence where others could not reach, and was directly related to those whose
misdeeds and misgovernment would bring about what he prophesied. He is,
however, not called ‘the prophet’ (compare Habakkuk 1:1; Haggai 1:1; Zechariah
1:1), and was thus probably not an official prophet.
THE PULPIT COMME TARIES:
THE prophecy of Zephaniah has been called by Kieinert the Dies irae of the Old
Testament; and there is much truth in this designation. It is, indeed, replete with
announcements of judgment to come; it is wholly occupied with this subject and its
consequences, and exhortations founded thereon; not that this is the final object of
the prophecy, but it is introduced uniformly as being the means of establishing
righteousness in the earth, making God's power known, purging out the evil, and
developing the good. The prophet is inspired with the idea of the universal judgment
which shall affect the whole world; he sees this anticipated by particular visitations
on certain heathen nations; he sees heathendom generally overthrown; he warns his
own countrymen of the punishment that awaits them; and he looks forward to the
salvation of Israel when all these things have come to pass. The book is one
continuous prophecy divided into three parts; it contains, perhaps, many utterances
condensed into one systematic whole, which comprises the threat of judgment, the
exhortation to repentance, and the promise of salvation.
The prophet begins abruptly with announcing the judgment upon the whole world,
upon idolaters, and specially upon Judah for its iniquity; he describes the terrible
character of this judgment, and upon whom it shall fall, viz. the chieftains who
affect Gentile habits and oppress others, upon the traders who exact usury, upon the
faithless who have no belief in Divine providence (ch. 1.). Having depicted the day of
the Lord, he exhorts the people to repentance, and urges the righteous to persevere
that they may be protected in the time of distress. He gives a reason for this
exhortation by a more extended announcement of the Divine judgment which shall
fall upon nations far and near — Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Ethiopians,
Assyrians, yea, and upon Jerusalem herself, whose princes, judges, and prophets
shall be justly punished. This display of vengeance shall lead to a reverential awe of
the ame of the Lord, and prepare the way for the pure worship of God (Zephaniah
2:1-3:8). This introduces the announcement of Messianic hopes. The nations shall
serve the Lord with one accord; Israel shall return from its dispersion, purified and
humbled, the evil being purged away; it shall be safe under God's special care, and
shall rejoice in happiness undisturbed; the oppressor shall be destroyed, and the
holy nation shall be "a name and a praise among all people of the earth"
(Zephaniah 3:9-20).

The prophecy of Zephaniah is in some respects supplementary to that of Habakkuk.
The latter had foretold the punishment of Judah through the Chaldeans; the former
shows how the judgment will affect, not the Jews only, but pagan nations also, yea,
the whole earth; but he does not name nor accurately describe the instruments of
this vengeance. This reticence has given occasion to much speculation on the part of
critics. Those who believe in the predictive element of prophecy, and acknowledge
the inspiration of Divine foreknowledge in the utterances of the prophets, have no
difficulty in seeing the fulfilment of the announced judgment in the action of the
Chaldeans, whom Zephaniah, in agreement with the general and comprehensive
character of his oracle, does not specifically name. But Hitzig and those who reject
all definite prophecy take much pains to discover an enemy to whom the prophet
could allude without resorting to supernatural knowledge. They find this convenient
invader in the horde of Scythians who, as Herodotus relates, burst into Media, went
thence towards Egypt, were bought off by Psammetichus, and on their return a few
stragglers plundered a temple at Ascalon. This inroad is reported to have happened
about the time that the prophecy was uttered. But Herodotus's account of the
Scythians, when carefully examined, is proved to be full of inaccuracies; and even
this gives no support to the figment of their attack on the Jews, of whose existence
they were probably unaware, nor to any destruction of the nations mentioned by
Zephaniah effectual by them. Whether it was revealed to the prophet that the
Chaldeans were to be the executors of the Divine vengeance, or whether the exact
instruments were not identified in his view (the law of moral government being
present to his mind rather than any definite circumstances), the fact remains that he
announces certain events which we know were not fulfilled by any proceedings of
Scythians, but were exactly accomplished by the Chaldeans (see note on Zephaniah
1:7).
The peculiarity in Zephaniah's prophecy is the extension of his view to all lands and
nations, their spiritual concerns, their future condition. While cursorily announcing
the fate of Jerusalem, he dwells chiefly upon the exercise of God's power upon the
exterior kingdoms of the world, and how they are ordained to work out his great
purposes.
§ 2. AUTHOR.
Of Zephaniah we know absolutely nothing but what he himself mentions in the
superscription of his book. o information can be gathered from the contents of the
prophecy, where the writer's personal history is wholly unnoticed. He calls himself
"the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah." As
it is usual to mention only the name of the father, it has been inferred that the
genealogy is carried up to the fourth generation because Hizkiah, i.e. Hezekiah, was
a celebrated personage, and most probably the famous King of Judah. But the
inference is not undoubted. Hizkiah is not called "King of Judah" in the genealogy,
which would naturally have been done had he been the ancestor intended, as in
Proverbs 25:1; Isaiah 38:9. There is room enough, indeed, between Hezekiah and
Josiah for the four specified descents, though only three are named in the case of

Josiah himself; but the name Hezekiah was not unknown among the Jews, and we
cannot assume without further support that the person here mentioned is the king.
It is fair to argue that the insertion of the genealogical details shows that the prophet
was of distinguished birth; but further it is impossible to go with any certainly.
The name of the prophet is variously explained, as "The Lord hath hid," or "The
Lord hath guarded," or "The Lord's Watchtower." Keil is generally followed in
interpreting it as "He whom Jehovah hides, or shelters." The LXX. writes it
σοφονι῎ἀ: Vulgate, Sophoniah. There were others who bore this name (see 2 Kings
25:18; 1 Chronicles 6:36; Zechariah 6:10, 14). The devils given by Pseudo-Dorotheus
and Pseudo-Epiphanius ('De Vit. Proph.,' 19.), among which is the assertion that he
was a member of the tribe of Simeon, have no historical basis.
§ 3. DATE.
Zephaniah, in the inscription of his book, states that he prophesied "in the days of
Josiah the son of Amon, King of Judah;" and this assertion has never been seriously
disputed. The only question is in what part of that king's reign did he exercise his
office. Josiah reigned thirty-one years, according to the usually received dates —
from B.C. 640 to B.C. 609. The destruction of ineveh, which Zephaniah foretold,
took place quite at the end of Josiah's reign, and his prophecy must have been
uttered some time before this event. o other data for determining the question exist
save what may be gathered from internal evidences. And these are most uncertain,
depending chiefly upon inferences drawn from the great reformation effected by the
good king. Did he prophesy before this reformation was begun, or after it was
effected, that is to say, in the first or second half of Josiah's reign? A third
alternative may be added — Was it during the progress of this religious
amelioration? Those who assign the prophecy to the earlier period, before the king's
eighteenth year, when his vigorous measures produced their happy results, rely
upon the fact that the prophet speaks as though idolatry and the disorders which
Josiah repressed were still rampant, even the members of the royal family being
implicated in the general iniquity. It is inconceivable, they say, that Zephaniah
should have taken this gloomy view, and have entirely omitted all mention of the
young prince's noble efforts to effect a change for the better, had this attempt
already been commenced. All this points to a time when Josiah was still a minor,
and before he had begun to assert himself in the direction of affairs. On the other
hand, it is contended that certain statements in the body of the work prove that the
reformation was being carried on at the time when it was composed: the public
worship of Jehovah existed (Zephaniah 3:4, 5), and this side by side with that of
Baal and with many idolatrous practices (Zephaniah 1:4, 5); there were priests of
Jehovah as well as priests of false gods at the same time. or can we reason from
Zephaniah's silence concerning reforms that none had been essayed; for Jeremiah,
who began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah, is quite as strong as
Zephaniah in his denunciations of idolatry, the fact being that, though it was
publicly abolished, it was still practised extensively in secret. Others, again, claim a
still later date for the prophecy, because it speaks of the extermination of the
remnant of Baal (Zephaniah 1:4), which implies that the purification had already

been effected, and that only isolated instances still existed; the prophet also speaks
of and refers to the Mosaic books as well known to his hearers (comp. Zephaniah
1:13, 15, 17; 2:2, 5, 7, 11; 3:5, 19, 20), which could only have been after the discovery
of the "book of the Law" in Josiah's eighteenth year (2 Kings 22:8). It must be noted
that on this occasion reference was made to the Prophetess Huldah, not to
Zephaniah (2 Kings 22:14). Hence some suppose that he was dead at this time.
From this brief recapitulation of arguments it will be seen that each of the three
theories mentioned above has much to be said in its favour; and that the only safe
conclusion be adopt is this — that although the present book, as now displayed in
the sacred canon, forms one connected whole, it is composed of prophecies uttered
at various times and gathered by their author into a volume and arranged on a
definite plan. Its place in the canon is the same both in the Hebrew and Greek, and
coincides with the chronological order to which it is assigned.
§ 4. GE ERAL CHARACTER.
Some critics have spoken disparagingly of the style of Zephaniah's prophecy, as
being prosaic and bearing no comparison with any of the other Hebrew poets. There
is some truth in this criticism; but the censure is exaggerated and unjust. Of the
remarkable purity of his language there can be no doubt; and if his rhythm is at
times faulty, judged by the standard of the highest models, and sinks into prose; if
he is wanting in sublimity and elegance; it must be allowed that he is always easy
and full of life, often vehement, fiery, and severe, and that the force and conciseness
of his utterances leave a definite impression on the mind which needs no rhetorical
artifice to make it permanent. Like other prophets, he connects himself with his
predecessors by employing their language, not from poverty of idea, not from
"declension in the originality of prophets of this date," but because he designs to
give, in a compendious form, "the fundamental thoughts of judgment and salvation
which are common to all the prophets" (Keil). He predicts judgment; the particular
instrument he leaves unfold. The destruction, not the destroyer, is the subject of his
oracle. His future is vague, and extends even to the end of time; particular period or
special agent is beyond his scope to name. He culls isolated expressions and striking
words from his predecessors, Isaiah, Joel, Amos, and Habakkuk; he avails himself
of their language with respect to judgment to come, and God's love for the righteous
among the people, and applies it to his own purpose. The peculiar nature of this
prophecy, its comprehensiveness and universality, has been well intimated by Bucer,
who says, "Si quis desiderat secreta vatum oracula brevi dari compendio, brevem
hunc Zaphanjam perlegat."

1 The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah
son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of
Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of
Josiah son of Amon king of Judah:
BAR ES, "The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of
Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah - It seems
likely that more forefathers of the prophet are named than is the wont of Holy Scripture,
because the last so named was some one remarkable. Nor is it impossible that Zephaniah
should have been the great grandson of the King Hezekiah, for although Holy Scripture
commonly names the one son only who is in the sacred line, and although there is one
generation more than to Josiah, yet if each had a son early, Zephaniah might have been
contemporary with Josiah. The names seem also mentioned for the sake of their
meaning; at least it is remarkable how the name of God appears in most. Zephaniah,
“whom the Lord hid;” Gedaliah, “whom the Lord made great;” Amariah, “whom the
Lord promised;” Hezekiah, “whom the Lord strengthened.”
CLARKE, "The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah - Though this
prophet has given us so large a list of his ancestors, yet little concerning him is known,
because we know nothing certain relative to the persons of the family whose names are
here introduced. We have one chronological note which is of more value for the correct
understanding of his prophecy than the other could have been, how circumstantially
soever it had been delivered; viz., that he prophesied in the days of Josiah, son of Amon,
king of Judah; and from the description which he gives of the disorders which prevailed
in Judea in his time, it is evident that he must have prophesied before the reformation
made by Josiah, which was in the eighteenth year of his reign. And as he predicts the
destruction of Nineveh, Zep_2:13, which, as Calmet remarks, could not have taken place
before the sixteenth of Josiah, allowing with Berosus twenty-one years for the reign of
Nabopolassar over the Chaldeans; we must, therefore, place this prophecy about the
beginning of the reign of Josiah, or from b.c. 640 to b.c. 609. But see the chronological
notes.
GILL, "The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of
Cushi,.... This is the title of the book, which expresses the subject matter of it, the word
of the Lord; the word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum; and shows the divine
authority of it; that it was not of himself, nor from any man, but was of God; as well as
describes the penman of it by his descent: who or what this his father was; whether a
prophet, according to the rule the Jews give, that, when the name of a prophet and his
father's name are mentioned, he is a prophet, the son of a prophet; or, whether a prince,
a person of some great family, and even of the blood royal, as some have thought, is not
certain; or who those after mentioned:

the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah; which last name,
consisting of the same letters with Hezekiah, king of Judah, some have thought, as Aben
Ezra, that he is intended; and that Zephaniah was a great-grandson of his; and which
some think is confirmed by his style and diction, and by the freedom he used with the
king's family, Zep_1:8 but it is objected, that, if so it was, Hizkiah, or Hezekiah, would
have been called king of Judah; that it does not appear that Hezekiah had any other son
besides Manasseh; and that there was not a sufficient distance of time from Hezekiah for
four descents; and that, in fact, there were but three generations from him to Josiah, in
whose days Zephaniah prophesied, as follows; though it is very probable that these
progenitors of the prophet were men of note and character, and therefore mentioned, as
well as to distinguish him from others of the same name, who lived
in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah: not Amos, as the Arabic
version: Amon and Manasseh, who reigned between Hezekiah and Josiah, were both
wicked princes, and introduced idolatrous worship among the Jews; which Josiah in the
twelfth year of his reign began to purge the people from, and endeavoured a
reformation; but whether it was before or after that Zephaniah delivered out this
prophecy is not certain; it may seem to be before, by the corruption of the times
described in it; and so it may be thought to have some influence upon the after
reformation; though it is thought by many it was after; since, had he been in this office
before the finding of the book of the law, he, and not Huldah the prophetess, would have
been consulted, 2Ki_22:14 nor could the people so well have been taxed with a
perversion of the law, had it not been as yet found, Zep_3:4 and, besides, the
reformation seems to be hinted at in this prophecy, since mention is made of the
remnant of Baal, which supposes a removal of many of his images; and also notice is
taken of some that apostatized after the renewal of the covenant, Zep_1:4 moreover, the
time of the Jews' destruction and captivity is represented as very near, Zep_1:7 which
began a little after the death of Josiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; to which Dr.
Lightfoot (f) adds, that the prophet prophesies against the king's children, Jehoahaz,
Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, for their new fashions, and newfangled apparel, Zep_1:8 and
therefore it must be in the latter part of his reign; and, if so, it shows how a people may
relapse into sin after the greatest endeavours for their good, and the best of examples set
them. Mr. Whiston (g) and Mr. Bedford (h) place him in the latter part of his reign,
about 611 or 612 B.C.: there were three that prophesied about this time, Zephaniah,
Jeremiah, and Huldah the prophetess; of whom the Jewish Rabbins say, as Kimchi
quotes them, Jeremiah prophesied in the streets, Zephaniah in the synagogues, and
Huldah among the women.
HE RY, "Here is, I. The title-page of this book (Zep_1:1), in which we observe, 1.
What authority it has, and who gave it that authority; it is from heaven, and not of men:
It is the word of the Lord. 2. Who was the instrument of conveying it to the church. His
name was Zephaniah, which signifies the servant of the Lord, for God revealed his
secrets to his servants the prophets. The pedigree of other prophets, whose extraction
we have an account of, goes no further back than their father, except Zecharias, whose
grandfather also is named. But this of Zephaniah goes back four generations, and the
highest mentioned is Hizkiah; it is the very same name in the original with that of
Hezekiah king of Judah (2Ki_18:1), and refers probably to him; if so, our prophet, being
lineally descended from that pious prince, and being of the royal family, could with the
better grace reprove the folly of the king's children as he does, Zep_1:8. 3. When this
prophet prophesied - in the days of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned well, and in the

twelfth year of his reign began vigorously, and carried on a work of reformation, in
which he destroyed idols and idolatry. Now it does not appear whether Zephaniah
prophesied in the beginning of his reign; if so, we may suppose his prophesying had a
great and good influence on that reformation. When he, as God's messenger, reproved
the idolatries of Jerusalem, Josiah, as God's vice-regent, removed them; and
reformation is likely to go on and prosper when both magistrates and ministers do their
part towards it. If it were towards the latter end of his reign that he prophesied, we sadly
see how a corrupt people relapse into their former distempers. The idolatries Josiah had
abolished, it should seem, returned in his own time, when the heat of the reformation
began a little to abate and wear off. What good can the best reformers do with a people
that hate to be reformed, as if they longed to be ruined?
JAMISO , "Zep_1:1-18. God’s severe judgment on Judah for its idolatry and
neglect of Him: The rapid approach of the judgment, and the impossibility of escape.
days of Josiah — Had their idolatries been under former kings, they might have
said, Our kings have forced us to this and that. But under Josiah, who did all in his
power to reform them, they have no such excuse.
son of Amon — the idolater, whose bad practices the Jews clung to, rather than the
good example of Josiah, his son; so incorrigible were they in sin.
Judah — Israel’s ten tribes had gone into captivity before this.
K&D 1-3, "Zep_1:1 contains the heading, which has been explained in the introduction.
Zep_1:2 and Zep_1:3 form the preface. - Zep_1:2. “I will sweep, sweep away everything
from the face of the earth, is the saying of Jehovah. Zep_1:3. I will sweep away man
and cattle, sweep away the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the offences
with the sinners, and I cut off men from the face of the earth, is the saying of Jehovah.”
The announcement of the judgment upon the whole earth not only serves to sharpen the
following threat of judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem in this sense, “Because Jehovah
judges the whole world, He will punish the apostasy of Judah all the more;” but the
judgment upon the whole world forms an integral part of his prophecy, which treats
more fully of the execution of the judgment in and upon Judah, simply because Judah
forms the kingdom of God, which is to be purified from its dross by judgment, and led
on towards the end of its divine calling. As Zephaniah here opens the judgment awaiting
Judah with an announcement of a judgment upon the whole world, so does he assign the
reason for his exhortation to repentance in Zep_2:1-15, by showing that all nations will
succumb to the judgment; and then announces in Zep_3:9., as the fruit of the judgment,
the conversion of the nations to Jehovah, and the glorification of the kingdom of God.
The way to salvation leads through judgment, not only for the world with its enmity
against God, but for the degenerate theocracy also. It is only through judgment that the
sinful world can be renewed and glorified. The verb ‫ף‬ ֵ‫ס‬ፎ, the hiphil of sūph, is
strengthened by the inf. abs. ‫ּף‬‫ס‬ፎ, which is formed from the verb ‫ף‬ ַ‫ס‬ፎ, a verb of kindred
meaning. Sūph and 'âsaph signify to take away, to sweep away, hiph. to put an end, to
destroy. Kōl, everything, is specified in Zep_1:3 : men and cattle, the birds of heaven,
and the fishes of the sea; the verb 'âsēph being repeated before the two principal
members. This specification stands in unmistakeable relation to the threatening of God:
to destroy all creatures for the wickedness of men, from man to cattle, and to creeping

things, and even to the fowls of the heaven (Gen_6:7). By playing upon this threat,
Zephaniah intimates that the approaching judgment will be as general over the earth,
and as terrible, as the judgment of the flood. Through this judgment God will remove or
destroy the offences (stumbling-blocks) together with the sinners. ‫ת‬ ֵ‫א‬ before ‫ים‬ ִ‫ע‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ ְ‫ר‬ ָ‫ה‬
cannot be the sign of the accusative, but can only be a preposition, with, together with,
since the objects to ‫ף‬ ֵ‫ס‬ፎ are all introduced without the sign of the accusative; and,
moreover, if ‫ת־הרשׁ‬ ֶ‫א‬ were intended for an accusative, the copula Vâv would not be
omitted. Hammakhshēlôth does not mean houses about to fall (Hitzig), which neither
suits the context nor can be grammatically sustained, since even in Isa_3:6
hammakhshēlâh is not the fallen house, but the state brought to ruin by the sin of the
people; and makhshēlâh is that against which or through which a person meets with a
fall. Makhshēlōth are all the objects of coarser and more refined idolatry, not merely the
idolatrous images, but all the works of wickedness, like τᆭ σκάνδαλα in Mat_13:41. The
judgment, however, applies chiefly to men, i.e., to sinners, and hence in the last clause
the destruction of men from off the earth is especially mentioned. The irrational creation
is only subject to φθορά, on account of and through the sin of men (Rom_8:20.).
CALVI , "Zephaniah first mentions the time in which he prophesied; it was under
the king Josiah. The reason why he puts down the name of his father Amon does not
appear to me. The Prophet would not, as a mark of honor, have made public a
descent that was disgraceful and infamous. Amon was the son of Manasseh, an
impious and wicked king; and he was nothing better than his father. We hence see
that his name is recorded, not for the sake of honor, but rather of reproach; and it
may have been that the Prophet meant to intimate, what was then well known to all,
that the people had become so obdurate in their superstitions, that it was no easy
matter to restore them to a sound mind. But we cannot bring forward anything but
conjecture; I therefore leave the matter without pretending to decide it.
With regard to the pedigree of the Prophet, I have mentioned elsewhere what the
Jews affirm—that when the Prophets put down the names of their fathers, they
themselves had descended from Prophets. But Zephaniah mentions not only his
father and grandfather, but also his great-grandfather and his great-great-
grandfather; and it is hardly credible that they were all Prophets, and there is not a
word respecting them in Scripture. I do not think, as I have said elsewhere, that
such a rule is well-founded; but the Jews in this case, according to their manner,
deal in trifles; for in things unknown they hesitate not to assert what comes to their
minds, though it may not have the least appearance of truth. It is possible that the
father, grandfather, the great-grandfather, and the great-great-grandfather of the
Prophet, were persons who excelled in piety; but this also is uncertain. What is
especially worthy of being noticed is— that he begins by saying that he brought
nothing of his own, but faithfully, and, as it were, by the hand, delivered what he
had received from God.

With regard, then, to his pedigree, it is a matter of no great moment; but it is of
great importance to know that God was the author of his doctrine, and that
Zephaniah was his faithful minister, who introduced not his own devices, but was
only the announcer of celestial truth. Let us now proceed to the contents -
COFFMA , "Verse 1
Zephaniah announced his theme at once, following his identification of himself as
God's spokesman (Zephaniah 1:1), that being the universal final judgment of the
whole world (Zephaniah 1:2,3). Would the Jews escape the terrors of that day?
Certainly not! Passing from the general to the specific, a device which Dummelow
described as being in harmony with the "genius of the Semitic mind,"[1] Zephaniah
detailed the effect of the judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem (Zephaniah 1:4-7)
and pointed out that it would fall heavily upon sinners of every rank (Zephaniah
1:8-13). The terrible day of the Lord will burst suddenly upon the whole earth and
all of its inhabitants (Zephaniah 1:14-18).
Zephaniah 1:1
"The word of Jehovah which came unto Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of
Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of
Amon, king of Judah."
See the introduction for full discussion of this superscription which is received by
this writer as genuine and Zephaniah's own claim of divine authority for what is
included in his prophecy. All subjective, imaginative, unscientific objections to this
view have been proved to be worthless.
It appears to be quite obvious that Zephaniah's reason for including so many of his
ancestors in this verse was for the purpose of indicating his royal descent from the
good king Hezekiah of Judah. It is barely possible that there could have been
another reason. His father was Cushi, which means "an Ethiopian or a Cushite."[2]
The offspring resulting from a Hebrew girl's marrying a foreigner "would not have
been accepted in the Jewish community unless he could show a pure Jewish
pedigree for at lease three generations (Deuteronomy 23:8)."[3] That also could
have entered into this unusual inclusion of four of his forbears in Zephaniah's
superscription.
There are many internal evidences that require us to believe that the portion of
Josiah's long reign of 39 years during which the prophet delivered his message was
the first part, before the reforms.
TRAPP, "Verse 1
Zephaniah 1:1 The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of
Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of
Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.
Ver. 1. The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah] Which is (by

interpretation) God’s secretary, or, hidden one, Psalms 27:5; Psalms 83:3. Or, as
Jerome and some others will have it, God’s watchman, Ezekiel 33:7. A fit name for a
prophet.
The son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, &c.] These were, if not prophets (as the
Jewish doctors make them), yet men famous in the Church ( Hebraei Prophetarum
patres, quotquot nominatim recensentur, ipsos quoque prophetas fuisse dicunt); as
were Alexander and Rufus, though they be but mentioned and no more, Mark
15:21.
In the days of Josiah] Who reigned thirty-one years, but, being in his minority,
began not to reform religion, much corrupted in the days of his idolatrous father,
Amon, till the eighteenth year of his reign, 2 Kings 22:1; 2 Kings 23:23, whether
before or after the reformation, "the word of the Lord came unto Zephaniah,"
interpreters agree not. Jeremiah (his contemporary) began not to prophesy till the
thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, Jeremiah 1:1-2, at what time (viz. in his twelfth
year) he had begun to reform with a great deal of zeal, 2 Chronicles 34:3, but also he
met with a great deal of opposition from the princes and people who had been
woefully hardened and abituated in their idolatry under Manasseh and Amon, and
therefore with much difficulty drawn off. Zephaniah and Jeremiah were singular
helps, no doubt, to that peerless king in his zealous undertakings for God. But why
he should send to Huldah, the prophetess, rather than to either of them, 2 Kings
22:13, what other reason can be given but that she dwelt in the college at Jerusalem,
and so was next at hand? And why he went up against Pharaoh echo, and sent not
first to any prophet to ask their advice, what can we say but this, that sometimes
both grace and wit are asleep in the holiest and wariest breasts? and that the best of
God’s saints may be sometimes miscarried by their passion, to their cost?
BE SO , "Zephaniah 1:1. The word that came to Zephaniah — The divine
revelation that was made to him. The son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, &c. — If
these were not prophets, as the Jewish doctors make them, yet it is probable they
were persons of some note in Judah. The son of Hizkiah — Although both the letters
and points of this name in the Hebrew are the same with those of King Hezekiah,
and some therefore have thought that the prophet was his great-grandson; yet that
could not be the case, because there was not a sufficient distance of time between
King Hezekiah and Josiah, in whose time he flourished, for four descents: nor do we
read of Hezekiah’s having any son but Manasseh. In the days of Josiah — The Jews
were wont to allege, that their kings obliged them to practise idolatry, and rendered
them in other respects corrupt in their manners; but God, by raising up the pious
Josiah to be their king, deprived them of that excuse. For so far was he from
encouraging them in any branch of impiety or vice, that he used his utmost efforts to
effect a thorough reformation among them, although, alas! to little purpose, for they
continued to be exceeding corrupt, both in their principles and practices; or, if any
change took place among them for the better, it seems to have been but very partial,
and of very short duration.

CO STABLE, "I. HEADI G1:1
What follows is the word that Yahweh gave to Zephaniah during the reign of King
Josiah of Judah (640-609 B.C.). This "word" includes all that the Lord told the
prophet that He also led him to record for posterity (cf. Hosea 1:1; Joel 1:1; Micah
1:1). This was a divine revelation that God gave through one of His servants the
prophets.
Zephaniah recorded his genealogy, the longest genealogy of a writing prophet in any
prophetical book. It goes back four generations to Zephaniah"s great-great-
grandfather, or possibly more distant relative, Hezekiah. As noted in the "Writer"
section of the Introduction above, it is impossible to prove or to disprove that this
Hezekiah was the king of Judah with that name. Chronologically he could have been
since people married quite young during Israel"s monarchy. I think this Hezekiah
probably was the king since the name was not common and since it would make
sense to trace the prophet"s lineage back so far if Hezekiah was an important
person (cf. Zechariah 1:1). [ ote: See ibid, p898; Smith, pp182-83; G. A. Smith, The
Book of the Twelve Prophets, Commonly Called the Minor, p46; and Baker, p91.]
ormally the writing prophets who recorded their ancestors named only their
fathers (cf. Jonah 1:1; Joel 1:1). We have no complete genealogy of King Hezekiah"s
descendants in the Old Testament.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "Verses 1-18
THE PROPHET A D THE REFORMERS
Zephaniah 1:1-18 - Zephaniah 2:3
TOWARDS the year 625, when King Josiah had passed out of his minority, and was
making his first efforts at religious reform, prophecy, long slumbering, woke again
in Israel. Like the king himself, its first heralds were men in their early youth. In
627 Jeremiah calls himself but a boy, and Zephaniah can hardly have been out of
his teens. For the sudden outbreak of these young lives there must have been a large
reservoir of patience and hope gathered in the generation behind them. So Scripture
itself testifies. To Jeremiah it was said: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew
thee, and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I consecrated thee." [Jeremiah
1:5] In an age when names were bestowed only because of their significance, both
prophets bore that of Jehovah in their own. So did Jeremiah’s father, who was of
the priests of Anathoth. Zephaniah’s "forbears" are given for four generations, and
with one exception they also are called after Jehovah: "The Word of Jehovah which
came to Sephanyah, son of Kushi, son of Gedhalyah, son of Amaryah, son of
Hizkiyah, in the days of Joshiyahu, Amon’s son, king of Judah." Zephaniah’s great-
great-grandfather Hezekiah was in all probability the king. His father’s name
Kushi, or Ethiop, is curious. If we are right, that Zephaniah was a young man
towards 625, then Kushi must have been born towards 663, about the time of the
conflicts between Assyria and Egypt, and it is possible that, as Manasseh and the
predominant party in Judah so closely hung upon and imitated Assyria, the

adherents of Jehovah put their hope in Egypt, whereof, it may be, this name Kushi
is a token. The name Zephaniah itself, meaning "Jehovah hath hidden," suggests
the prophet’s birth in the "killing-time" of Manasseh. There was at least one other
contemporary of the same name-a priest executed by ebuchadrezzar. Of the
adherents of Jehovah, then, and probably of royal descent, Zephaniah lived in
Jerusalem. We descry him against her, almost a clearly as we descry Isaiah. In the
glare and smoke of the conflagration which his vision sweeps across the world, only
her features stand out definite and particular: the flat roofs with men and women
bowing in the twilight to the host of heaven, the crowds of priests, the nobles and
their foreign fashions: the Fishgate, the ew or Second Town, where the rich lived,
the heights to which building had at last spread, and between them the hollow
mortar, with its markets, Phoenician merchants, and money-dealers. In the first few
verses of Zephaniah we see almost as much of Jerusalem as in the whole book either
of Isaiah or Jeremiah.
For so young a man the vision of Zephaniah may seem strangely dark and final. Yet
not otherwise was Isaiah’s inaugural vision, and as a rule it is the young and not the
old whose indignation is ardent and unsparing. Zephaniah carries this temper to the
extreme. There is no great hope in his book, hardly any tenderness, and never a
glimpse of beauty. A townsman, Zephaniah has no eye for nature; not only is no fair
prospect described by him, he has not even a single metaphor drawn from nature’s
loveliness or peace. He is pitilessly true to his great keynotes: "I will sweep, sweep
from the face of the ground; He will burn," burn up everything. o hotter book lies
in all the Old Testament. either dew nor grass nor tree nor any blossom lives in it,
but it is everywhere fire, smoke, and darkness, drifting chaff, ruins, nettles, salt-pits,
and owls and ravens looking from the windows of desolate palaces. or does
Zephaniah foretell the restoration of nature in the end of the days. There is no
prospect of a redeemed and fruitful land, but only of a group of battered and hardly
saved characters: a few meek and righteous are hidden from the fire and creep forth
when it is over. Israel is left "a poor and humble folk." o prophet is more true to
the doctrine of the remnant, or more resolutely refuses to modify it. Perhaps he died
young.
The full truth, however, is that Zephaniah, though he found his material in the
events of his own day, tears himself loose from history altogether. To the earlier
prophets the Day of the Lord, the crisis of the world, is a definite point in history:
full of terrible, Divine events, yet "natural" ones - battle, siege, famine, massacre,
and captivity. After it history is still to flow on, common days come back and Israel
pursue their way as a nation. But to Zephaniah the Day of the Lord begins to
assume what we call the "supernatural." The grim colors are still woven of war and
siege, but mixed with vague and solemn terrors from another sphere, by which
history appears to be swallowed up, and it is only with an effort that the prophet
thinks of a rally of Israel beyond. In short, with Zephaniah the Day of the Lord
tends to become the Last Day. His book is the first tinging of prophecy with
apocalypse: that is the moment which it supplies in the history of Israel’s religion.
And, therefore, it was with a true instinct that the great Christian singer of the Last
Day took from Zephaniah his keynote. The "Dies Irae, Dies Illa" of Thomas of

Celano is but the Vulgate translation of Zephaniah’s "A day of wrath is that day."
evertheless, though the first of apocalyptic writers, Zephaniah does not allow
himself the license of apocalypse. As he refuses to imagine great glory for the
righteous, so he does not dwell on the terrors of the wicked. He is sober and
restrained, a matter-of-fact man, yet with power of imagination, who, amidst the
vague horrors he summons, delights in giving a sharp realistic impression. The Day
of the Lord, he says, what is it? "A strong man-there!-crying bitterly."
It is to the fierce ardor, and to the elemental interests of the book, that we owe the
absence of two features of prophecy which are so constant in the prophets of the
eighth century. Firstly, Zephaniah betrays no interest in the practical reforms which
(if we are right about the date) the young king, his contemporary, had already
started. There was a party of reform, the party had a program, the program was
drawn from the main principles of prophecy and was designed to put these into
practice. And Zephaniah was a prophet and ignored them. This forms the dramatic
interest of his book. Here was a man of the same faith which kings, priests, and
statesmen were trying to realize in public life, in the assured hope-as is plain from
the temper of Deuteronomy-that the nation as a whole would be reformed and
become a very great nation, righteous and victorious. All this he ignored, and gave
his own vision of the future: Israel is a brand plucked from the burning; a very few
meek and righteous are saved from the conflagration of a whole world. Why?
Because for Zephaniah the elements were loose, and when the elements were loose
what was the use of talking about reforms? The Scythians were sweeping down
upon Palestine, with enough of God’s wrath in them to destroy a people still so full
of idolatry as Israel was; and if not the Scythians, then some other power in that
dark, rumbling orth which had ever been so full of doom. Let Josiah try to reform
Israel, but it was neither Josiah’s nor Israel’s day that was falling. It was the Day of
the Lord, and when He came it was neither to reform nor to build up Israel, but to
make visitation and to punish in His wrath for the unbelief and wickedness of which
the nation was still full.
An analogy to this dramatic opposition between prophet and reformer may be
found in our own century. At its crisis, in 1848, there were many righteous men rich
in hope and energy. The political institutions of Europe were being rebuilt. In our
own land there were great measures for the relief of laboring children and women,
the organization of labor, and the just distribution of wealth. But Carlyle that year
held apart from them all, and, though a personal friend of many of the reformers,
counted their work hopeless: society was too corrupt, the rudest forces were loose,
" iagara" was near. Carlyle was proved wrong and the reformers right, but in the
analogous situation of Israel the reformers were wrong and the prophet right.
Josiah’s hope and daring were overthrown at Megiddo, and, though the Scythians
passed away, Zephaniah’s conviction of the sin and doom of Israel was fulfilled, not
forty years later, in the fall of Jerusalem and the great Exile. Again, to the same
elemental interests, as we may call them, is due the absence from Zephaniah’s pages
of all the social and individual studies which form the charm of other prophets.
With one exception, there is no analysis of character, no portrait, no satire. But the

exception is worth dwelling upon: it describes the temper equally abhorred by both
prophet and reformer-that of the indifferent and stagnant man. Here we have a
subtle and memorable picture of character, which is not without its warnings for
our own time.
Zephaniah heard God say: "And it shall be at that time that I will search out
Jerusalem with lights, and I will make visitation upon the men who are become
stagnant upon their lees, who say in their hearts, Jehovah doeth no good and doeth
no evil." The metaphor is clear. ew wine was left upon its lees only long enough to
fix its color and body. If not then drawn off it grew thick and syrupy-sweeter indeed
than the strained wine, and to the taste of some more pleasant, but feeble and ready
to decay. "To settle upon one’s lees" became a proverb for sloth, indifference, and
the muddy mind. "Moab hath been at ease from his youth and hath settled upon his
lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; therefore his taste stands in
him and his scent is not changed." [Jeremiah 48:11] The characters stigmatized by
Zephaniah are also obvious. They were a precipitate from the ferment of fifteen
years back. Through the cruel days of Manasseh and Amon hope had been stirred
and strained, emptied from vessel to vessel, and so had sprung, sparkling and keen,
into the new days of Josiah. But no miracle came, only ten years of waiting for the
king’s majority and five more of small, tentative reforms. othing Divine happened.
They were but the ambiguous successes of a small party who had secured the king
for their principles. The court was still full of foreign fashions, and idolatry was
rank upon the housetops. Of course disappointment ensued-disappointment and
listlessness. The new security of life became a temptation; persecution ceased, and
religious men lived again at ease. So numbers of eager and sparkling souls, who had
been in the front of the movement, fell away into a selfish and idle obscurity.
The prophet hears God say, "I must search Jerusalem with lights" in order to find
them. They had "fallen from the van and the freemen"; they had "sunk to the rear
and the slaves," where they wallowed in the excuse that "Jehovah" Himself "would
do nothing-neither good," therefore it is useless to attempt reform like Josiah and
his party, "nor evil," therefore Zephaniah’s prophecy of destruction is also vain.
Exactly the same temper was encountered by Mazzini in the second stage of his
career. Many of those who with him had eagerly dreamt of a free Italy fell away
when the first revolt failed-fell away not merely into weariness and fear, but, as he
emphasizes, into the very two tempers which are described by Zephaniah,
skepticism and self-indulgence.
All this starts questions for ourselves. Here is evidently the same public temper,
which at all periods provokes alike the despair of the reformer and the indignation
of the prophet: the criminal apathy of the well-to-do classes sunk in ease and
religious indifference. We have today the same mass of obscure, nameless persons,
who oppose their almost unconquerable inertia to every movement of reform, and
are the drag upon all vital and progressive religion. The great causes of God and
Humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the Devil, but by the slow,
crushing, glacier-like masses of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies.
God’s causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon. It is not

the violent and anarchical whom we have to fear in the war for human progress, but
the slow, the staid, the respectable. And the danger of these does not lie in their
stupidity. otwithstanding all their religious profession, it lies in their real
skepticism. Respectability may be the precipitate of unbelief. ay, it is that, however
religious its mask, wherever it is mere comfort, decorousness, and conventionality;
where, though it would abhor articulately confessing that God does nothing, it
virtually means so- says so (as Zephaniah puts it) in its heart, by refusing to share
manifest opportunities of serving Him, and covers its sloth and its fear by sneering
that God is not with the great crusades of freedom and purity to which it is
summoned. In these ways, respectability is the precipitate which unbelief naturally
forms in the selfish ease and stillness of so much of our middle-class life. And that is
what makes mere respectability so dangerous. Like the unshaken, unstrained wine
to which the prophet compares its obscure and muddy comfort, it tends to decay. To
some extent our respectable classes are just the dregs and lees of our national life;
like all dregs, they are subject to corruption. A great sermon could be preached on
the putrescence of respectability-how the ignoble comfort of our respectable classes
and their indifference to holy causes lead to sensuality, and poison the very
institutions of the home and the family, on which they pride themselves. A large
amount of the licentiousness of the present day is not that of outlaw and disordered
lives, but is bred from the settled ease and indifference of many of our middle-class
families.
It is perhaps the chief part of the sin of the obscure units, which form these great
masses of indifference, that they think they escape notice and cover their individual
responsibility. At all times many have sought obscurity, not because they are
humble, but because they are slothful, cowardly, or indifferent. Obviously it is this
temper which is met by the words, "I will search out Jerusalem with lights." one
of us shall escape because we have said, "I will go with the crowd," or "I am a
common man and have no right to thrust myself forward." We shall be followed
and judged, each of us for his or her personal attitude to the great movements of our
time. These things are not too high for us: they are our duty; and we cannot escape
our duty by slinking into the shadow.
For all this wickedness and indifference Zephaniah sees prepared the Day of the
Lord-near, hastening, and very terrible. It sweeps at first in vague desolation and
ruin of all things, but then takes the outlines of a solemn slaughter-feast for which
Jehovah has consecrated the guests, the dim unnamed armies from the north. Judah
shall be invaded, and they that are at ease, who say "Jehovah does nothing" shall be
unsettled and routed. One vivid trait comes in like a screech upon the hearts of a
people unaccustomed for years to war. "Hark, Jehovah’s Day!" cries the prophet.
"A strong man-there!-crying bitterly." From this flash upon the concrete he returns
to a great vague terror, in which earthly armies merge in heavenly; battle, siege,
storm, and darkness are mingled, and destruction is spread abroad upon the whole
earth. The first shades of Apocalypse are upon us.
We may now take the full text of this strong and significant prophecy. We have
already given the title. Textual emendations and other points are explained in

footnotes.
"I will sweep, sweep away everything from the face of the ground oracle of Jehovah-
sweep man and beast, sweep the fowl of the heaven and the fish of the sea, and I will
bring to ruin the wicked and cut off the men of wickedness from the ground- oracle
of Jehovah. And I will stretch forth My hand upon Judah; and upon all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem: and I will cut off from this place the remnant of the Baal,
the names of the priestlings with the priests, and them who upon the housetops bow
themselves to the host of heaven, and them who swear by their Melech, and them
who have turned from following Jehovah, and who do not seek Jehovah nor have
inquired of Him."
"Silence for the Lord Jehovah! For near is Jehovah’s Day. Jehovah has prepared a
slaughter, He has consecrated His guests."
"And it shall be in Jehovah’s day of slaughter that I will make visitation upon the
princes and the house of the king, and upon all who array themselves in foreign
raiment; and I will make visitation upon all who leap over the threshold on that day,
who fill their lord’s house full of violence and fraud. "And on that day oracle of
Jehovah-there shall be a noise of crying from the Fishgate, and wailing from the
Mishneh, and great havoc on the Heights. Howl, O dwellers in the Mortar, for
undone are all the merchant folk, cut off are all the money-dealers. "And in that
time it shall be, that I will search Jerusalem with lanterns, and make visitation upon
the men who are become stagnant upon their lees, who in their hearts say, Jehovah
doeth no good and doeth no evil. Their substance shall be for spoil, and their houses
for wasting " ear is the great Day of Jehovah, near and very speedy. Hark, the Day
of Jehovah! A strong man-there!-crying bitterly A Day of wrath is that Day! Day of
siege and blockade, day of stress and distress, day of darkness and murk, day of
cloud and heavy mist, day of the war-horn and battle-roar, up against the fenced
cities and against the highest turrets! And I will beleaguer men, and they shall walk
like the blind, for they have sinned against Jehovah; and poured out shall their
blood be like dust, and the flesh of them like dung. Even their silver, even their gold
shall "not avail to save them in the day of Jehovah’s wrath, and in the fire of His
zeal shall all the earth be devoured, for destruction, yea, sudden collapse shall He
make of all the, inhabitants of the earth."
Upon this vision of absolute doom there follows a qualification for the few meek and
righteous. They may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s anger; but even for them
escape is only a possibility ote the absence of all mention of the Divine mercy as the
cause of deliverance. Zephaniah has no gospel of that kind. The conditions of escape
are sternly ethical-meekness, the doing of justice and righteousness. So austere is
our prophet.
"O people unabashed! before that ye become as the drifting chaff before the anger
of Jehovah come upon you, before there come upon you the day of Jehovah’s wrath;
seek Jehovah, all ye meek of the land who do His ordinance, seek righteousness, seek
meekness, peradventure ye may hide yourselves in the day of Jehovah’s wrath."

PARKER, ""The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah" ( Zephaniah 1:1).
Observe that the prophets never professed to tell what word of the Lord came to
anybody else. That is the vital point; that is the point which we have all forgotten.
Read the introductions which the men themselves wrote: where do they find their
texts? In the mouth of the Lord. When does any prophet arise to say, "I am going to
preach to you to-day from the words of some other prophet?" Because we have
forgotten this, our preaching has become archaic, jejune, and fruitless. Why do not
men tell us what the Lord has said to them? Why have we so little personal
testimony, so little real heart-talk? Hath the Lord ceased to be gracious to his
people? Has he concluded his parable? Does he never whisper to any of us? Is the
function of the Holy Ghost exhausted? Where is the personal pronoun? The devil
has persuaded us to disuse it, and thus become modest; and whilst we are modest he
is vigilant and destructive. What can it matter to you what the Lord said to some
man countless thousands of years ago, if you do not adopt it, incarnate it, stake
eternal destiny upon it, and thus make it your own? If a prophet here and there had
said, "I will tell you what the Lord said to me," the case would have been different;
but it is not so. Look at Isaiah: "The vision of Isaiah... which he saw." How strong,
how clear, how emphatic, how likely to be interesting to the highest point! Here is an
eye-witness: this is the kind of witness we like to have: what I saw, what I heard,
what I felt, how I handled: now we are coming into close quarters with eternal
mysteries. These men are not about to becloud our minds with speculations, and
abstractions, and finely-spun theories; they make oath and say—then comes their
affidavit. Have we any affidavit to make about God? Are we living upon a hearsay
testimony? Is ours a providence by proxy? Did the Lord work wonders in the olden
time, and hath he sunk now into forgetfulness of his people and his kingdom? Let
sense answer. What does Jeremiah say? Jeremiah desires to comment upon the book
of the prophet Isaiah? ot he. How, then, does he introduce himself? Like all the
others, in a whirlwind, with the suddenness which begets attention: "The words of
Jeremiah... to whom the word of the Lord came." So we have two personal witnesses
in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Did anybody else receive a communication from heaven,
from God? Hear Ezekiel: "I saw visions of God." Perhaps only these major
prophets had these high chances, only they were majestic enough to see the morning
for themselves, and other men must live upon the testimony of dead witnesses. Read,
"The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea"; again, "The word of the Lord that
came to Joel"; again, "The words of Amos"; again, "The vision of Obadiah"; once
more, "The word of the Lord came unto Jonah"; again, "The word of the Lord that
came to Micah"; and again, "In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius,
came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah." What does the last of the prophets say?
"The burden" of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi." We want personal
testimony, personal religion. What is your life? What is mine? We are not called to
recite old history, but to live our own life in the face of day. If a man"s religion be
something that he has learned, it is something that he may forget; memory is not
immortal: but if it be part of himself, if it be wrought into him by God the Holy
Ghost, then long as life, or breath, or being lasts he can say, "I saw... I heard... I
know." And when men would battle with him in angry and pointless words, and

plague him with metaphysical reasoning which he cannot understand, he can say,
with a child"s simplicity, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."
Take care how you crush individuality out of the Church. It may be a very beautiful
thing to smooth down all the hills and raise up all the valleys, and make this globe
we call the earth into a shining surface; God did not make it so. Where does God
approve monotony—pure equality as between one distance and another, one colour
and another, one set of circumstances and another? He works by contrast. He has
made inequality an element in the education and development of the world. The
Lord hath his mountains in the Church, and his valleys; those that are of note
among the apostles, and names that are not known beyond the fireside, of which
they are the strength and joy. Were a man to stand up now and tell us what the
Lord had done for him we should listen to him with great doubtfulness. We have
lost the genius of personality, we have lost that tremendous weapon of individual
testimony; it may be rough, and it may have been put to rude uses, but it is a
weapon or instrument which God has often approved. It is wonderful to notice
where the point of consistency begins in all these individual testimonies. The witness
is marked by strong personality, and yet read through from the beginning of Isaiah
to the close of Malachi , and though you are struck by personality, and almost
aggressive personality, by a voice that becomes now and then something
approaching to clamorousness, there is a marvellous consistency in the whole
prophecy. The prophets, many of whom never saw one another, never contradict
each other"s testimony upon moral questions; the spiritual vision is the same, the
moral testimony is undivided; every man speaks according to his own mental
capacity and mental peculiarity, and yet every man speaks the word of the Lord.
ot in the method of the utterance, but in the substance of the declaration do we
find the unity of the Church.
PETT, "Chapter 1. The Judgment Of God Will One Day Be Visited On Creation,
But At This Time On Judah and Jerusalem.
Zephaniah 1:2-3 of this chapter reveal God as Judge of all the world. It is a general
picture of the far future. But in Zephaniah 1:4-6 we come closer to home, to His
particular judgment on Judah and Jerusalem at this time. The prophets regularly
see the far future and the near future together. To them they are in the future, and
the timing is in God’s hands. Every judgment He carries out is a picture and symbol
of the final judgment, every ‘day of YHWH’ is a picture of the final ‘Day of YHWH’
(indeed might be the final day of YHWH). Thus we must not read Zephaniah 1:4
onwards as referring to the apocalyptic future. On the other hand, as a day of
YHWH that occurred in history it is a pattern of that day of YHWH yet to come, as
described in Zephaniah 1:1-3, which introduce it.
Verse 1
‘The word of YHWH which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of
Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of
Amon, king of Judah.’
The detailed genealogy, unusual for a prophet, suggests that his was an important

family, and we are probably therefore to see the Hezekiah mentioned as the king of
that name. He was thus of the royal house.
‘The word of YHWH’ came to him signifies that he spoke as from God through
revelation.
PULPIT, " 1. Title and inscription. The word of the Lord (see note on Micah 1:1).
Zephaniah, "Whom the Lord shelters" (see Introduction, § II.). The son of, etc. The
genealogy thus introduced shows that the prophet was of illustrious descent; or it
may be inserted to distinguish him from others who bore the same name. Hizkiah.
The same name which is elsewhere written in our version Hezekiah. Whether the
great King of Judah is here meant may well be questioned (see Introduction). Other
prophets have prefixed their genealogies to their books (see Zechariah 1:1; and in
the Apocrypha, Baruch 1:1). In the days of Josiah. Zephaniah here gathers into one
volume the denunciations and predictions which he had uttered daring the reign of
Josiah, both before and after the great reformation effected by that good king (2
Kings 23:1-37.).
BI 1-6, "The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah.
The Word
I. THE DISTINGUISHING CAPACITY OF MAN, AND THE WONDERFUL
CONDESCENSION OF GOD.
1. The distinguishing capacity of man. To receive the word of Jehovah. To receive a
word from another is to appreciate its meaning. The word of the Lord comes to every
man at times,—comes in visions of the night, comes in the intuitions of conscience,
comes in the impressions that nature makes on the heart.
2. The wonderful condescension of God. Even to speak to man. “The Lord hath
respect unto the humble.”
II. The moral corruption of man and the exclusive prerogative of God.
1. The moral corruption of man. There are three great moral evils indicated in these
verses.
(1) Idolatry. “I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of
the Chemarims with the priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon
the housetops.” The remains of Baal worship, which as yet Josiah was unable
utterly to eradicate in remoter places.
(2) Backsliding. “Them that had turned back from the Lord.” The other evil here
is—
(3) Indifferentism. “And those that have not sought the Lord nor inquired for
Him.”
2. The exclusive prerogative of God. What is that? To destroy. “I will utterly consume
all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will
consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks
with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.”
(1) No one can really destroy but God. “I kill and I make alive.” Annihilation is as

far behind the work of the creature as the work of creation.
(2) God has a right to destroy human life.
(3) His destructive work is as beneficent as His sustaining and creating.
Destruction is a principle in all nature: one plant destroys another, one animal
destroys another, and there are elements in nature whose work is destruction.
From destruction new life and beauty come; destruction keeps the universe alive,
fresh, and healthy. (Homilist.)
Judgment on the Whole Earth in the Day of the
Lord
2 “I will sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,”
declares the Lord.
BAR ES, "I will utterly consume all things - Better “all.” The word is not
limited to “things” “animate” or “inanimate” or “men;” it is used severally of each,
according to the context; here, without limitation, of “all.” God and all stand over against
one another; God and all which is not of God or in God. God, he says, will utterly
consume all from off the land (earth). The prophet sums up in few words the subject of
the whole chapter, the judgments of God from his own times to the day of Judgment
itself. And this Day Itself he brings the more strongly before the mind, in that, with
wonderful briefness, in two words which he conforms, in sound also, the one to the
other, he expresses the utter final consumption of all things. He expresses at once the
intensity of action and blends their separate meanings, “Taking away I will make an end
of all;” and with this he unites the words used of the flood, “from off the face of the
earth.”
Then he goes through the whole creation as it was made, pairing “man and beast,”
which Moses speaks of as created on the sixth day, and the creation of the fifth day, “the
fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea;” and before each he sets the solemn word of
God, “I will end,” as the act of God Himself. The words can have no complete fulfillment,
until “the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up” 2Pe_3:10, as the
Psalmist too, having gone through the creation, sums up, “Thou takest away their

breath, they die and return to their dust” Psa_104:29; and then speaks of the re-
creation, “Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of
the earth” Ps. 104:36, and, “Of old Thou hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the
heavens are the work of Thy hands; they shall perish, but Thou shalt endure, yea, all of
them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall
be changed” Ps. 103:25.
Local fulfillments there may, in their degree, be. Jerome speaks as if he knew this to
have been. Jerome: “Even the brute animals feel the wrath of the Lord, and when cities
have been wasted and men slain, there cometh a desolation and scarceness of beasts also
and birds and fishes; witness Illyricum, witness Thrace, witness my native soil,”
(Stridon, a city on the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia) “where, beside sky and earth
and rampant brambles and deep thickets, all has perished.” But although this fact, which
he alleges, is borne out by natural history, it is distinct from the words of the prophet,
who speaks of the fish, not of rivers (as Jerome) but of the sea, which can in no way be
influenced by the absence of man, who is only their destroyer. The use of the language of
the histories of the creation and of the deluge implies that the prophet has in mind a
destruction commensurate with that creation. Then he foretells the final removal of
offences, in the same words which our Lord uses of the general Judgment. “The Son of
Man shall send forth His Angels and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that
offend, and them that do iniquity” Mat_13:41.
CLARKE, "I will utterly consume all things - All being now ripe for destruction,
I will shortly bring a universal scourge upon the land. He speaks particularly of the
idolaters.
GILL, "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord.
That is, from the land of Judah, by means of the Chaldeans or Babylonians: this is a
general denunciation of the judgments of God, the particulars follow: or, "in gathering I
will gather"; all good things out of the land; all the necessaries of life, and blessings of
Providence; all that is for the sustenance and pleasure of man, as well as all creatures, by
death or captivity; and so the land should be entirely stripped, and left naked and bare.
The phrase denotes the certainty of the thing, as well as the utter, entire, and total
consumption that should be made, and the vehemence and earnestness in which it is
expressed.
HE RY 2-6, " The summary, or contents, of this book. The general proposition
contained in it is, That utter destruction is coming apace upon Judah and Jerusalem for
sin. Without preamble, or apology, he begins abruptly (Zep_1:2): By taking away I will
make an end of all things from off the face of the land, Saith the Lord. Ruin is coming,
utter ruin, destruction from the Almighty. He has said it who can, and will, make good
what he has said: “I will utterly consume all things. I will gather all things” (so some); “I
will recall all the blessings I have bestowed, because they have abused them and so
forfeited them.” The consumption determined shall take away, 1. The inferior creatures:
I will consume the beasts, the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea (Zep_1:3),
as, in the deluge, every living substance was destroyed that was upon the face of the
ground, Gen_7:23. The creatures were made for man's use, and therefore when he has
perverted the use of them, and made them subject to vanity, God, to show the greatness

of his displeasure against the sin of man, involves them in his punishment. The
expressions are figurative, denoting universal desolation. Those that fly ever so high, as
the fowls of heaven, and think themselves out of the reach of the enemies' hand - those
that hide ever so close, as the fishes of the sea, and think themselves out of the reach of
the enemies' eye - shall yet become a prey to them, and be utterly consumed. 2. The
children of men: “I will consume man; I will cut off man from the land. The land shall
be dispeopled and left uninhabited; I will destroy, not only Israel, but man. The land
shall enjoy her sabbaths. I will cut off, not only the wicked men, but all men; even the
few among them that are good shall be involved in this common calamity. Though they
shall not be cut off from the Lord, yet they shall be cut off from the land.” It is with
Judah and Jerusalem that God has this quarrel, both city and country, and upon them
he will stretch out his hand, the hand of his power, the hand of his wrath; and who
knows the power of his anger? Zep_1:4. Those that will not humble themselves under
God's mighty hand shall be humbled and brought down by it. Note, Even Judah, where
God is known, and Jerusalem, where his dwelling-place is, if they revolt from him and
rebel against him, shall have his hand stretched out against them. 3. All wicked people,
and all those things that are the matter of their wickedness (Zep_1:3): “I will consume
the stumbling-blocks with the wicked, the idols with the idolaters, the offences with the
offenders.” Josiah had taken away the stumbling-blocks, and, as far as he could, had
purged the land of the monuments of idolatry, hoping that there would be no more
idolatry; but the wicked will do wickedly, the dog will return to his vomit, and therefore,
since the sin will not otherwise be cured, the sinners must themselves be consumed,
even the wicked with the stumbling-blocks of their iniquity, Eze_14:3. Since it was not
done by the sword of justice, it shall be done by the sword of war. See who the sinners
are that shall be consumed. (1.) The professed idolaters, who avowed idolatry, and were
wedded to it. The remnant of Baal shall be cut off, the images of Baal, and the
worshippers of those images. Josiah cut off a great deal of Baal; but that which was so
close as to escape the eye, or so bold as to escape the hand, of his justice, God will cut off,
even all the remains of it. The Chaldeans would spare none of the images of Baal, or the
worshippers of those images. The Chemarim shall be cut off; we read of them in the
history of Josiah's reformation. 2Ki_23:5, He put down the idolatrous priests: the word
is the Chemarim. The word signifies black men, some think because they wore black
clothes, affecting to appear grave, others because their faces were black with attending
the altars, or the fires in which they burnt their children to Moloch. They seem to have
been immediate attendants upon the service of Baal. They shall be cut off with the
priests, the regulars with the seculars. The very name of them shall be cut off; the order
shall be quite abolished, so as to be forgotten, or remembered with detestation. And,
among other idolaters, the worshippers of the host of heaven upon the house-tops shall
be cut off (Zep_1:5), who justified themselves in their idolatry with those that did not
worship images, the work of their own hands, but offered their sacrifices and burnt their
incense to the sun, moon, and stars, immediately upon the tops of their houses. But God
will let them know that he is a jealous God, and will not endure any rival; and, though
some have thought that the most specious and plausible idolatry, yet it will appear as
great an offence to God to give divine honours to a star as to give them to a stone or a
stock. Even the worshippers of the host of heaven shall be consumed as well as the
worshippers of the beasts of the earth or the fiends of hell. The sin of the adulteress is
not the less sinful for the gaiety of the adulterer. (2.) Those also shall be consumed that
think to compound the matter between God and idols, and keep an even hand between
them, that halt between God and Baal, and worship between Jehovah and Moloch, and
swear by both; or, as it might better be read, swear to the Lord and to Malcham. They
bind themselves by oath and covenant to the service both of God and idols. They have a

good opinion of the worship of the God of Israel; it is the religion of their country, and
has been long so, and therefore they will by no means quit it; but they think it will be
very much improved and beautified if they join with it the worship of Moloch, for that
also is much used in other countries, and travellers admire it; there is a great deal of
good fancy and strong flame in it. They cannot keep always to the worship of a God
whom they have no visible representation of, and therefore they must have an image;
and what better than the image of Moloch - a king? They think they shall effectually
atone for their sin if they swear to Moloch, and, pursuant to that oath, burn their
children in sacrifice to that idol; and yet, if they do amiss in that, they hope to atone for
it in worshipping the God of Israel too. Note, Those that think to divide their affections
and adorations between God and idols will not only come short of acceptance with God,
but will have their doom with the worst of idolaters; for what communion can there be
between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, God and mammon? She whose own the
child is not pleads for the dividing of it, for, if Satan have half, he will have all; but the
true mother says, Divide it not, for, if God have but half, he will have none. Such waters
will not be long sweet, if they come from a fountain that sends forth bitter water too;
what have those to do to swear by the Lord that swear by Malcham? (3.) Those also shall
be consumed that have apostatized from God, together with those that never gave up
their names to him, Zep_1:6. I will cut off, [1.] Those that are turned back from the
Lord, that were well taught, and began well, that had given up their names to him, and
set out at first in the worship of him, but have flown off, and turned aside, and fallen in
with idolaters, and deserted those good ways of God which they were brought up in, and
despised them. Those God will be sure to reckon with who are renegadoes from his
service, who began in the Spirit and ended in the flesh; they shall be treated as deserters,
to whom no mercy is shown. [2.] Those that have not sought the Lord, nor ever enquired
for him, never made any profession of religion, and think to excuse themselves with that,
shall find that this will not excuse them; nay, this is the thing laid to their charge; they
are atheistical careless people, that live without God in the world; and those that do so
are certainly unworthy to live upon God in the world.
JAMISO , "utterly consume — from a root to “sweep away,” or “scrape off
utterly.” See Jer_8:13, Margin, and here.
from off the land — of Judah.
CALVI , "It might seem at the first view that the Prophet dealt too severely in thus
fulminating against his own nation; for he ought to have begun with doctrine, as this
appears to be the just order of things. But the Prophet denounces ruin, and shows at
the same time why God was so grievously displeased with the people. We must
however remember, that the Prophet, living at the same period with Jeremiah, had
regard to the stubbornness of the people, who had been already with more than
sufficient evidence proved to have been guilty. Hence he darts forth as of a sudden
and denounces the wickedness of the people, which had been already exposed; so
there was to be no more contention on the subject, for their iniquity had become
quite ripe. And no doubt it was ever the object of the Prophets to unite their
endeavors so as to assist one another: and this united effort ought ever to be among
all the servants of God, that no one may do anything apart, but with joined efforts
they may promote the same object, and at the same time strive mutually to confirm
the common truth. This is what our Prophet is now doing.

He knew that God would have used various means to restore them, had not the
corruption of the people become now past recovery. Having observed that all others
had spent their labor in vain, he directly attacks the wicked men who had, as it were
designedly, cast aside every fear of God, and shook off every shame. Since, then, it
was openly evident that with determined rebellion they resisted God, it was no
wonder that the Prophet began with so much severity.
But here a difficulty meets us. He said in the first verse, that he thus spoke under
Josiah; but we know that the land was then cleansed from its superstitions. For we
learn, that when that pious king attained manhood, he labored most strenuously to
restore the pure worship of God; and when all places were full of wicked
superstitions, he not only constrained the tribe of Judah to adopt the true worship
of God, but he also stimulated his neighbors who had remained and were dispersed
through the land of Israel. Since, then, the pious king had strenuously and
courageously promoted the interest of true religion, it seems a wonder that God was
still so much displeased. But we must remember, that though Josiah sincerely
worshipped God, yet the people were not really changed; for it has often happened,
that God roused the chief men and leaders, while few, or hardly any, followed them,
but only yielded a feigned obedience. This was no doubt the case in the time of
Josiah; the hearts of the people were alienated from God and true religion, so that
they chose rather to rot in their filth than to return to the true worship of God. And
that this was the case soon appeared by the event; for Josiah did not reign long after
he had cleansed the land from its defilements, and Jehoahaz succeeded him; and
then the people immediately relapsed into their idolatry; and though for three
months only his successor reigned, yet true religion was in that short time abolished.
It is hence an obvious conclusion, that the people had ever been wedded to impiety,
and that its roots were hidden in their hearts; though they apparently pretended to
worship God, and, in order to please the king, embraced the worship divinely
prescribed in their law; yet the event proved that it was a mere act of dissimulation,
yea, of perfidy. Then after Jehoahaz followed Jehoiakim, and no better was their
condition down to the time of Zedekiah; in short, no remedy could be found for
their unhealable wound.
It hence plainly appears, that though Josiah made use of all means to revive the true
and unadulterated worship of God in Judea, he did not yet gain his object. And we
hence clearly learn how hard were the trials he sustained, seeing that he effected
nothing, though at great hazard he attempted to restore the worship of God. When
he found that he labored in vain, he no doubt had to contend with great difficulties;
and this we know by our own experience. When hope of success shines on us, we
easily overcome all troubles, however arduous our work may be; but when we see
that we strive in vain, we become dejected: and when we see that our labor succeeds
only for a few years, our spirit grows faint. Josiah surmounted these two difficulties;
for the perverseness of the people was sufficiently evident, and he was also reminded
by two Prophets, Jeremiah and Zephaniah, that the people would still cherish their
impious perverseness. When, therefore, he plainly saw that his labor was almost in
vain, he might have fainted in the middle of his course, or, as they say, at the
starting-place. And since the benefit was so small during his reign, what could he

have hoped after his death?
This example ought at this day to be carefully observed: for though God now
appears to the world in full light, yet very few there are who submit themselves to
his word; and of this small number fewer still there are who sincerely and without
any dissimulation embrace sound doctrine. We indeed see how great is their
inconstancy and indifference. For they who pretend great zeal for a time very soon
vanish and fall away. Since then the perversity of the world is so great, sufficient to
deject the minds of God’s servants a hundred times, let us learn to look to Josiah,
who in his own time left undone nothing, which might serve to establish the true
worship of God; and when he saw that he effected but little and next to nothing, he
still persevered, and with firm and invincible greatness of mind proceeded in his
course.
We may also derive hence an admonition no less useful not to regard ours as the
golden age, because some portion of men profess the pure worship of God: for
many, by no means wicked men, think, that almost all mortals are like angels, as
soon as they testify in words their approbation of the gospel: and the sacred name of
Reformation is at this day profaned, when any one who shows as it were by a nod
only that he is not wholly an enemy to the gospel, is immediately lauded as a person
of extraordinary piety. Though then many show some regard for religion, let us yet
know that among so large a number there are many hypocrites, and that there is
much chaff mixed with the wheat: and that our senses may not deceive us, we may
see here, as in a mirror, how difficult it is to restore the world to the obedience of
God, and utterly to root up all corruptions, though idols may be taken away and
superstitions be abolished. o doubt Josiah had regard to everything calculated to
cleanse the Church, and had recourse to the advice of Jeremiah and also of
Zephaniah; we yet see that he did not attain the object he wished, for God now
became more grievously displeased with his people than under Manasseh, or under
Amon. These wicked kings had attempted to extinguish all true religion; they had
cruelly raged against all God’s servants, so that Jerusalem became almost drenched
with innocent blood: and yet God seems here to have manifested greater displeasure
under Josiah than during the previous cruelty and so many impieties. But as I have
already said, there is no reason why we should despond, though the world by its
ingratitude may close up the way against us; and however much may Satan also by
this artifice strive to discourage us, let us still perseveringly go on according to the
duties of our calling.
But it may be now asked, why God denounces his vengeance on the beasts of the
field, the birds of heaven, and the fishes of the sea; for how much soever the Jews
may have provoked him by their sins, innocent animals ought to have been spared.
If a son is not to be punished for the fault of his father, Ezekiel 18:4, but that the
soul that has sinned is to die, 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 doings
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 behaves 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 hook
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 undergo 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 a sovereignty over the whole earth, should reach
to animals. And we know that the world was not made subject to corruption
willingly—that is, naturally; but because the contagion from Adam’s fall diffused
itself through heaven and earth. Hence the sun and the moon, and all the stars, and
also all the animals, the earth itself, and the whole world, bear marks of God’s
wrath, not because they have provoked it through their own fault, but because the
whole world is involved in man’s curse. The reason then is, because all things were
created for the sake of man. Hence there is no ground to conclude, that God acts
with too much severity when he executes his vengeance on innocent animals, for he
can justly involve in the same ruin with man whatever he has created for his use.
But the reason also 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 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, as though he had said—"Ye lie down securely, and
indulge yourselves, when God is coming forth prepared for vengeance: but his
wrath shall not only proceed against you, but will also lay hold on the harmless
animals; for ye shall see a horrible judgment executed on your oxen and asses, on
the birds and the fishes. What will become of you when God’s wrath shall be thus
kindled against the unhappy creatures who have committed no sins? Shall ye indeed
escape unpunished?” We now understand why the Prophet does not speak here of
men only, but collects with them the beasts of the earth, the fishes of the sea, and the
birds of the air.
He says first, By removing I will remove all things from the face of the land; he
afterwards enumerates particulars: but immediately after he clearly shows, that
God would not act rashly and inconsiderately while executing his vengeance, for his
sole purpose was to punish the wicked, There shall be, he says, stumblingblocks to
the ungodly; (69) it is the same as though he said—“When I cite to God’s tribunal
both the fishes of the sea and the birds of heaven, think not that God’s controversy
is with these creatures which are void of reason, but they are to sustain a part of
God’s vengeance, which ye have through your sins deserved.” The Prophet then
does here briefly show, that what he had before threatened brute creatures with,
would come upon them on men’s account; for God’s design was to execute
vengeance on the wicked; and as he saw that they were extremely torpid, he tried to
awaken them by manifest tokens, so that they might see God the avenger as it were
in a striking picture. And at the same time he also adds, I will remove man from the
face of the land. He does not speak now of fishes or of other animals, but refers to

men only. Hence appears more clearly what I have said—that the Prophet was
under the necessity of speaking as he did, owing to the insensibility of the people. He
now adds—
And the stumblingblocks of the wicked.
The whole verse is poetical in its language; the collective singular, and not the
plural, is used; and the first verb, [ ‫אםף‬ ], in its most common meaning, is very
expressive, and denotes the manner of the ruin that awaited the Jews. They were
“gathered” and led into captivity. The two verses may be thus literally rendered,—
2.Gatherings I will gather everything
From off the face of the land, saith Jehovah;
3.I will gather man and best;
I will gather the bird of heaven and the fish of the sea,
And the stumblingblocks together with the wicked;
And I will cut them off, together with man,
From the face of the land, saith Jehovah.
—Ed.
COFFMA , "Verse 2
"I will utterly consume all things from off the face of the ground, saith Jehovah."
"This is a proclamation of the universal judgment of God."[4] "Ground," as
rendered in this verse would be more clearly rendered "earth" as in the Revised
Standard Version." I will utterly sweep everything from the face of the earth, says
the Lord." This is an assertion of God's sovereign right and power (also his
intention) to judge the whole earth (not land, as in the King James Version)."[5]
Eakin pointed out that the Hebrew in this passage literally means: "I will cut off
mankind ([~'adam]) from the face of the earth ([~'adamah])."[6] This is extremely
illuminating, for it reveals that the primeval sentence upon Adam for his rebellion
against God, which, of course, was death, would at last be executed in the final
judgement and destruction of Adam in the person of his total posterity, the unique
exceptions being the redeemed in Christ.
"Saith Jehovah ..." In the proclamation of final and universal judgment, "The
prophet is merely the vehicle of the Divine announcement."[7] "Those who would
tell us that Zephaniah's prophetic insight came merely from an informed political
prognosticator, do so only by ignoring the prophet's claim."[8] The message is from
God, not from Zephaniah.
COKE, "Verse 2
Zephaniah 1:2. I will utterly consume— I am about to take away. Houbigant, to put

to death and destroy. This first chapter contains the general threatening against all
the people whom the Lord had appointed to the slaughter; against Judah, and
against those who leap on the threshold; that is, the Philistines. See 1 Samuel 5:5. In
the second chapter he inveighs against Moab, against Ammon, against Cush, against
the Phoenicians and Assyrians; and there he foretels the fall of ineveh, which
happened in the year of the world 3378. The third chapter has two parts; the first
contains invectives and threatenings against Jerusalem; and the second gives
comfortable assurances of a return from the captivity, and of a happy flourishing
condition. Calmet.
TRAPP, "Verse 2
Zephaniah 1:2 I will utterly consume all [things] from off the land, saith the LORD.
Ver. 2. I will utterly consume all things from off the land] Exordium plane tragicum.
A tragic beginning of a terrible sermon. Hard knots must have hard wedges; hard
hearts, heavy menaces; yea, handfulls of hell fire must be cast into the faces of such,
that they may awake out of the snare of the devil, by whom they are held captive at
his pleasure, 2 Timothy 2:26. It is in the Hebrew, gathering I will gather all things,
&c. q. d. g. I will pack up, I will take mine own, and be gone. Converram et
convasabo omnia, I will sweep away all by the besom of my wrath, and leave a clean
hand behind me, for the sins of those that dwell therein. The doubling of this
denunciation, colligendo colligam, importeth the certainty, verity, and vehemence
thereof.
Saith the Lord] Dictum Iehovae. You may believe it, therefore; for every word of his
is sure, and cannot be broken, John 10:35, may not be slighted or shifted off,
Hebrews 12:25.
BE SO , "Verse 2-3
Zephaniah 1:2-3. I will utterly consume all things, &c. — That is, I will make the
land of Judea quite desolate. I will consume man and beast, &c. — That is, beasts of
the tame and domestic kind. I will consume the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of
the sea — Or of the waters, as we are wont to speak, for the Jews called every large
collection of waters a sea. The meaning is, I will bring a judicial and extraordinary
desolation on the land, which shall extend itself even to the birds and fishes: see
notes on Hosea 4:3; Jeremiah 4:23-25. Virgil speaks of pestilential disorders
affecting both the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the heaven.
“Jam maris immensi prolem, et genus omne natantum Litore in extremo, ceu
naufraga corpora, fluctus Proluit.” GEORG. 3. 50:541.
“Ipsis est aër avibus non æquus; et illæ Præcipites altâ vitam sub nube relinquunt.”
Ib. 50:546.
“The scaly nations of the sea profound, Like shipwreck’d carcasses, are driven
aground: And mighty phocæ, never seen before, In shallow streams, are stranded on
the shore. To birds their native heavens contagious prove, From clouds they fall,
and leave their souls above.” DRYDE .

“It is known,” says Bishop ewcome, “that birds are affected by pestilential
disorders arising from putrefied carcasses. They fall dead when they alight on bales
of cloth infected by the plague.” And St. Jerome upon this place says, that there are
sufficient proofs when cities are laid waste, and great slaughter is made of men, that
it creates also a scarcity or solitude of beasts, birds, and fishes; and he mentions
several places which, in those days, bore witness to this, where he says, there was
nothing left but earth and sky, and briers and thick woods. And the stumbling-
blocks with the wicked — In the Hebrew it is, The offences with the wicked; that is,
the idols with their worshippers. I will cut off man from the land — The land shall
be depopulated, either by its inhabitants being slain, or carried away captive.
CO STABLE, "Yahweh revealed that He would completely remove everything
from the face of the earth (cf. 2 Peter 3:10-12). This is one of the most explicit
announcements of the total devastation of planet Earth in the Old Testament (cf.
Isaiah 24:1-6; Isaiah 24:19-23). While it may involve some hyperbole, it seems
clearly to foretell a worldwide judgment.
"Its imminent reference, some think, was to the fact that the barbaric Scythians,
who had left their homeland north of the Black Sea, were sweeping over western
Asia and might be expected to attack Judah at any moment. The ruthless Scythians
employed the scorched earth policy with fury and vengeance." [ ote: Hanke, p884.]
II. THE DAY OF YAHWEH"S JUDGME T1:2-3:8
Zephaniah"s prophecies are all about "the day of the LORD." He revealed two
things about this "day." First, it would involve judgment ( Zephaniah 1:2 to
Zephaniah 3:8) and, second, it would eventuate in blessing ( Zephaniah 3:9-20). The
judgment portion is the larger of the two sections of revelation. This judgment
followed by blessing motif is common throughout the Prophets. Zephaniah revealed
that judgment would come from Yahweh on the whole earth, Judah, Israel"s
neighbors, Jerusalem, and all nations. The arrangement of this judgment section of
the book is chiastic.
A Judgment on the world Zephaniah 1:2-3
B Judgment on Judah Zephaniah 1:4 to Zephaniah 2:3
C Judgment on Israel"s neighbors Zephaniah 2:4-15
B" Judgment on Jerusalem Zephaniah 3:1-7
A" Judgment on the all nations Zephaniah 3:8
PARKER, "The prophets are the same in connecting sin and judgment:—
"I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume
man and beast" ( Zephaniah 1:2-3).

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