The Book of Zephaniah
Introduction:
One of the most ungodly and wicked kings in the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the land of Israel was King Manasseh. He was the son of the Godly King Hezekiah yet did not follow in the footsteps of his father but reversed the reforms his father had made in Judah and led the people of God into sin and idolatry. He started his reign when he was twelve years old and reigned for fifty five years in Jerusalem.
He followed the detestable ways of the nations and embraced the demonic god Baal and made a wooden idol of a female pagan goddess called Asherah as King Ahab had done previously. He built pagan altars in the Lord’s House profaning the Lord who had put His name in the Temple. He also built altars to the constellations in the two courts of the Lord’s House. He made his son pass through the fire of the pagan god Baal and practiced witchcraft and consultation with mediums and demon spirits.
Manasseh spiritually seduced God’s people to do more evil than even the pagan nations were doing who did not even know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and His laws and commandments. Manasseh was steeped in the occult. (2 Kings 21:1-7) He was also a treacherous king and a murderer and shed much innocent blood from one end of Jerusalem to the other end. (2 Kings 21:16)
Also it is highly likely according to tradition that King Manasseh had the prophet Isaiah put into a hollow log and sawed in half. Ultimately King Manasseh was taken into captivity in Assyria and imprisoned, and after some time there repented and was restored to Judah and started to make spiritual reforms in the latter part of his life. While he found personal forgiveness from God the evil and detestable practices he had introduced to God’s people would eventually bring about the Judgement of God on Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
Zephaniah the Prophet
Zephaniah the prophet was born during the reign of King Manasseh and was the great-great grandson of King Hezekiah. (Zechariah 1:1) Even though Zephaniah was of Royal Blood he saw the sins and practices of God’s people first hand instigated by Manasseh and then by his son Amon who came to the throne at the age of 22 and reigned only for two years and did the same evil that his father before him had done. Within Zephaniah from early childhood the Spirit of God had been burning brightly in his spirit preparing him for his ministry.
Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah, the king of Judah from 640 to 609BC (Zephaniah 1:1) He prophesied before the fall of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria which happened in 612BC. King Josiah was a Godly king yet after his death the people of God backslide once again into idolatry and the ways and practices of the pagan nations surrounding them, and inevitably leading to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586BC.
During the reign of King Josiah the Southern Kingdom of Judah experienced a spiritual revival but was short lived. Because Zephaniah was at the centre of Judah’s political and religious world he experienced a strong familiarity with the temple worship and the religious climate and culture. He undoubtedly saw the detestable idols and practices that had happened in the Temple during the reign of Manasseh and his son Amon. These things would have made a lasting impression on Zephaniah’s young mind and spirit imparting to him the things that he would have to speak out against when the fire of God’s Spirit would fall upon him and empower him to prophecy as he did.
After King Josiah was killed by the Egyptians when they fought with the army of Judah. all of the successive kings of Judah never stopped the downward spiral of spiritual backsliding that marked the people of Judah and ended with the Babylonian Invasion of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. The message of Zephaniah applies to three time frames. Firstly; it applies to the prophets time, secondly to the history of Israel and thirdly to the last days at the end of this age when Israel will once again be spiritually revived and its national restoration completed. The message of Zephaniah can also be applied to Christendom in the last days and there is an eschatological aspect to this prophecy.
The Outline of the Book
1. ORACLES OF JUDGEMENT (1:1-2:3)
a) A Warning of a Universal Judgement (1-3) b) A Warning against Judah’s Idolatry (1:4-6) c) A Warning about the Day of the LORD (1:7-18) d) A Call to Repentance (2:1-3)
2. ORACLES OF JUDGEMENTS AGAINST THE NATIONS (2:4-15)
a) Against Philistia (2:4-7) b) Against Moab and Ammon (2:8-11) c) Against Cush (2:12) d) Against Assyria (2:13-15)
3. ORACLES OF JUDGEMENT AGAINST JERUSALEM & THE NATIONS (3:1-8)
4. PROMISES TO ISRAEL AND HER SPIRITUAL OFFSPRING (3:9-20)
This prophecy starts with the time of Zephaniah and in this prophecy it telescopes to the end of the age when God brings everything to an end (2:2). The day of the LORD was coming to Judah, and it would be a terrible day for those who had put God to the test over the years, and God had been very patient. The judgment did not stop at Judah as the whole world will be consumed. Zephaniah tells the people of Israel that the nations of the world cannot stand: Moab, Ammon, Ethiopia, and especially Assyria. All nations will know that He is God, and “He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth” (1:18).
God has a bigger and better plan for the world at the end of this present age after the Messiah has returned and destroyed all opposition to the Kingdom of God and has inaugurated His Messianic Millennial reign from Jerusalem. God will weed out all things that do not belong to His kingdom. He will pluck them up by their very roots. As the Messiah our Lord Jesus said; “As the weeds are collected and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom every cause of sin and all who practice lawlessness. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:40-42).
In the Messianic age to come the Messiah Himself will restore all things according to His will and good pleasure. And this restoration doesn’t stop at Judah. God will bring about a time when all the nations will call on the name of the Lord. Judah, Israel, the nations, and the Lord will dwell together in peace, justice, and joy after the Messiah has returned! As we read in the prophet Isaiah…
“The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it and many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law (Torah) will go forth from Zion and the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD” (Isaiah 2:1-5).
