The Book of Zephaniah Study No.3
3. ORACLES OF JUDGEMENTS AGAINST JERUSALEM & THE NATIONS (3:1-8)
Introduction
God is a righteous judge and He must dispense that righteousness and justice without favouritism. It is written; “Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgements” (Psalm 119:137). His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice. Righteous and upright is He” (Deuteronomy 32:4). And again we read; “Clouds of thick darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundations of His throne” (Psalm 97:2). And again we read; “But the Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment, And the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness” (Isaiah 5:6).
We also know that God does not show partiality or favouritism whether Jew or Gentile. As Rabbi the apostle Paul wrote that God “will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honour and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:6-11).
Now we know from the Word of God that He judges the pagan nations for their idolatry which also includes all kinds of wicked practices. Israel were His chosen people, chosen to reveal His righteous character and power to the Gentile world because He Loves all men and women equally and is not willing that anyone perish in their sins, but come to repentance and to a knowledge of the truth as it is fully revealed in the Messiah our Lord Jesus (2 Peter 3:9) (2 Timothy 2:25).
Now God chose the nation of Israel to be a nation of people separated from the ways of the world, however, time and time again Israel fell into idolatry and into adopting and following after the ways and customs and wicked lifestyles of the pagan nations surrounding them on every side. Because God is just and righteous in all His ways, and that these are the foundations of His throne, He must exercise these attributes of His character because He cannot act in any other way. This part of Zephaniah’s prophecy now focuses on the backslidden character of Israel, and God to be just and fair must deal with sin and rebellion whether it is manifested in Jews or Gentiles. The city mentioned in these verses is not named but it is the City of Jerusalem the capital of the kingdom of Judah.
Exposition Chapter 3:1-8
(Vs.1-2) “Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled! She obeys no one, she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the LORD, she does not draw near to her God.”
As an insider who was familiar with the corrupt and tyrannical regimes of Manasseh and Jotham, Zephaniah announced God’s charge of unfaithfulness against Jerusalem. Rebellion brings with it spiritual defilement, disobedience and pride, arrogance, and a haughty attitude that refuses correction much like we see today, not only in Israel by and large at present, but also within wider Christendom.
You have false prophets promoting unbiblical doctrines and practices with oppressing profiteers fleecing God’s sheep of their hard-earned dollars. You have counterfeit miracles signs and wonders, immoral practices such as the ordination and the same-sex marriage of sodomites, the love of money, ease, comfort and prosperity, and with multitudes wanting their ears tickled with what they want to hear from false teachers instead of what they need to hear, not to mention ecumenism and interfaith unions. Because Jerusalem was a spiritually defiled she would fare no better than the pagan nations. The people by and large were not trusting only in the LORD or desiring to draw near to Him. There were essentially three charges God brought against the city. Jerusalem was corrupt; it had forsaken the LORD; and its leaders were hopelessly evil.
Zephaniah paints a portrait of an incredibly evil city. Jerusalem is a “bloody” city where ‘gangsters’ rule! Because of bloodshed, the city had become “defiled”, which suggested ritual uncleanliness due to a failure to revere the Law of God as revealed in the Torah (Ezra 2:62) (Nehemiah 7:64) (Malachi 1:7,12). At its very core Jerusalem had become a covenant breaking city, a foolish city digging its own grave, rejecting God’s wisdom and God’s correction. Today Jerusalem is experiencing conflict in the government, in society and battling against their implacable enemies on all sides. The ways of the pagan world are deeply entrenched in Israeli society. The nations they have relied upon for support are gradually abandoning Israel. There is backstabbing and betrayal within the political arena of the Knesset and religious tensions within Jewish Orthodox religious circles. As for the Messianic fellowships they are being harassed by and large by Orthodox Jews who do not want to hear about the Messiah our Lord Jesus just as it was in the first century according to the New Testament.
There are those who are faithfully preaching the Word of God to their fellow Jews and working for the spiritual welfare of Israel but they are in the minority today. God is using applied pressure from without as He has done in the past to bring Israel back to trusting in Him alone for everything they need for life and godliness through the knowledge of the Messiah, bringing them to a place where the surviving remnant will encounter Him. It is going to take the Time of Jacob’s Trouble to bring this about. However, as we will see at the end of this prophecy God is going to fully restore Israel spiritually and nationally and make them a blessing to the surviving nations because “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Now let’s continue…
(Vs.3-4) “Her officials are roaring lions, her rulers are evening wolves, who leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are arrogant; they are treacherous men. Her priests profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law.”
Now through Zephaniah God now charged the leaders, the city officials, the rulers, the prophets and priests with ruling like gangsters. Lions and wolves tear and rip their prey apart with their teeth. Arrogance and treachery were the hallmarks of the character of the leaders. The political, social, and religious climate of the whole city was corrupt even as we see by and large in Israel today. Their ferocious appetites for self-enrichment and self-aggrandisement made these religious leaders and government officials behave like tyrants. They could be described as “roaring lions” (Amos 3:8). The officials in Jerusalem were thwarting justice by shedding innocent blood. Human life had been reduced to a material resource for the self-satisfaction of its leaders. The judges were compared to “evening wolves.” The prophets were wanton imposters, “arrogant” and “treacherous” as we see in the hyper faith prosperity proponents today.
Right now in Israel you have those in the political hierarchy who are calling for policies that in reality are giving Israel into the hands of their enemies. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a very courageous leader and those who support him in the IDF hierarchy, however, even some of his IDF Generals are seeking to compromise with the enemies of Israel. Whether it is in Israel or within wider Christendom today you have those who are tearing Israel apart politically and religiously. False prophets and ministries are making their way into Israeli society and rampant within wider Christendom. God’s laws are flouted with gay pride events and secular hedonistic materialistic lifestyles that go contrary to the Law of God. However, in all of these matters God still has everything under control including His people Israel.
In the time of Zephaniah even the priests in Jerusalem, who were supposedly consecrated to God, were not able to rightly divide or handle the Word of God or teach sound doctrine to God’s people. These priests were profaning whatever is holy in the sanctuary in relation to the sacred or the holy things. They were disregarding the commandments of God as we also see for the most part in wider Christendom today in the western democracies, especially those nations with a Judeo-Christian heritage that are now neo-pagan nations. Even in many supposedly evangelical and Charismatic assemblies their leaders are compromising the Word of God and this is a subject in itself.
In an indirect way Zephaniah was also warning King Josiah, a godly king at this time, not to trust the political leaders, officials and religious leaders in Jerusalem. If he was to break away from the spiritually corrupted legacy and perverse pattern of leadership set by his father and grandfather before him, Josiah would have to forgo the counsel of those in power and return to the LORD and seek His counsel above all other counsel offered. And then we read…
(Vs.5) “The LORD within her is righteous; He does no wrong. Morning by morning He dispenses His justice, and every new day He does not fail, yet the unrighteous know no shame.”
Now God’s nature and character is radically different from that of these wicked leaders in Jerusalem. He is righteous, just and faithful; “For the eyes of the LORD roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). Since He is unique and perfect in these attributes of His nature and character, He alone is qualified to judge His people. The generation of the exile to come for Judah, while fully aware of God’s anger and judgement, could comfort themselves in their exile knowing that God had been faithful in His judgement and would continue to be faithful and bring them home again in His time (Vs.10). The LORD’s intent was always to remove all wickedness from within His people (Vs.11) so that He might fully dwell in the midst of His people once again (Vss. 15-17).
Zephaniah then affirms that God does no wrong because He is pure unmixed perfect light and untainted by sin and in Him is no spiritual darkness at all (1 John 1:5). He is faithful, without perversity, wickedness and lewdness of any kind He dispenses justice. Morning by morning He is perfectly consistent in dispensing His justice without fail. In contrast to God’s righteousness and justice are the wicked that did not have any shame at all but continued in their perversity, wickedness and rebellion. They refused to come before the LORD, to be tried by Him until it became too late. In the end His judgement overtook them. The harvest has passed, the summer had ended, but they had not been saved (Jeremiah 8:20). Now let’s read further…
(Vs. 6-7) “I have cut off nations; their strongholds are demolished. I have left their streets deserted, with no one passing through. Their cities are destroyed; no one will be left—no one at all. “I said to the city, ‘Surely you will fear me and accept correction!’ Then her dwelling would not be cut off, nor all my punishments come upon her. But they were still eager to act corruptly in all they did.”
The people of Jerusalem were foolish in that they had not seen, or thought to ponder upon how the LORD had had shown His righteous judgement in the past by cutting off entire nations, reducing them to wastelands. They should have realised that God judges nations from what He had done in the past. They had the Torah and would have known how God had dealt with His people in the past and put down nations for their sakes as a faithful and loving God towards His redeemed people. They would have known from the past that when His people went astray and went into idolatry He had to bring judgement against them to bring them back to Himself. Zephaniah had predicted the fall of Philistia, Moab, Ammon and Assyria. Through Zephaniah God was now calling His people to look at the record of the past and to learn from it.
Today we see the spiritual backsliding within wider Christendom as assembly after assembly compromise the Word of God and mix it in with the philosophies of man and seek to bend the scriptures to fit in with modern day thinking. Many denominational leaders are psychologising the Bible today. For many ministers and Church leaders God’s Word is no longer the only authority for Christian doctrine, life and service in many pulpits and for the most part in the western democracies once founded on Biblical truth that have now apostatized and have placed themselves under God’s judgement as Israel and its leaders did in the time of Zephaniah. Then God continues to speak through Zephaniah these words…
(Vs.8) “Therefore wait for Me,” declares the Lord, “for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them—all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of My jealous anger.”
As with all of the prophets who spoke the Word of the LORD in the Old Testament they prophesied for three time frames. Firstly; they prophesied for their own time, secondly, for the first coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus and thirdly, for His Second Coming and for the Messianic kingdom to follow after the close of this present age. Zephaniah’s prophecy also has an apocalyptic application to the end of this present age when the LORD will judge the nations. In its context Zephaniah portrays the judgement for the Kingdom of Judah as lying just beyond the horizon. Also God will gather all of the nations at the end of this age as a witness against them for their rebellion against Him and His laws and their persistence in wickedness and for their rejection of the Messiah.
The judgement will also be on the nations for the way they have treated God’s people, being the woman Israel, and her spiritual offspring, the Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel. Because Judah was scarcely different from the pagan nations it would experience a judgement of fire to come at the hands of the Babylonians, an event of apocalyptic proportions for the people of Judah that would see Jerusalem ravaged and the temple destroyed, a foreshadow of the final judgment to come upon the nations gathered against Israel at the end of this present age. The judgement will engulf the nations and the unified religious system that has apostatized. This section of the prophecy ends with the judgement on Judah to come and telescopes to the time of judgement and wrath to come upon the nations of the world when the Messiah our Lord Jesus comes back. On the day of the LORD when He comes back the future of the kingdoms of the world will be determined. Before the fullness of the era of restoration, the Bible calls “The Regeneration of all things” the judgement of the LORD must purify the nations.
