CRITICAL NOTES.]
Zephaniah 1:2. Consume] From root; to destroy, utterly to sweep away (cf. Jeremiah 8:13) everything (Zephaniah 1:3). “The enumeration of particulars is designed to augment the fearful and universal character of the punishment” [Henderson]. Causes, idols, which made them offend or stumble (Ezekiel 14:3-4; Ezekiel 14:7).
HOMILETICS
THE DESTRUCTIVE JUDGMENTS.—Zephaniah 1:2-3
The people had been formerly warned, but heeded not; now threatenings are executed. Destruction, like another deluge, is to sweep the whole earth.
I. The universality of the judgments. The judgment of Judah is preceded by one upon all nations. The prophet was not of a selfish and bigoted spirit. He concerned himself with the fate of heathen countries, and proved that the destiny of the world was linked with that of the chosen people. As the result of judgment, nations will be converted to God (ch. Zephaniah 3:9), and the world renewed and glorified.
II. The severity of the judgments. Everything is specified and paired, like the threat of old (Genesis 6:7). The calamity will be as terrible as the flood.
1. Inferior creatures destroyed. “The fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea.”
2. Human beings destroyed. “I will consume men.” Man is the lord, not the helpless victim, of nature. All things are put under his feet, suffer for his guilt, and share his fate. “All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea.” Dumb brutes cry out against human guilt. We should learn God’s displeasure against sin when we see innocent creatures suffer for it.
III. The design of the judgments. Joel (Joel 2:12-14) and Zephaniah were deeply convinced that all sorrows and calamities were disciplinary—that judgments were mixed with mercy, and designed to purify human life. God afflicts men to restore their souls. The wicked are swept away, and their offences with them. Sad when life itself must be taken away to cleanse it from corruption and guilt. But nations have thus been purified from idolatry and oppression, and thus will it be at the last day, when the Son of Man “shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Zephaniah 1:1. The prophet’s employment. To declare God’s word, reprove sin, and reform society.
2. The prophet’s authority. The word came directly from God. His doctrine not devised by men, but received by inspiration.
3. The prophet’s age. “In the days of Josiah, king of Judah.” In times of general defection, God’s mercy is so great, that means are multiplied to reclaim men from sin. “Not many noble,” but some are called to this work. Here we have a king, and the son of a king, engaged in the service of God.
Zephaniah 1:2. I will utterly consume. A tragical beginning of a terrible sermon. Hard knots must have hard wedges; hard hearts, heavy menaces. The doubling of the denunciation, collingendo colligam, importeth the certainty, verity, and vehemency thereof [Trapp].
Zephaniah 1:2-3. “The besom of destruction” (Isaiah 14:23) and the terrible sweep it makes; man and beast. Corruption and destruction, or the indissoluble link.
Zephaniah 1:3. Wicked with their offences. Wickedness, corrupting the earth—entailing suffering on the brute creation—necessitating Divine interference, and displaying Divine love. “I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled” (Jeremiah 4:25; cf. Jeremiah 12:4). “As God’s acts of deliverance are connected in time with his acts of judgment (since his judgments are ever separations of the godly from the ungodly, and in this sense, salvations and deliverances), so also are the revelations of judgment at the same time revelations of deliverance, and the faith of the elect, which corresponds to them, is, at the same time, both a faith in judgment and a faith in salvation” [Lange].
“O God! thy arm was here,
And not to us, but to thy arm alone
Ascribe we all” [Shakspeare].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Zephaniah 1:1-3. Consume. The wrath of God is truly the terriblest thing in this world—the sting of sin, which is the sting of death. Alas! to us, God’s wrath doth not appear in its full horror; for if it did, we should sooner die than offend him. Some do but think of it; few think of it as they should; and they that are most apprehensive look upon it as at a distance, as that which may be turned away; and so, not fearing God’s wrath, “treasure up wrath against the day of wrath” [Farindon].