CRITICAL NOTES.]
Zephaniah 2:8. Moab] and Ammon rejoiced in the calamity of the Jews. Compare parallel prophecies against Moab (Isaiah 15, 16; Jeremiah 48; Amos 2:1-3), and Ammon (Jeremiah 49:1-6; Amos 1:13-15). Magnified] Acted insolently against their boundary (Jeremiah 48:29; 2 Kings 13:20).
Zephaniah 2:9.] The threat will certainly be executed. Divine existence itself pledged. The land shall be overrun with stinging nettles, and become a place for salt-pits, like the southern coast of the Dead Sea. A remnant of Jews shall possess the people themselves.
Zephaniah 2:10.] The judgment is talio. The universality of it stands out with greater precision, according to its two-fold fundamental characteristic [Lange].
Zephaniah 2:11. Famish] Deprive them of worship and sacrifices, which were considered food (Deuteronomy 32:38). His place] Not in Jerusalem alone, but everywhere worship Jehovah (Psalms 68:29; Malachi 1:11).
HOMILETICS
THE JUDGMENT UPON THE MOABITES.—Zephaniah 2:8-10
Moab and Ammon were of blood relation to Israel. Their country adjoined Canaan, and from the time of Balak they were always reviling Israel, and invading their territory, and plundering their cities. The pride and insolence of Ammon were proverbial. They were now to be punished for their conduct.
I. The nature of their doom. Their land was to be spoiled, and their cities exterminated.
1. The tribes would be destroyed. They would incur a fate like Sodom and Gomorrah, which are ingulfed in the Dead Sea.
2. The land would be cursed. Nettles would infest it, salt-pits would tear it up, and desolation would be perpetual. Destruction, barrenness, and extinction beyond recovery (Jeremiah 49:18). “The whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning: it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein; like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath.”
II. The certainty of their doom. “Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts.” Jehovah pledges himself by solemn oath to inflict the destruction. When God threatens men seem slow to believe that he is in easnes. When be appeals to his own existence in support of his truth they should fear. “Because he could swear by no greater he swears by himself.”
III. The cause of their doom.
1. Their pride. “This shall they have for their pride.” Pride and arrogance are specially offensive to God. When men magnify themselves against the people of God and their possessions, they magnify themselves against God. God will bring them low, and give them shame and contempt.
2. Their cruelty. They reviled and reproached the people of God (Zephaniah 2:8); took pleasurs in their misfortunes; cherished constant hatred towards them; and violated their land age after age. Pride begets insolence and cruelty, and these expose to the judgment of God. “It is a dangerous indiscretion for a man not to know the bounds of his own calling” [Bp. Hall]. “A man’s pride shall bring him him low.”
“My pride fell with my fortunes” [As you like it].
THE LIVING GOD.—Zephaniah 2:8-11
“I live.” God here declares his eternal self-existence. “In the beginning God.” The living God is not indifferent to human affairs; neither does he keep silence. He has entered into relationships and covenants indicated by the name, “the God of Israel,” revealed his majestic power, and triumphed gloriously over the rebellious “The Lord, strong and mighty.” This God has spoken, linked his sayings with his character, and made them emphatic by an oath.
I. The living God is cognisant of all that transpires on earth. “I have heard.” Nothing escapes the eyes of God. “All things are naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” God is an ever-present listener (whispering gallery: telephone).
1. God hears the mockery of evil tongues. “I have heard the reproach of Moab,” &c. How painful for us to hear all the slanders, curses, and blasphemies of one day! Yet God hears all the evil-speaking of men through all time. The God of patience may bear long with personal and national provocations, but he feels, and expresses feeling in words. “As I live, saith the Lord of hosts.” This brings out the idea—
2. That God is affected by the injury done to his people. This truth was unfolded to Moses when commanded to go to Egypt (Exodus 3:7-10). Note how the exalted, living Christ identifies himself with his persecuted people. (Acts 9:1-14). This truth should comfort and sustain, “when men shall revile you, and persecute you,” &c.
II. The living God administers timely justice. Nations only exist in time, and so in time punishment takes place. We are dealt with as individuals before the judgment-seat of Christ. Moab and Ammon, for repeated and persistent offences, are threatened with Divine judgments. God’s words soon become God’s works, notwithstanding seeming hindrances and impossibilities. The guilt was great and grievous. Observe—
1. The severity of the Divine judgment. “Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah.” We have no encouragement from the history of nations to regard God’s mercy as amiable weakness, or his judgments as harsh and vindictive. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” Under his righteous administration, and in the execution of judgment for the oppressed, light words may bring heavy blows, and defiant tones desolating retributions. Cause and effect, sin and suffering, are here connected.
2. The Divine judgment was the penalty of pride and arrogance. “This shall they have for their pride,” &c. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Illustrations:—Goliath (1 Samuel 17); Benhadad (1 Kings 20); Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4); Babylon (Isaiah 47).
III. The living God is jealous of his name and worship. “The Lord will be terrible unto them; for he will famish all the gods of the earth,” &c. An eidôlon is a thing that can be seen and put for a being who cannot be seen. God is a spirit, and no image can represent a spirit. He prohibits the attempt to make a “likeness” of himself (Exodus 20). The maedicties won this sin are numerous and startling. It is specially offensive and insulting to the one living and true God. With the most horrible, inhuman, and debasing rites, Moab and Ammon worshipped gods, and left the infamous names of Chemosh, Molech, Milcom, and Peor.
1. Idolatry is a flagrant insult to the living God.
2. God declares his intention to exterminate it. “For he will famish all the gods of the earth.” The triumphs of Divine truth over idolatry have been signal and complete. Islands and countries have abolished their idols. The process goes on and must continue, for he hath said, “I am God, and there is none like me.” “The idols he shall utterly abolish.”
3. God predicts the universality of true and acceptable worship. Jealous for his character, God will tolerate no rival. The heathen gods shall be without offerings and devotees. The destructive work is to prepare for the constructive, or rather the true worship is to displace the false. “Men shall worship Him, every one from his place,” &c. However prevalent, mighty, and venerable idol worship may be in some places, it is doomed. Whether slowly or rapidly men “turn from idols to serve the living God,” the promise must be accomplished. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him.” The predicted universality of acceptable worship should (a) Incite the Church of God to pray earnestly, “thy kingdom come;” and (b) Inspire unceasing aggressive efforts, until “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” [Mt. Braithwaite].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
1. No relation will bind the wicked to the Church, and in sympathy with the godly. However near, they break loose, persecute, and revile them.
2. But God takes notice of this conduct towards his people, declares his love, and determines to punish their enemies. Chastisement does not hinder affection for them. I have heard the reproach. “The memory of God is one of the most fearful things of which a man can think. He notices particularly the dishonour done to his people, because they only take no heed of dishonour, and are not allowed to defend themselves. But take heed that you are not reviled on account of your own sins. Such reviling God does not punish, but it is itself punishment” [Lange].
Zephaniah 2:11. The extermination of dolatry, and the establishment of God’s worship.
1. Idolatry to be exterminated. “For he will famish all the gods of the earth.” They will die from want and starvation. There will be a gradual and universal destruction of idols. This happened in the days of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, who chastised the Jews and weaned them from heathen deities; in the early age of Christianity, and in modern missions.
2. Divine worship to be established. Not only at Jerusalem but universally. “Men shall worship him, every one from his own place.” His own Gentile home taught by Jews in the true religion. “All the isles of the heathen,”—the maritime regions of the West. This prediction is being fulfilled at present; and ere long, “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering” (Malachi 1:11; Psalms 2:8; Numbers 14:21).
HOMILETICS
THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD A SCHEME OF REDEMPTION.—Zephaniah 2:11
‘The immense value of this verse consists in the fact that it reveals a law, a constant invariable law, of the Divine government. It stands alone and is complete. It is a place of vantage, a point of rest, to which the prophet has risen, and from which he contemplates not simply the doom of which he has spoken, or the dooms of which he is about to speak, but the whole course of the Divine providence. And as he looks before and after, as he recalls the past and project himself into the future, he finds this to be a law of human history, that the judgments of God are a necessary part of the scheme of redemption: that God intends them to recover men from error to truth, from sin to holiness” [S. Cox]. Let us trace this thought—
I. In human experience. God often visits in terror, smites our gods, and takes away what is dearest and most valuable. This terror brings torment and despair. The darkness hides the light, and the judgment the mercy. God is terrible indeed to us. But how else could we be weaned from sin, delivered from idolatry, and restored to God? Threatenings have been unheeded, mercies have been abused, and promises are of no avail. Severe measures must be adopted. “Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O Lord.”
II. In the history of the Christian Church. In the Jewish nation, in apostolic times and in modern history, this truth is abundantly confirmed. The Church has been purified by persecution, and nations have been saved by the famishing of their gods. “These judgments,” says one, “answer to the convulsions and storms of the natural world, and serve to disperse the foul infections which brood over the homes of men, to raise them to happier conditions, and to pour round them a more vital air.” God thus starves idols to make known himself, clothes himself in terrors to redeem from error, and reveals mercy to win “the isles of the heathen.” “For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Zephaniah 2:10-11. Pride. That which first overcame man, is the last thing he overcomes [Augustine].