Zephaniah – Background and History
Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of King Josiah (640-609 BC)
and this book was likely written around 622 BC.
Remember that Josiah was the last great reforming king. Josiah was the last king in Judah to fight
against the worship of false gods. Under
Josiah the temple practices were restored (at least at the public level) and
the people were called to accountability.
Of course, we know that after Josiah died that the country fell back
into turmoil on account of their worldly practices.
With respect to theme and purpose, the expression “The Day of the
Lord” occurs more frequently in Zephaniah than in any other book of the
Bible. This implies that judgment is a
dominant theme within Zephaniah.
However, as a part of this greater focus on the Day of the Lord Zephaniah
also focuses on the salvation of a faithful remnant.
Judgment
As promised in my introduction, we don’t have to go too far in
Zephaniah before we get to a passage about judgment. Zephaniah warns the Hebrew people that
judgment is not far off. The day is
coming swiftly when God will oppose the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
Again, we look at what it is that God finds so offensive. Here again we see the increase of idolatry as
one of God’s primary concerns. However,
let’s make sure that we look closely at the idolatry about which God speaks.
If we look closely at verses 4-6 we see that God is upset about Ba’al
worship (Canaanite religion) and the worship of Milcom (Ammonite
religion). Certainly there is worship of
foreign gods. But if we look at verse 5
we see that the truly grievous error is that the priests who are worshipping Ba’al
and Milcom also claim to be worshipping God.
We have priests who are coming and worshipping God and then turning and
worshipping Ba’al and Milcom and likely a host of other foreign deities. It isn’t that people are worshipping other
gods as much as it is that people who claim to be loyal to God are worshipping
other gods!
Let’s talk about why this is important. From a modern western mindset, this probably
sounds preposterous. After all, we are a
people who understand the worship of a single God. But most of the ancient world – save the
Hebrew people – was polytheistic. They
were accustomed to the worship of multiple gods. Each family would have a few personal gods
that they revered. Each town would have
their own town gods. Each nation would
have gods over the whole nation. So an
individual might find themselves worshipping even as many as a dozen gods based
on their self, family, town, and nation.
So clearly we see the Hebrew people adopting the practices of the
ancient world in their polytheism. Yes,
God has an issue with that.
However, I can’t help but wonder if we are any better. Sure, we only have one “official” God. Officially, we only go to one church building
and only kneel before a single symbol: the cross of Christ. But is that really all we worship in
life? Is the cross really the only thing
to which our heart bows in reverence?
Like those ancient priests who made a public display of worshipping God
and then worshiped all their other family gods in secret, what do we worship in
secret? Have we unhealthy love for things
other than God? Are we any less
polytheistic in our practice?
The Day of the Lord
Zephaniah proclaimed that a day of judgment was coming. We know it did in 586 BC. However, keep in mind that this Day of Judgment
came between 23-38 years after Zephaniah gave this proclamation. God’s timing is certainly different than
ours. Imagine how much scorn Zephaniah
received as he proclaimed a day of coming judgment that he himself may not have
even lived to see! I can only imagine
the people who convinced themselves that because Zephaniah’s predictions didn’t
come immediately true that Zephaniah’s words were empty and flat. How many people must have heard Zephaniah,
looked around, and concluded, “The Lord will do no good nor evil” as we hear in
verse 12! We must remember that God
works on a different scale than humans have the ability to measure except in
hindsight.
As for the Day of the Lord, let us look upon Zephaniah’s
description of such a day. Look at the
vocabulary used: bitter, crying aloud, wrath, distress, anguish, ruin,
destruction, darkness, gloom, clouds, battle, walk like the blind, pour out
blood, fire, jealousy, consummation, and a full and sudden end. Those are some fairly serious words. Again, knowing what happens to Jerusalem
under the Babylonians we know that all of these words are accurate.
Judgment is serious business in God’s eyes. The people brought this judgment upon themselves
by focusing on the desires of their own heart and not upon the ways of
God. Of course I look at the span of
history and see this pattern again and again.
Faithful slide into unfaithful.
Judgment comes. A remnant is
born. Eventually the fruit of that
faithful remnant falls into rebellion away from God and the cycle repeats. I believe it is something to be aware. I believe it is something to mourn.
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