Zephaniah 1:7 - Meaning and Application

Here God gives Judah and Jerusalem notice that he is coming against them soon. His presence as a righteous avenger, the day of his judgment, and the day of his anger are near (Zephaniah 1:7). People who do not make use of God’s presence as a Father, but drive it away by sin, should expect him to come as a Judge and hold them to account for despising his grace.

The day of the Lord will come. People have their own day now, when they feel free to do whatever they want. But God’s day is near. It is called his sacrifice, because punishing bold sinners is, as it were, a sacrifice to God’s justice, a way of repairing the honor that has been insulted. Those who brought offerings to false gods are now themselves made victims before the true God. On a day of sacrifice there was much slaughter, and so it will be in Jerusalem. Men will be killed as quickly as lambs laid on the altar, with as little concern and as much ease: “The slain of the Lord shall be many.” On a day of sacrifice there was also a feast from the offerings, and so Judah and Jerusalem will be feasted on by their enemies, the Chaldeans. God has prepared and invited these attackers to gorge themselves, on bloodshed by revenge and on plunder by greed.

Notice, then, who are marked for this sacrifice, who will be visited and punished in this day of account, and what they will be judged for. The royal family is first, because rank makes them answer first for their pride, vanity, and love of display (Zephaniah 1:8). “I will punish the princes, and the king’s children,” those who think that, although they are high in the land, God is still above them. They are also judged with those who wear strange clothing, people who, in contempt for their own country, copied foreign fashions and introduced them among God’s people. They worked hard to look different and to resemble the nations God had set them apart from, even in their clothes. The princes and the king’s children scorned local cloth, though God had provided them with fine linen and silk (Ezekiel 16:10). They had to send to foreign places for clothes, which only pleased them if they were costly and hard to get. Even people below them copied their pride. Pride in dress displeases God and shows a people are slipping morally.

Next come the nobles, along with their stewards and servants (Zephaniah 1:9). “In the same day will I punish those that leap on the threshold,” a phrase that likely meant seizing a neighbor’s rights. They entered houses by force, claimed what was not theirs, and acted as if the house belonged to them. They filled their masters’ houses with goods gained by violence and deceit, and with the guilt that came from that sin. They could not excuse themselves by saying the stolen gain was for their masters and that they were only following orders. Our duty to obey God’s commands comes before any duty to serve an earthly master.

Then God calls the merchants to account. In the district called Maktesh, a low part of Jerusalem deep like a mortar, guilt was found among the traders and goldsmiths (Nehemiah 3:32). They are brought down, their shops are shut, and they become bankrupt. Even those who carry silver are cut off first by the invaders, because their wealth draws enemy attention. What was supposed to protect them only exposed them. The conquerors aimed first at the rich and carried them off, while the poor escaped. Or this may point to a general decline in trade, which came before the complete ruin of the land. It is a sign of a nation’s decline when major merchants are brought low and bankers fail, since they do not fall alone, but drag many others down with them.

Last come all the secure and careless people, the lovers of ease and pleasure, those who live idle, loose lives (Zephaniah 1:12). They come from all parts of the country to stay in the capital, where they rent private rooms and give themselves to comfort and luxury. But God will find them out and punish them. “At that time I will search Jerusalem with candles,” meaning he will look carefully so that none of them escape deserved punishment. This suggests they are hiding, either because they feel ashamed or because they fear what will happen to them. When God’s judgments are abroad, they hope to slip away and disappear, but God will search Jerusalem as one searches for a disguised criminal hidden by his helpers. God’s hand will find all his enemies, wherever they are hidden. He will punish not only secret idolaters, but also secret pleasure-seekers and people who live without reverence for God.

These people are marked by their character. Their lives are sensual, ruled by bodily comfort and pleasure. They are settled on their lees, like wine left undisturbed, so they grow thick, dull, and self-satisfied. They strengthen themselves in wealth and wickedness. They are secure and easy, and because nothing has shaken them yet, they think nothing ever will, like Moab (Jeremiah 48:11). They have not been poured from vessel to vessel. They fill themselves with wine and strong drink and push away serious thought, saying, “Tomorrow will be just like today” (Isaiah 56:12). Being settled on their lees means the same as being enclosed in their own fat (Psalm 17:10).

Their thinking is also atheistic. They could not live such careless lives unless they said in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.” That is, they treat him as if he does nothing at all. They deny his rule over the world, saying that whatever good or bad happens comes by chance, not by the wisdom and rule of God. They also deny his moral government and his way of giving reward and punishment. In effect, they say there is nothing to gain from religion and nothing to lose by sin. This came from their love of pleasure. If they were not drowned in what they could feel, they could not be so spiritually dull, and they would not be so foolish if they had not made themselves that way through a love of pleasure.

Their sensuality also came from this. People would not make a god of their stomach if they had not first become so empty and corrupt in their thoughts as to imagine that the God who made them is just like themselves. But God will judge them, and their end is destruction (Philippians 3:19).

Here is what that destruction will look like, and how God will deal with these sinners. He will first silence them (Zephaniah 1:7). “Be silent before the Lord” means he will force them to stop speaking. He will leave them dumb with fear and amazement. They will have nothing to say for themselves. All their excuses for their sin, and all their objections to his sentence, will be overruled.

He will also sacrifice them, for this is the day of the Lord’s sacrifice (Zephaniah 1:8). He will hand them over to their enemies and glorify himself through it.

He will fill both city and country with crying and mourning (Zephaniah 1:10). At that time there will be a cry from the Fish Gate, so called because it stood near the fish ponds or fish market. It belonged to the city of David (2 Chronicles 33:14; Nehemiah 3:3). It may be the same as the First Gate (Zechariah 14:10), and if so, that helps explain the next line, “a wailing from the Second Quarter,” that is, from the second gate next to the Fish Gate. The alarm will spread around the walls of Jerusalem from gate to gate. There will also be a great crash from the hills, a loud noise from the mountains around Jerusalem, from the shouts of the victorious invaders, or from the cries of the frightened people inside, or from both. Even the people in the safest part of the city will howl (Zephaniah 1:11), so great will their grief be.

They will also lose everything they own. It will all become plunder for the enemy (Zephaniah 1:13). Their household goods and shop goods will become spoil, and plenty of it. Their houses will be torn down and left in ruins. Those who built new houses will not live in them, but the invaders will take and keep them. And the vineyards they planted, they will not drink the wine from. Instead of using it to help their fainting friends, they will give it to strengthen the enemies fighting against them (Deuteronomy 28:30).