After
the title of the book (ver. 1) here is, I. A threatening of the destruction
of
Judah and
Jerusalem, an utter destruction, by the Chaldeans,
ver. 2-4. II. A charge against them for their gross sin, which provoked God
to bring that destruction upon them (ver. 5, 6); and so he goes on in the
rest of the chapter, setting both the judgments before them, that they might
prevent them or prepare for them, and the sins that destroy them, that they
might judge themselves, and justify God in what was brought upon them. 1.
They must hold their peace because they had greatly sinned, ver. 7-9. But,
2, They shall howl because the trouble will be great. The day of the Lord is
near, and it will be a terrible day, ver. 10-18. Such fair and timely
warning as this did God give to the Jews of the approaching captivity; but
they hardened their neck, which made their destruction remediless.
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Judgment
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C. 612.
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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. 2 I will utterly consume all things from off the
land, saith the LORD.
3 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.
4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants
of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and
the name of the Chemarims with the priests; 5 And them that
worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and
that swear by the LORD,
and that swear by Malcham; 6 And them that are turned back from
the LORD;
and those that have not sought the LORD,
nor enquired for him.
Here is, I. The title-page of this book (v. 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 (2 Kings xviii. 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, v. 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-gerent, 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?
II. 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 (v.
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 (v.
3), as, in the deluge, every living substance was destroyed that was upon
the face of the ground, Gen. vii. 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? v. 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 (v. 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, Ezek. xiv. 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. 2 Kings xxiii. 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 (v. 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, v. 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.
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Judgment
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7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord
GOD: for the day of the LORD
is at hand: for the LORD
hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests. 8 And it
shall come to pass in the day of the LORD's
sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all
such as are clothed with strange apparel. 9 In the same day also
will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their
masters' houses with violence and deceit. 10 And it shall come
to pass in that day, saith the LORD,
that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an
howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills. 11
Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down;
all they that bear silver are cut off. 12 And it shall come to
pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and
punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The
LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil. 13 Therefore
their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall
also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant
vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
Notice is here given to Judah and Jerusalem that God is coming forth against
them, and will be with them shortly; his presence, as a just avenger,
his day, the day of his judgment and his wrath, are not far off, v.
7. Those that improve not the presence of God with them as a Father, but sin
away that presence, may expect his presence with them as a Judge, to call
them to an account for the contempt put upon his grace. The day of the
Lord will come. Men have their day now, when they take a liberty to do
what they please; but God's day is at hand; it is here called his sacrifice,
a sacrifice of his preparing, for the punishing of presumptuous sinners is a
sacrifice to the justice of God, some reparation to his injured honour.
Those that brought their offerings to other gods were themselves justly made
victims to the true God. On a day of sacrifice great slaughter was made; so
shall there be in Jerusalem; men shall be killed up as fast as lambs for the
altar, with as little regret, with as much pleasure: The slain of the
Lord shall be many. On a day of sacrifice great feasts were made upon
the sacrifices; so the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem shall be feasted
upon by their enemies the Chaldeans; these are the guests God has prepared
and invited to come and glut themselves--their revenge with slaughter and
their covetousness with plunder. Now observe,
I. Who those are that are marked to be sacrificed, that shall be visited and
punished in this day of reckoning, and what it is they shall be called to an
account for. 1. The royal family, because of the dignity of their place,
shall be first reckoned with for their pride, and vanity, and affectation (v.
8): I will punish the princes, and the king's children, who think
themselves accountable to God, and that, high as they are, he is above them.
They shall be punished, and all such as, like them, are clothed with
strange apparel, such as, in contempt of their own country (where,
probably, it was the custom to go in a very plain dress, as became the seed
of Jacob that plain man), affected to appear in the fashion of other
nations and introduced their modes in apparel, studying to resemble those
from whom God had appointed them, even in their clothes, industriously to
distinguish themselves. The princes and the king's children scorned
to wear any home-made stuffs, though God had provided them fine linen
and silks (Ezek. xvi. 10), but they must send abroad to strange
countries for their clothes, which would not please unless they were
far-fetched and dear-bought; and even those of inferior rank affected to
imitate the princes and the king's children. Pride in apparel is displeasing
to God, and a symptom of the degeneracy of a people. 2. The noblemen, and
their stewards and servants, come next to be reckoned with (v. 9): In
the same day will I punish those that leap on the threshold, a phrase,
no doubt, well understood then, and which probably signified the invading of
their neighbour's rights. Entering their houses by force and violence, and
seizing their possessions, they leap on the threshold, as much as to
say that the house is their own and they will keep their hold of it; and,
accordingly, they make all in it their own that they can lay their hands on,
and so fill their masters' houses with goods gotten by violence
and deceit and with all the guilt thereby contracted. Nor shall it
suffice them to say that the ill-gotten gains were not for themselves but
for their masters, and that what they did was by their order; for the
obligations we lie under to keep God's commandments are prior and superior
to the obligations we lie under to serve the interests of any master on
earth. 3. The trading people, and the rich merchants, are next called to
account. Iniquity is found in their end of the town, among the
inhabitants of Maktesh, a low part of Jerusalem, deep like a mortar (for
so the word signifies); the goldsmiths lived there (Neh. iii. 32) and
the merchants; and they are now cut down (they are broken, and have
shut up their shops, and become bankrupts); nay, All those that bear
silver are cut off, in the first place, by the invaders, for the sake of
the silver they carry, which is so far from being a protection to them that
it will expose and betray them. The conquerors aimed at the wealthy men, and
carried them off first, while the poor of the land escaped. Or it may
be meant of a general decay of trade, which was a preface and introduction
to the general destruction of the land. It is the token of a declining state
when great dealers are cut down, and great bankers are cut off and become
bankrupts, who cannot fall alone, but with themselves ruin many. 4. All the
secure and careless people, the sons of pleasure, that live a loose idle
life, are next reckoned with (v. 12); they come from all parts of the
country, to take up their quarters in the head-quarters of the kingdom,
where they take private lodgings, and indulge themselves in ease and luxury;
but God will find them out, and punish them: At that time I will search
Jerusalem with candles, to discover them, that they may be brought out
to condign punishment. This intimates that they conceal themselves, as being
either ashamed of the sin or afraid of the punishment of it; when the
judgments of God are abroad they hope to escape by absconding and getting
out of the way, but God will search Jerusalem, as search is made for
a malefactor in disguise, that is harboured by his accomplices. God's hand
will find out all his enemies, wherever they lie hid, and will punish
not only the secret idolaters, but the secret epicures and profane; and
those are the persons that are here described, and marks are given by which
they will be discovered when strict search is made for them. (1.) Their
dispositions are sensual: They are settled on their lees, intoxicated
with their pleasures, strengthening themselves in their wealth and
wickedness; they are secure and easy, and, because they have had no changes,
they fear none, as Moab, Jer. xlviii. 11. They have not been emptied from
vessel to vessel. They fill themselves with wine and strong drink,
and banish all thought, saying, To-morrow shall be as this day, Isa.
lvi. 12. Their being settled on their lees signifies the same with
being enclosed in their own fat, Ps. xvii. 10. (2.) Their notions are
atheistical. They could not live such loose lives but that they say in
their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil; that
is, He will do nothing. They deny his providential government of the
world: "What good and evil there is in the world comes by the wheel of
fortune, and not by the disposal of a wise and supreme director." They
deny his moral government, and his dispensing rewards and punishments:
"The Lord will not do good to those that serve him, nor do
evil to those that rebel against him; and therefore there is nothing got
by religion, nor lost by sin." This was the effect of their sensuality;
if they were not drowned in sense, they could not be thus senseless, nor
could they be so stupid if they had not stupefied themselves with the love
of pleasure. It was also the cause of their sensuality; men would not make a
god of their belly if they had not at first become so vain, so vile, in
their imaginations, as to think the God that made them altogether such a
one as themselves. But God will punish them; their end is
destruction, Phil. iii. 19.
II. What the destruction will be with which God will punish these sinners,
and what course he will take with them. 1. He will silence them (v.
7): Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord. He will force them to
hold their peace, will strike them dumb with horror and amazement. They
shall be speechless. All the excuses of their sin, and exceptions against
the sentence, will be overruled, and they shall not have a word to say for
themselves. 2. He will sacrifice them, for it is the day of the
Lord's sacrifice (v. 8); he will give them into the hands of
their enemies, and glorify himself thereby. 3. He will fill both city and
country with lamentation (v. 10): In that day there shall be a
noise of a cry from the fish-gate, so called because near either to the
fish-ponds or to the fish-market. It belonged to the city of David (2 Chron.
xxxiii. 14; Neh. iii. 3); perhaps the same with that which is called the first
gate (Zech. xiv. 10), and, if so, it will explain what follows here, And
a howling from the second, that is, the second gate, which was next to
that fish-gate. The alarm shall go round the walls of Jerusalem from
gate to gate; and there shall be a great crashing from the hills, a
mighty noise from the mountains round about Jerusalem, from the acclamations
of the victorious invaders, or from the lamentations of the timorous
invaded, or from both. The inhabitants of the city, even of the closest
safest part of the city, shall howl (v. 11), so clamorous
shall the grief be. 4. They shall be stripped of all they have; it shall be
a prey to the enemy (v. 13): Their household goods, and shop-goods,
shall become a booty, and a rich booty they shall be; their houses
shall be levelled with the ground and be a desolation; those of
them that have built new houses shall not inherit them, but
the invaders shall get and keep possession of them. And the vineyards
they have planted they shall not drink the wine of, but, instead of
having it for the relief of their friends that faint among them, they shall
part with it for the animating of their foes that fight against them, Deut.
xxviii. 30.
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14 The great day of the LORD
is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the
voice of the day of the LORD:
the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. 15 That day is a
day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and
desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick
darkness, 16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced
cities, and against the high towers. 17 And I will bring
distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have
sinned against the LORD:
and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the
dung. 18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to
deliver them in the day of the LORD's
wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for
he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
Nothing could be expressed with more spirit and life, nor in words more
proper to startle and awaken a secure and careless people, than the warning
here given to Judah and Jerusalem of the approaching destruction by the
Chaldeans. That is enough to make the sinners in Zion tremble--that it is the
day of the Lord, the day in which he will manifest himself by taking
vengeance on them. It is the great day of the Lord, a specimen of the
day of judgment, a kind of doom's-day, as the last destruction of Jerusalem
by the Romans is represented to be in our Saviour's prediction concerning
it, Matt. xxiv. 27.
I. This day of the Lord is here spoken of as very near. The vision is
not for a great while to come, as those imagine who put the evil
day far from them. Those deceive themselves who look upon it as a thing
at a distance, for it is near--it is near--it hastens greatly. The
prophet gives the alarm like one that is in earnest, like one that awakens a
family with the cry of Fire! fire! when it is at the next door that
the danger is: "It is near! it is near! and therefore it is high
time to bestir yourselves, and do what you can for your own safety before it
be too late." It is madness for those to slumber whose damnation
slumbers not, and to linger when it hastens.
II. It is spoken of as a very dreadful day. The very voice of this day
of the Lord, the noise of it, when it is coming, shall be so terrible as
to make the mighty men cry there bitterly, cry for fear as children
do. It shall be a vexation to hear the report of it. In the
last great day of the Lord the mighty men shall cry bitterly to rocks and
mountains to shelter them; but in vain. Observe how emphatically the prophet
speaks of this day approaching (v. 15): It is a day of wrath,
God's wrath, wrath in perfection, wrath to the utmost. It will be a day of trouble
and distress to the sinners; they shall be in pain, and shall see no
ways of easing or helping themselves. The miseries of the damned are summed
up (perhaps with reference to this) in the indignation and wrath of God,
which are the cause, and the tribulation and anguish of the sinner's soul,
which are the effect, Rom. ii. 8, 9. It will be a day of trouble and
distress to the inhabitants, and a day of wasteness and desolation
to the whole land; that fruitful land shall be turned into a wilderness. It
shall be a day of darkness and gloominess; every thing shall look
dismal, and there shall not be the least gleam of comfort, or glimpse of
hope; look round, and it is all black. It is a day of clouds and thick
darkness; there is not only nothing encouraging, but every thing
threatening; the thick clouds are big with storms and tempests.
III. It is spoken of as a destroying day, v. 16, 17. It shall be
destroying, 1. To places, even the strongest and best fortified: A day of
the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, to break into them, and
against the high towers, to bring them down; for what forts, what
fences, can hold out against the wrath of God? 2. To persons (v. 17):
"I will bring distress upon men, the strongest and stoutest of
men; their hearts and hands shall fail them; they shall walk like blind
men, wandering endlessly, because they have sinned against the Lord."
Note, Those that walk as bad men will justly be left to walk as blind men,
always in the dark, in doubt and danger, without any guide or comfort, and
falling at length into the ditch. Because they have sinned against the
Lord he will deliver them into the hands of cruel enemies, that shall pour
out their blood as dust, so profusely, and with as little regret, and their
flesh shall be thrown as dung upon the dunghill.
IV. The destruction of that day will be unavoidable and universal, v.
18. 1. There shall be no escaping it by ransom: Neither their silver nor
their gold, which they have hoarded up so covetously against the evil
day, or which they have spent so prodigally to make friends for such a time,
shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath. Another
prophet borrowed these words from this, with reference to the same event,
Ezek. vii. 19. Note, Riches profit not in the day of wrath, Prov. xi. 4.
Nay, riches expose to the wrath of men (Eccl. v. 13.), and riches abused to
the wrath of God. 2. There shall be no escaping it by flight or concealment;
for the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, and
where then can a hiding-place be found? See what the fire of God's jealousy
is, and what the force of it; it will devour whole lands; how then can
particular persons stand before it? He shall make riddance, a speedy
riddance, of all those that dwell in the land, as the husbandman, when
he rids his ground, cuts up all the briers and thorns for the fire. Note,
Sometimes the judgments of God make riddance, even utter riddance, with
sinful nations, a speedy riddance; their destruction is effected, is
completed, in a little time. Let not sinners be laid asleep by the patience
of God, for when the measure of their iniquity is full his justice will both
overtake and overcome, will make quick work and thorough work.
