Zephaniah 3:14 - Meaning and Application

After the promise that sin will be removed, comes the promise that trouble will also be taken away. When the cause is removed, the result will follow. What makes a people holy will, in time, make them happy too.

These promises to God’s purified people would be fully felt in the comforts of the gospel. In hope, and much more in enjoyment, they are called to do two things. First, they are to rejoice and sing (Zephaniah 3:14). “Sing, daughter of Zion. Shout, Israel. Be glad and rejoice with all your heart.” Their joy is to be inward and deep, not shallow. Those who love God with all their heart have every reason to rejoice in him with all their heart.

This promise comes after the one in Zephaniah 3:13, where their sins are subdued and their fears are silenced. Then comes, “Sing and rejoice.” Those who turn back to God have good reason to be glad. Israel cannot truly rejoice like other nations while she is turning away from her God. But God’s promises, received by faith, give his people steady and overflowing joy. Believing them fills the heart with joy and peace.

Second, they are to lay aside all discouragements (Zephaniah 3:16). In that day it will be said to Jerusalem, God will say it through his prophets and through his providences, and others will say it to one another, “Do not fear. Do not let fear take hold of you. When things are bad, do not assume they will only get worse. Do not frighten yourself over every trouble. Do not let your hands grow weak and useless in despair. Do not lose heart and become unfit for your work and your struggle.”

Instead, lift up your spirits, and as a sign of that, lift up your hands, the hands that hang down (Hebrews 12:12; Isaiah 35:3). Lift up your hands in prayer to God. Lift them up also to help yourself. Fear makes the hands weak, but faith and hope make them strong. The joy of the Lord will be our strength for both duty and suffering.

Now we can see what these precious promises are, promises made to God’s people to drive away grief and fear and to encourage hope and joy. They are made to us as well as to them.

First, all their troubles and distress will come to an end (Zephaniah 3:15). “The Lord has taken away your judgments.” He has removed the calamities they had been groaning under, calamities that were punishments for their sin. The sound of war will be silenced, the shame of famine will be gone, and captivity will be brought back. Some troubles may remain, but they will only be afflictions, not judgments, because sin will be forgiven.

“He has driven out your enemy,” the one who had forced his way into the land and triumphed over them. Some read it, “He has swept out your enemy,” like dirt swept out of a house and onto the refuse heap. When they sweep out their sins with the broom of reform, God will sweep out their enemies with the broom of destruction. If they must be corrected, they will fall into the hands of the Lord, whose mercy is great, and not again into the hands of man, whose so-called tenderness is cruel. “You will not see evil anymore,” that is, not such evil days as you have seen.

The way to escape the evil of trouble is to keep clear of the evil of sin. For those who do that, trouble has no true power to harm them.

Second, God will give them clear signs that he is with them. Though he had long seemed far away, because they had driven him away by their sin, he will show that he is truly among them. “The Lord is in your midst, O Zion, O Jerusalem.” He is there like the sun at the center of the universe, giving light and influence to every part. He is there to guide all their affairs and guard all their interests.

He is the King of Israel (Zephaniah 3:15), in the midst of his people as a king among his subjects. Thinking of this, our Lord Jesus is called the King of Israel (John 1:49). He is, and will be, in the midst of his church always, even to the end of the world, receiving the honor of his people and giving them his favor, even where only two or three gather in his name. He is the Lord your God, yours in covenant, and he is in your midst as your God, the one you belong to and have a share in. He has bound himself to you by promise, and to give you full comfort in both, he is near at hand.

He who is in your midst as your God and King is mighty, almighty, able to do all that you need and all that you can desire. He has committed his power to your rescue. He will save. He will be Jesus, the one who saves his people from their sins.

Third, God will delight in them and in doing them good. The words are very warm and moving (Zephaniah 3:17). He will rejoice over you with joy. He will not only be pleased with you after your repentance and reformation and bring you back into favor, but he will take delight in you, as a bridegroom delights in his bride, or as a bride delights in her ornaments (Isaiah 62:3-5). The conversion of sinners and the comfort of saints are the joy of angels, because they are the joy of God himself. The church should be the joy of the whole earth (Psalm 48:2), because it is the joy of the whole heaven.

“He will rest in his love,” or, as the word also means, “He will be silent in his love.” He will not rebuke you as he has done because of your sins. He will be content with you, and content in his relation to you. It is hard to find another expression like this for Christ’s love to his church, except in the Song of Songs 4:9, “You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride.” What humility there is in divine grace. The great God not only loves his saints, he loves to love them. He is pleased that he has chosen these as the objects of his love. He will rejoice over them with singing. He who is grieved by the sin of sinners rejoices in the grace and service of the saints, and he is ready to show that joy in song.

The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, and soon Christ Jesus will be glorified and admired in them.

Fourth, God will comfort Zion’s mourners, those who grieve with her in her trouble, and he will wipe away their tears (Zephaniah 3:18). “I will gather those who are sorrowful for the solemn assemblies, to whom its reproach was a burden.” Notice, first, who these people are whom God will rejoice in and make joyful. They are the sorrowful. Only those who sow in tears should expect to reap in joy. Those who are sorrowful now shall be joyful forever.

Second, notice what is the chief cause of sorrow for Zion’s mourners when Zion is mourning. Many calamities have come upon her.

The city is ruined, and the palaces are torn down. Trade has stopped, and public justice no longer functions. But all of that is small to them compared with the ruin of the sanctuary, the destruction of the temple and the altar, where all Israel used to gather three times a year for the sacred feasts. That is what makes them sorrowful.

First, they are scattered. There is no temple to go up to, or if there were, no people to come to it. So the solemn feasts and Sabbaths are forgotten in Zion (Lamentations 2:6). It is a sad thing when public worship is blocked, when enemies scatter believers, or when friends abandon those meetings so that there are no gatherings, or no proper ones. When the ways of Zion mourn, the sons of Zion mourn too. In that way, they show that they truly belong to Zion, because they feel its troubles so deeply.

Second, they are despised. The shame that falls on the solemn assemblies is a heavy burden to them. Those gatherings have long been insulted and mocked, because Satan and his servants have a special hatred for them as a major support of God’s kingdom among people. Ugly and false labels have been put on those meetings, and that grieves everyone who cares deeply about God’s honor and people’s souls. They feel that the insults aimed at the solemn assemblies are aimed at them too.

God will also bring back the captives from their oppressors and bring home the exiles who seemed to be driven away (Zephaniah 3:19, Zephaniah 3:20). Their enemies will no longer be able to keep them in bondage. “At that time I will deal with all who afflict you,” God says, meaning he will break their power and ruin their plans so they must give up the people they seized. When God says, “I will be doing with them shortly,” it means he will soon bring them to an end. Those who abuse and oppress God’s people are actually moving toward their own ruin.

God will also enable his people to claim their freedom, and every obstacle will be overcome. Is the church weak and wounded? He says, “I will save the lame,” as promised in Micah 4:7. He will help her when she cannot help herself, and even the lame will take the spoil (Isaiah 33:23). Is she scattered and unable to unite for her common good? “I will gather her who was driven out, and bring her back at the time I gather her.” One act of mercy and grace will both gather them from their scattering and lead them back to their own land. When people’s hearts are ready, the work will happen suddenly, and no one can stop it if God himself is doing it. “I will bring back your captives before your eyes,” says the Lord, so you will clearly see God’s hand in it and say, “This is the Lord’s doing.”

By all this, God will also honor them and win respect for them from everyone around them. Israel was once set high above all nations in praise and fame (Deuteronomy 26:19). So the shame brought on them was one of their deepest sorrows, because disgrace cuts most deeply for those who once had honor. When God returns in mercy to his church, he promises to restore her good name. All the shame will be rolled away forever, as Israel’s shame was rolled away at Gilgal (Joshua 5:9). The church will be as honored as she once was dishonored.

Even those who mocked her will come to respect her. “I will give them praise and fame in every land where they were put to shame,” God says, so the same people who watched their disgrace will change their minds about them. Those who said, “This is Zion, whom no one cares for,” will say, “This is Zion, whom the great God cares for.” The one once treated as the rubbish of the earth will then appear as the darling of heaven.

Even people who never knew her will be led to honor her (Zephaniah 3:20). “I will make you a name and a praise among all peoples of the earth.” So it was with the Jewish church when fear of the Jews fell on their neighbors (Esther 8:17), and when people from many nations said, “We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23). So it was with the Christian church when it flourished in the world, because it carries what can rightly win the respect of all peoples. And so it will be with the universal church of the firstborn on the great day, when the saints are gathered to Christ, so that he may be admired and glorified in them, and they in him, before angels and people. Then God’s Israel will have a name and praise forever.