The Future Hope Will Follow Judgment (Zephaniah 3:8-13).
“Therefore wait for me,” says YHWH,
“Until the day that I rise up for a witness.
For my considered decision is to gather the nations,
That I may assemble the kingdoms,
To pour on them my indignation,
even all my fierce anger.
For all the earth will be consumed,
With the fire of my jealous wrath.”
‘Wait for me.' There will be delay. The world will have to await His timing. But God has determined that He will one day arise as a witness against the nations. He will gather them together so as to exact His anger on them, and all nations will experience His jealous wrath. Compare for this Joel 3:12-14 which depicts a similar idea (see also Zephaniah 1:2-3; Zechariah 14:2). He will call the world into judgment. For God is the God of all nations, and all of them are accountable to Him.
His anger will be on them because of their worship of other things (compare Romans 1:18-23), of idols, of wealth, of prestige and position, with the result that they have not acknowledged God, and have ignored His commandments. He is jealous for all that His name stands for, and will judge accordingly.
These pictures of judgment are all worded in terms of the understanding of those days, but are rather to be seen as depicting the reality and universality of God's judgment than as literal descriptions of what will happen. The reality will be greater than the conception. Some of what happens in the future may, of course, come somewhere near to what is being described, nations may gather against Jerusalem, there may be catastrophes which come on those nations, but that is secondary. Such things are not required for the fulfilment of the idea. It is the idea that is important. It is God's final judgment on all nations that is in mind, not some comparatively local battlefield.
“For then I will turn to the peoples a pure mouth,
That they may call on the name of YHWH,
To serve him with one consent (literally ‘shoulder').”
And the purpose of this judgment is to turn the nations to God, to make their mouths pure so that they truly call on the name of YHWH, and serve Him as one man (contrast Isaiah 6:5).
The prophets, with their limited vision and perspective, had no way of knowing, nor would they have understood, how this would be accomplished in ways beyond their imagination, as the good news of the Kingly Rule of God went out to the nations, bringing them to Christ in partial fulfilment of these promises, resulting one day in the nations dwelling in His presence in the glory of a new heaven and earth.
What Zephaniah saw ahead was like a series of mountains in the distance. First the nearest one, clear to the vision, the coming judgment on Judah and Jerusalem, and then the more distant ones, with no realisation of the plains and distances that might lie between them, the fact of the facing up of the nations to the word and judgment of God, of the conversion of many in those nations, and of God's final judgment, followed by the everlasting relationship of peace between God and man.
“From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants,
Even the daughter of my dispersed ones, will bring my offering.”
‘Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia' (compare Isaiah 18:1) represented a world unknown from which traders occasionally came, i.e. from beyond the furthest tributaries of the Nile. But even the people ‘out there', converted to the true God by the witness of His dispersed ones, distant colonists, (compare the Ethiopian eunuch who was a God-fearer - Acts 8:27) will come to God with their offerings. For all the world will come to know of His glory.
This vision of the missionary movement, first of the dispersed Jews, preparing the way for the Gospel, then of the early church, ‘the new Israel', (and indeed of the late one of the last two centuries, also by missionaries of ‘the new Israel'), reveals wonderful insight. And today around the world such converts daily bring their offerings of worship, praise and thanksgiving to Him, just as Zephaniah describes.
“In that day you will not be ashamed for all your doings,
By means of which you have transgressed against me,
For then will I take away out of your midst,
Those who proudly exult in their behaviour,
And you will no more be haughty in my holy mountain,
But I will leave among you an afflicted and poor people,
And they will trust in YHWH.”
The work of God will bring about a transformation among His people. They will no longer need to be ashamed of their doings. For those who in their pride misbehave, and glory in the fruits of their misbehaviour, will be no more, and those who remain will be ‘an afflicted and poor people'. In the Old Testament ‘the poor' were often the equivalent of the godly and pious and paralleled with ‘the meek', those who were humble before God (Isaiah 11:4; Isaiah 25:4; Amos 2:7), on the grounds that in a society like Israel's it was the violent, the dishonest and the ungodly who accumulated riches.
‘You will no more be haughty in my holy mountain.' To be haughty in God's holy mountain was a contradiction in terms. Man can have no pride in the presence of God. He can only confess his sinfulness and need. It was indeed a strange contradiction, only possible among human beings, that Israel could delight in having in their midst the holy mountain of God, and the awesomeness of His presence, and yet at the same time set themselves up against Him by worshipping idols and living contrary to His law. It is only paralleled by the way that today people can speak loudly of, and even exult in, the wonderful holiness of God and then go away and behave like devils. For the concept of ‘the holy mountain' compare Psalms 2:6; Isaiah 65:11; Isaiah 65:25; Jeremiah 31:23; Daniel 9:16; Daniel 11:45; Joel 2:1; Joel 3:17; Obadiah 1:16.
‘But I will leave among you an afflicted and poor people, and they will trust in YHWH.' The sufferings of Israel (and of the world) had in it a good purpose (Isaiah 48:10; Malachi 3:2-3), that through its afflictions a people of God might result whose trust would be fully in God, a humble and lowly people made strong in God. They may seem unimportant to the world, but they are God's jewels.
But as the New Testament shows us, when we hear of Israel, we must not just think in terms of the old Israel in the land, but in terms of the full Israel which includes all who call on His name, whether ex-Jew or ex-Gentile (Ephesians 2:19, compare 12; Galatians 3:29; Galatians 6:16; Romans 11:17; James 1:1).
“The remnant of Israel will not do iniquity, nor speak lies,
Nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths,
For they will feed and lie down,
And none will make them afraid.”
‘The remnant of Israel.' It is a regular stress in the Old Testament that only a remnant of those who profess to be God's people will actually prove to be so (Isa 6:13; 1 Kings 19:18; Zechariah 13:9; Obadiah 1:17).
Once the suffering is finally over there will be a pure remnant who will for ever done with sin (Isaiah 60:21), who will speak only truth and be totally honest (compare Revelation 14:5; Psalms 32:2; Isaiah 63:8; John 1:47). This can only happen in the new heaven and the new earth.
‘For they will feed and lie down, and none will make them afraid.' They will be like sheep under a good shepherd (Micah 5:4; Isaiah 40:11). It is a picture of perfect serenity, and applies to all His people.