III. THE ENCOMPASSING SPECTATORS. The faithful remnant of Israel, those who still adhered to Jehovah and mourned as did Josiah, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah, Huldah the prophetess, Hilkiah the priest, and others, over the degenerate condition of the nation. So in the world still are God's believing people called to witness, and often actually do witness, the execution of God's judgments upon the ungodly. So in the last day, when the vials of Divine indignation will be outpoured upon the finally impenitent, the saints who have been counted worthy to attain Christ's kingdom and glory will behold the appalling scene, as Abraham beheld the burning of the cities of the plain, and will say, "Hallelujah I salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judgments" (Revelation 19:1, Revelation 19:2).
IV. THE RESULTING IMPRESSIONS. Pointed to in the solemn "Hush! be still" (ver. 7), with which the prophet opened his roll of woe. When he summoned the spectators to be silent before the face of Jehovah, he signified that silence was to be the effect produced upon their spirits by the spectacle they were about to witness. And this silence would be one:
1. Of awe; as they contemplated the overpowering revelation of the majesty of God, of his holiness and justice, of his power and fidelity, which would be afforded by his judgments upon the wicked.
2. Of submission; as they recognized the equity of those judgments by which sin was punished, the Divine Law vindicated, and God's glory proclaimed.
3. Of amazement; as they marvelled how ever they who had once themselves been sinful, had through grace escaped those calamities which they saw overtaking the wicked.
Learn:
1. That God deals with men and nations upon the principle of moral retribution.
2. That neither national nor individual wickedness, if unrepented of, can evade its just recompense of reward.
3. That God's judgments upon both will ultimately be approved by all. — T.W.
Zephaniah 1:7. - The soul's silences before the presence of the Lord.
I. A SILENCE OF ADORATION. As becomes a creature in the presence of his Creator (Zechariah 2:13; Habakkuk 2:20), and a sinner in the presence of the Holy One (Job 40:4).
II. A SILENCE OF CONTEMPLATION. AS befits the soul in those moments in which God reveals himself in nature (Job 37:14) or in grace (Genesis 17:3; Exodus 14:13).
III. A SILENCE OF EXPECTATION. As a praying soul maintains when looking out for a response to his supplications, or a perplexed spirit when waiting for God to clear up the mystery of his providence.
IV. A SILENCE OF SUBMISSION. As they preserve who recognize the ills of life to proceed from the hand of God (Psalms 39:2; Lamentations 3:28, Lamentations 3:29).
V. A SILENCE OF APPROBATION. As God's judgments will enforce upon all who behold them (Psalms 46:10). — T.W.
Zephaniah 1:8. - Foreign clothes.
I. A BOND OF INTERNATIONAL UNION. The interchange of commodities among the different peoples of the earth one of the surest means of promoting peace and causing wars to cease.
II. A SIGN OF ADVANCING CIVILIZATION. When a nation's wants multiply beyond its own power directly to meet them, it naturally draws upon the resources of lands and peoples beyond itself. Thus while the existence of these wants marks the upward progress of the nation itself, the effort needed to supply them acts as a stimulus to other peoples to join in the onward march.
III. A SYMPTOM OF DECLINING PATRIOTISM. No truer indication that the national sentiment amongst a people is becoming feeble than the slavish imitation of the manners and customs, speech and dress, of a stronger neighbour.
IV. A SYMBOL OF RELIGIOUS DECLENSION. In this light regarded by the Egyptian or Chaldean raiment worn by Judaean princes and peasants meant that their hearts were hankering after Egyptian or Chaldean idolatry. So when Christians conform to the world's ways, adopting its maxims and principles, manners and customs, thoughts and feelings, sentiments and practices — all of which should be to them what foreign clothes were to Israel — there is reason to suspect that a backward movement in religion has begun. — T.W.
Zephaniah 1:12. - Settled on one's lees.
I. A PICTURE OF PROSPEROUS EASE. The image — that of wine which has been allowed to settle in its cask, without having ever been drawn off or emptied from vessel to vessel — naturally suggests the condition of one who has become prosperous and affluent, who has never been visited by misfortune, agitated by calamity, or disturbed by affliction, but who through long years has been left to feast and fatten, like an ox in his stall, or (adhering to the metaphor) to fill and settle like a cask of wine.
II. A SYMBOL OF RELIGIOUS (OR, RATHER, IRRELIGIOUS) DEGENERATION. As wine, left upon its lees, retains its flavour — good or bad, as the case may be — so does the soul acquire a moral flavour from the things in which it delights, and on which, as it were, it rests. Nay, as good wine becomes better and bad wine worse from being allowed to settle on its lees, so do pious souls become stronger and more fixed in goodness, but ungodly souls more confirmed and rooted in wickedness, by being suffered to rest, the one on the holy inclinations and the other on the sinful lusts which form the lowest strata respectively of their beings.
III. A PRECURSOR OF APPROACHING DOOM. As bad wine allowed to settle on its lees rapidly deteriorates and reaches such a state of badness as to be unfit for use, so wicked men that settle on their lees, gratifying their sensual desires and venting their atheistical opinions, ultimately sink to such a point of moral degeneration as not to admit of recovery, and as allows nothing to be anticipated for them but swift and sudden destruction.
LESSONS.
1. The danger of prosperity.
2. The value of adversity. — T.W.
Zephaniah 1:14-18. - The great day of the Lord.
I. RAPIDLY APPROACHING. "The great day of the Lord is near, it is Dear, and hasteth greatly" (ver. 14). This was true of the Chaldean invasion, then little more than one generation distant — so near, in fact, that the prophet could hear the bitter cry of the mighty man who saw himself confronted by its terrors; and is true of that other and greater day of the Lord, the day of judgment (2 Peter 2:9; 1 John 4:17; Revelation 6:17), which the Christian is directed always to consider as at hand (Philippians 4:5; James 5:8, James 5:9; 1 Peter 4:7; Revelation 22:12), because the exact moment of its coming no one can tell (Matthew 24:36; Matthew 25:13, Matthew 25:42).
II. TERRIBLY ALARMING. What the Chaldean invasion should prove to the guilty city of Jerusalem and nation of Judah the prophet depicts by heaping together all the images of horror that his mind can conceive or his language express, calling the time of that visitation a day of wrath and fury, in which Jehovah should pour out his indignation upon the land and its inhabitants, letting loose upon them the ferocious warriors of Babylon; a day of trouble and distress, in which men should be hemmed in on every side by calamity and pressed down by anguish, walking like blind men and falling like wounded and dying soldiers; a day of wasteness and desolation, in which fields should be devastated, houses overthrown, and men and women put to the edge of the sword; a day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and thick darkness, in which not so much as a single star of hope should appear in the political firmament; a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities and against the high battlements, in which their fortified towns and cities should experience the shock of pitiless assailants. But even more appropriately will these images apply to the day of judgment, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed in flaming fire and with his holy angels (2 Thessalonians 1:8).
III. FIERCELY DESTROYING.
1. Absolutely unavoidable. "The mighty man crieth bitterly there,.... because he cannot save himself, and must succumb to the power of the foe" (Keil). So would it be in the hour of Babylon's descent upon Judah and Jerusalem; so will it be in the day of the revelation of the wrath of the Almighty (Revelation 6:15-17).
2. Utterly consuming. "Their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make an end, yea; a terrible end, of all them that dwell in the land" (comp. Ezekiel 7:19). The same doom of utter extermination will overtake the finally impenitent in the day when God awakes in terrible majesty to execute judgment on the ungodly. Of these "God shall make an utter, terrific, speedy destruction, a living death, so that they shall at once be and not be; be, as continued in being; not be, as having no life in God, but only a continued death in misery" (Pusey).
Lessons.
1. Gratitude to God, who hath made provision through the gospel of his Son from delivering men from the wrath to come.
2. The duty of all to whom that gospel is made known to embrace its provisions and escape from impending peril, while yet the day of mercy lasts.
3. The wisdom of living in constant anticipation of that day, and of perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord.
4. The urgency of making known to men the gospel, that they may flee from the wrath to come. — T.W.
HOMILIES BY J.S. CANDLISH
Zephaniah 1:1-18. - The judgment threatened.
We learn from ver. 1 that Zephaniah received from the Lord his message to Judah in the days of Josiah, the last of the godly and reforming kings, who, after the gross corruption of the preceding reigns of Manasseh and Amon, restored to a large extent the purity of the worship of God, and was the means of bringing about a certain kind and degree of repentance and amendment in the people. Probably, however, the major part of Zephaniah's prophecy belongs to the early part of Josiah's reign, before his greatest public reformation was begun; for there is no allusion to that hopeful work in the book of the prophet, and there is no mention of Zephaniah in the history, where Jeremiah and Huldah the prophetess are described as aiding and guiding the king's efforts to bring the people back to godliness. But the word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah doubtless prepared the way for the work of full reformation, though the messenger may not have been spared to take part and rejoice in it. His message is, first, an announcement of the judgment of Jehovah against the people, which occupies the whole of Zephaniah 1:1-18.; and ver. 7 may be taken as its central point, containing the lesson of duty, on which all that precedes and follows it converges. We shall best feel the force of this lesson if we begin from the outside of this oracle, the more obvious and manifest appearance of the judgment of Jehovah here announced, which the prophet puts at the beginning and end (vers. 2, 3, 14-18).
I. THE NATURE OF THIS JUDGMENT. At the very outset it is described in a way. fitted to startle and alarm; for it is to be of a most sweeping and universal nature (vers. 2, 3). The words remind us of nothing less than the universal deluge, by which the old world was swept away. A destruction like that is impending over Judah. There had been many chastisements sent on the people before; the land had been invaded, the royal treasuries rifled, the country laid waste. No fewer than ten of the twelve tribes of Israel had been not very long before carried away into Assyria. Still, these visitations had been only partial; a remnant had always been left; and many were apt to trust that so it would ever be. Because God had given Israel the land, they thought that some part of it at least must always be theirs. But now they are warned that this is a false confidence, and that, in spite of the gift of the land to Abraham's seed, the corrupt race that now inhabit it shall be utterly cut off. Moreover, this judgment, that is to be so sweeping, is also very near at hand. In the old world the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah; but now he has waited long and sent messenger after messenger; and at last the time of delay is near]y exhausted, and the judgment is close at hand, for their iniquity is all but full. The day of the Lord is represented as hasting to meet them; the sound of its coming is already heard, and very soon it will be here. Have not all these lesser judgments been foretastes of it? — the capture of Galilee by Tiglath-Pileser, the removal of the whole northern kingdom by Shalmaneser or Sargon, the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib? and has not each one of these been more sweeping and far reaching than the former? Are not these signs and harbingers of the great day of the Lord here announced? Then how terrible and irresistible is this judgment (vers. 15-18)! Physical strength and power shall not deliver the guilty nation. There are, indeed, fortified cities in the land, and high towers to bar the entrance of an enemy; and it may seem as if behind these they might defy the invader; but against them shall be raised the sound of the war trumpet, and the battleshout of a great host, before which they shall not be able to stand. Skill and wisdom shall not be able to save them. These have often enabled armies very much inferior in numbers to conquer great hosts; but now there shall be perplexity and dismay, and men shall be groping like blind men in the dark, unable to devise any means of resistance or escape, bewildered and disheartened. Wealth sometimes may be used to buy off an invading monarch or army. So in former days kings of Judah had repeatedly obtained relief from foreign foes by giving up to them the treasures of the palace and temple. But in this invasion neither silver nor gold shall be of any avail to deliver them. The prophet does not indicate more particularly from what quarter this terrible invasion shall come — that is left to be made manifest by the event. For the terribleness of the judgment did not arise merely from the fact that it was to be inflicted by a great worldly power, which would be overpowering in force and would not care for bribes; but from this, that that power, whatever it might be, was to be the instrument of Jehovah's wrath against the nation. Israel had often been saved from fierce attacks of mighty nations before, and enabled to defy their rage; but that had not been because of their wisdom or courage, but because they trusted in God, and had his protection. Now, however, there was coming on them the day of the Lord's anger; he was to hide his face from them, and therefore it would be to them a day of such darkness, dismay, and despair. This brings us somewhat nearer the centre and heart of this prophecy, and leads us to consider —
II. THE CAUSES OF THE JUDGMENT, ANNOUNCED AS SO SWEEPING, NEAR, AND TERRIBLE. These are the sins of the land, of which a long and dark catalogue is unrolled (vers. 4-12). First comes what was the great besetting sin of ancient times, as it has ever been of men who possess not or will not receive God's revelation of himself, idolatry, the worship of the seen and earthly as Divine, instead of the only true God who is invisible and spiritual, the worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator, The invisible things of God, his eternal power and Godhead, are seen and understood by the things that are made; for "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." But men, not liking to retain God in their knowledge, keep back this truth in unrighteousness, and come to regard the powers of nature as themselves Divine; and worship the heavens, the earth, the sun, the stars, as gods, instead of regarding them as the works of the true God, who is above them all. Thus they fall into a religion that is purely sensuous, requiring no elevation of the soul above what can be seen and heard and felt — a religion also that is divorced from morality, for when men come to regard the processes of nature as the highest thing that there is, they can see in them no moral law or order. Such was the corrupt religion of the heathen world, left by God to its own way, and against this his revelation to Israel was designed to testify, declaring him to be a Being spiritual and holy, the one living and true God. But the chosen people were ever tempted to fall back to that sensuous and immoral conception of God that found expression in the idolatry of the surrounding nations. Various forms of such idolatry as was then common are here alluded to. There was the Phoenician worship of Baal, which had been introduced long ago by Jezebel into the northern kingdom, and through Athaliah into Judah; and there was also the more recently imported worship of the stars and heavenly bodies, the form of idolatry that prevailed in the Eastern countries with which Judah was now beginning to be acquainted. This worship was performed by burning incense and offering sacrifices on the flat tops of the houses, looking up to the sky and host of heaven. But along with these gross forms of idolatry there is also condemned the corrupt worship of Jehovah. The worship at the high places, with which the kohanim (ver. 4) were connected, was indeed a worship of Jehovah, but had become in course of time thoroughly idolatrous in its character; the pillars or groves placed beside the altars came to be worshipped as symbols of the Deity, and, as in Bethel and Dan, idols were identified with him. Thus the true invisible God was degraded to the likeness of the idols of the heathen, and this worship at the high places had to be utterly condemned and swept away. Another corruption of the pure worship of Jehovah was the combination of it with that of the heathen deities. There were those who worshipped and swore to Jehovah, and at the same time swore by Malcham (ver. 5) their king, i.e. Baal. They thought that they could preserve their allegiance to the God of Israel while yet they paid homage also to Baal. They would thus be halting between two opinions, or trying to make a compromise, which on any view of it must degrade the true God. It could only imply either that Jehovah and Baal were both real powers over their several nations, and so Jehovah would be merely a local or national deity; or else that they were but different names of the same supreme power, which would thus be made a mere nature power, such as Baal was conceived to be, not the holy God who had revealed himself to Israel. Then the prophet speaks (ver. 6) of what is implied in all this, and lies at the bottom of it all. These corrupt forms of worship were really a forsaking the Lord; and the beginning of the evil lay in ungodliness; they did not seek the Lord, nor inquire for him. Many who might not be guilty of any of the kinds of idolatry that prevailed, might yet be liable to this reproach, which is surely the severest of all. They professed that they knew God, but they did not look to him in their times of trouble, they did not seek to know his will from his Law or his prophets, they did not call on him for help in time of need — he was to them, in fact, but a name or an idea, not a real, living, personal God. If this was all their religion, it was no wonder that they should be easily led to adopt some visible symbol of the Deity, or to cover up the hollowness of their profession by abundance of rites of worship, or to associate their belief in one Lord with the service of the deities of neighbouring countries, which seemed to be more realities to their devotees. Such were the corruptions of religion in Israel. With these were associated great social evils. Along with the foreign religious rites there were introduced also foreign customs, that marred the simplicity of the national character. This appeared most prominently in dress, which is here especially mentioned (ver. 8); but that was doubtless only an outward symptom of much more radical evils. According to the Law, Israel was to be distinguished from other nations by their dress as well as by their religion. Their characteristic dress was to be marked, on the one hand, by simplicity and decency (Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:11, Deuteronomy 22:12), and on the other hand, by having fringes as a memorial of Jehovah's Law (Numbers 15:38). But now they were growing ashamed of this outward mark of their religion, and came to adopt the more varied and splendid costume of their neighbours. This probably indicated in general habits of luxury and ostentation, which would naturally begin and be most prevalent among the princes and courtiers, though from them they would spread to other classes. Such selfish indulgence was especially to be condemned at a time when the nation was far from being in a secure or prosperous state. It had suffered serious losses, and barely escaped from imminent dangers; and even now the land was much impoverished compared with its former state, and the great empires around were becoming more powerful and threatening. Surely this was not a time to imitate foreign luxurious customs, and to be ashamed of the ancient and godly simplicity of Israel's manners. Such luxury could only be maintained by the rich and the princes by means of oppression and extortion; and this is another evil described as the cause of the judgment (ver. 9). Those who leap on the threshold may refer, as some think, to the Philistines, who formed, with other foreigners, the royal bodyguard; or they may simply indicate, as others think, the eagerness with which the satellites of the princes intruded into the houses of the citizens, in order, by their oppressive exactions, to fill the houses of their masters. Anyhow, the verse indicates that, in order to keep up the splendour and luxury of the court, the people were oppressed, and exorbitant taxes or contributions levied from them by a system of fraudulent charges, or forcible domiciliary visitation. This is the natural accompaniment of a selfish oligarchy in an impoverished and declining state. Then, further, the merchant people in Jerusalem, who seem to have had as their place of business the valley between the hills of the old and new city, are as Canaanites in their transactions; the balances of deceit are in their hand; they have laden themselves with silver by usury and fraud. Such ill-gotten gains seem to be alluded to in ver. 11, and threatened with destruction when the enemy shall burst into the city by the fish gate at the northwest, its most exposed side; when the cry from it shall only be answered by a helpless howling from the new city and crashing from the higher parts, and the hollow valley where merchants most did congregate shall be, as it were, a mortar (Maktesh), in which they shall be trodden down and bruised to pieces by the invading host. At least there is described a prevailing avarice and hasting to be rich, as one of the causes on account of which this crushing judgment comes. Finally, we have set before us the careless self-indulgence of those who are at ease amid all this prevailing evil, who have had no changes, and have no fear of change, who say or think that neither good nor evil, blessing nor judgment, is to be looked for from God (ver. 12). All things continue as they were; and the thought of a present, living God, the Judge of the earth, and the Avenger of wrong, has faded from men's minds. Such are the various forms of evil that are indicated by the prophet as the cause of the judgment which he announces. Can it be said that they are unknown in our day and in ourselves? No doubt the outward forms of idolatry and oppression then rampant are strange and repulsive to us; but are we free from the tendency to degrade the living God to a mere nature power, which is the essence of idolatry? And are not ungodliness, neglect of God's spiritual worship, selfish ostentation and luxury, neglect and oppression of the poor, love of money, and careless self-indulgence, but too well known among us? The picture is not one of mere historical or antiquarian interest, but of ever present moral significance. It teaches us that such evils always lead to ruin, that they lay a nation helpless at the feet of its enemies, and make its continued existence impossible. All history confirms this lesson; and revelation bids us look beyond all merely historical catastrophes to that final judgment of the Lord which shall, in the fullest sense, be universal, embracing, not one nation only, but all mankind, and searching out each individual, to be confronted with his Judge and with the fruit of his own doings.
III. THE LESSON OF ALL THIS IS EXPRESSED IN THE WORDS, "HOLD THY PEACE AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD GOD." (Zephaniah 1:7.) This is the first and most urgent duty. The prophet has further directions to give in following discourses; but this is the immediate effect that the announcement of judgment should have. A silence of awe and humility is what becomes men in the presence of God, when he rises up to judgment as the Lord of all the earth. "Be still, and know that I am God," is his voice as the day of the Lord approaches. This implies a recognition, on the one hand, of the reality, and on the other hand, of the justice, of God's judgment. It should be received as a real expression of God's wrath against the sins of men. Let not the evils that come upon nations or individuals in consequence of their sins be regarded as mere accidents, or as only due to the operation of natural laws. They may be brought about immediately by such second causes, but behind all these we are to recognize the mind and will of the living God. He speaks to us as truly by the ordinary courses of nature as by the most stupendous miracle, and if he shows us that earthly conceptions of the Divine degrade and brutalize man, that selfishness and selfish indulgence, luxury and oppression, bring a people to ruin and lay them helpless at the feet of their foes, that is a real and most solemn judgment of God against these things. Let us be silent also as recognizing the justice of this judgment. These things are evil, deserving of abhorrence and destruction; and God, who in his laws of nature appoints ruin to be their consequence, shows himself just and holy. Let us humbly acknowledge this; and in so far as these evils of ungodliness and selfishness have found place in us, let us put our hand on our mouth, acknowledging that we have nothing to answer to God, and are verily guilty in his sight. There is hope for us if we thus confess our sin. There is hope in the very fact that God announces his judgment against our sin. For what is the announcement? It is that God will utterly sweep away the evils that are done in the land; it is against those that the fire of his wrath is kindled; and if men will cling to these evils, and hug their sins to their bosom, he will sweep away the wicked with the stumbling blocks. Both together shall be destroyed, for God will be rid at last of sin. But if any are willing to be separated from their sins, by however humble and painful a process that may be, then the assurance that God will utterly sweep away the evil will have hope for them. The fire that is to devour the whole land is a fire of jealousy as well as of wrath. Because the Lord loves his people with a jealous affection, in spite of all their unfaithfulness, he will, if they but silently trust themselves to him, make the fire of his anger against their sin to purify and reflect them. Thus this coming of the Lord for judgment is the harbinger of final salvation to those who desire to be purged from those evils against which his wrath is revealed. Therefore "let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption; and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquity." — C.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Zephaniah 1:1-6. - The Word.
"The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amen, King of Judah. I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast," etc. Of Zephaniah we have no information but what is contained in his prophecy. His genealogy is given in the first verse of this chapter. He prophesied in the reign of Josiah, probably between the twelfth and eighteenth years of his reign. In the first chapter he predicts the utter desolation of Judah. In the second, he exhorts his countrymen to repentance in view of the approaching judgments, and threatens the surrounding nations, Philistia, Moab, and Ammon. In the third, after a severe rebuke of Jerusalem, he foretells, in glowing language, its future purification and enlargement, and the destruction of air its enemies. The style is distinguished neither by sublimity nor elegance. He resembles in many respects his contemporary, Jeremiah. He borrows some of the language of former prophets (comp. Zephaniah 2:14 with Isaiah 13:21 and Isaiah 34:11; Zephaniah 2:15 with Isaiah 47:8). "The genealogy of Zephaniah is given through Cushi, Gedaliah, and Amariah to Hezekiah; for in the original Hebrew the words 'Hizkiah' and 'Hezekiah' are the same. As it was unusual that the descent of prophets should be given with such particularity, it has been assumed with some probability that Hezekiah was the king of that name; though in this case we should have expected the addition, 'King of Judah.' The chemarim are the idol priests; that is, priests devoted to idol worship. In 2 Kings 23:5, where the writer is speaking of the reformation under Josiah, the word is translated idolatrous priests; in Hosea 10:5, simply priests, which is its meaning in the Syriac language. Some have maintained that the invasion of Judah to which Zephaniah refers was that of the Scythians described by Herodotus; but this is very improbable. From the fact that the king's children are included in the threatened invasion — in the Hebrew, 'I will visit upon the princes and the king's children' — some have inferred that they must have been already grown and addicted to idolatrous practices; consequently, that Zephaniah wrote later than the eighteenth year of Josiah. But, as Keil and others have remarked, the mention of the king's children may have been added simply to indicate the universality of the approaching visitation; not to say that the prophetic vision of Zephaniah may have anticipated the sin and the punishment of these king's children, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim" (Barrows). In these verses we learn two things.
I. THE DISTINGUISHING CAPACITY OF MAN, AND THE WONDERFUL CONDESCENSION OF GOD.
1. The distinguishing capacity of man. What is that? To receive the word of Jehovah. "The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi," etc. This Zephaniah, who from the fulness of his genealogy here given, was perhaps a person of note, was, however, mainly distinguished by this — viz, that he received a word from Jehovah. What is it to receive a word from another? Not merely to hear it, to remember its sound, or to write it down, but to appreciate its meaning. This is the grand distinction of man as a mundane existence, it is not the reasoning principle that distinguishes man from other creatures on earth, for other creatures possess this in some degree; not the durability of his existence, for other creatures may live as long as he; but the capacity of taking in ideas from the Infinite Mind, to understand and realize God's thoughts. In a sense, there is a greater distance between me as a man and the most intelligent animal on this earth, than there is between me and my Maker. The highest animal cannot take in and understand my thoughts; but I can take in and understand the thoughts of my Maker. "The word of the Lord" comes to every man at times — comes in visions of the night, comes in the intuitions of conscience, comes in the impressions that nature makes on the heart.
2. The wonderful condescension of God. How amazing the condescension of God to speak to man! Many of the pour little wretched creatures who are called emperors and empresses would, perhaps, not deign to speak to paupers, to hold converse with them; but the "Lord, though he be high, yet hath respect unto the humble;.... Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, To that man will I look who is of a contrite heart."
II. THE MORAL CORRUPTION OF MAN, AND THE EXCLUSIVE PREROGATIVE OF GOD.
1. The moral corruption of man. There are three great moral evils indicated in these verses.
2. The exclusive prerogative of God. What is that? To destroy. "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord."
Zephaniah 1:7-18. - The day of war the day of horrors.
"Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord." These verses present a graphic and soul-stirring description of the horrid day of war which was about to dawn on the Hebrew land. It is called a "day of wrath," a "day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers." No more awful day than the day of war. It is a day when fiends are released from prison and let loose on earth, The war day is represented here —
I. AS A DAY OF ENORMOUS SACRIFICE. "Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice.".4. sacrifice!
1. It is an enormous sacrifice of life. Several classes are referred to here as the victims of this war.
(a) Unconspicuous. Pretty well all alike, they do not stand out in the country from the generality. War has no particular aim at them, though it strikes them indiscriminately; still, though unconspicuous, war will find them out. "I will search Jerusalem with candles."