Zephaniah is another vivid little book of prophecy that moves from despair to hope. We know little its author except that his oracles are addressed to the southern kingdom of Judah—the northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed-- during the reign of King Josiah (640-609 B.C.). It was written—perhaps a better word would be "revealed"--before Josiah began the celebrated reforms that would make him, together with king Hezekiah, one of the two great saintly heroes of the period of the Divided Kingdom. We are given a little of the prophet's family history. The name of his father—"Cushi" (1:1) or "son of Cush" –is a non-Israelite name and may indicate that he is foreigner, perhaps from ancient Cush—Ethiopia. And the land of Ethiopia appears in the prophet's writing in several interesting contexts, as we shall we.
But the prophet's focus of concern centers upon the tiny kingdom of Judah, and he portrays a nation in trouble--sunk deeply in "violence and fraud" and larded with idolatry. In fact, things have gone so far that God even contemplates undoing creation, utterly sweeping "away everything from the face of the earth" (1:2), as he did in the time of Noah—see Genesis 7:21-23. Only this time the destruction will come by fire and not by water. The particular objects of the LORD's wrath are the "idolatrous priests" (1:4), who practice and teach a syncretism that combines the worship of the God of Israel with the Canaanite fertility god Baal and the "host of heaven"—those astral deities—the moon and the stars--widely worshipped in the ancient Near East, especially in Babylon. The people—both lay and clergy-- do not seek the LORD, and instead bow down and swear equally by Milcom—which is another name for the evil Ammonite god Molech, who routinely demanded child sacrifice of his followers.
Alone and weighted with guilt, Judah now faces the dark and terrible "day of the LORD," which is now at hand (1:7). The LORD has prepared a sacrifice and "consecrated his guests"—this one is by invitation, and only the worthy may appear. But "the officials and the king's sons and all who dress themselves in foreign attire" (1:8) will be excluded. The problem is not so much with their mode of dress, but with the accommodation with alien ideas and pagan deities it implies.
"On that day"—the day of the LORD-- the neighborhoods of Jerusalem—Zephaniah mentions the "Fish Gate, the Second Quarter, the Mortar" --will cry and wail because commerce has ceased. God will search the districts of the city "with lamps," looking for those who say that "the LORD will not do good, nor will he do harm" (1:12), and live out their agnosticism in lives of moral complacency. They will see their hoarded wealth plundered. They will not enjoy the good things they have worked and sacrificed for in the Promised Land; they are doomed to lives of emptiness and frustration as exiles in a strange country (1:13).
Zephaniah sees the day of the LORD approaching quickly and the sound of it "is bitter" (1:14)—it is a day of wrath and anguish, a day of invasion and siege and exile. For people spoiled by luxury and unprepared it will be day of stunned suffering, a day in which the anger of a righteous God will be poured out upon all humanity. Creation is a gift—not a given. The day of the LORD stands as a possibility at every moment. Human history is in constant jeopardy; at any time "the fire of [the LORD's] passion" may break out "and the whole earth . . . be consumed" (1:18). The God who creates can also un-create, and make "a full, a terrible end" of all his works.
Everything is contingent upon the will of God. And in awareness of this, a "shameless nation," under the LORD's judgment, is called upon to "gather" and seek the LORD" before "the day of his wrath." If its people "seek righteousness, seek humility" perhaps the fury to come will pass over them (2:3) and they will be saved. Otherwise Judah will suffer that same fate that awaits their traditional enemies, and Zephaniah gives a laundry list of those. "The word of the LORD is against" the Philistines and Cherethites, Sea Peoples who lived in what is now called the Gaza Strip. They will be utterly decimated (2:4-5) and their empty lands will provide pasture for a restored "house of Judah" (2:7). Moabites and Ammonites likewise, nations that have taunted the people of Israel, shall be treated like Sodom and Gomorrah, their lands will be a poisoned waste forever. Their wealth will be plundered, and their gods shriveled by the furious heat of the LORD's anger (2:10-11).
Ethiopians—the biblical land of Cush--shall also suffer on the day of the LORD, though we are not told exactly why. Judeans during this period seem to have had close relations with that exotic land, which lay to the south of Egypt, and some of them took refuge there in times of danger. Zechariah himself may have had Ethiopian family connections on his father's side (1:1 and 3:10).
Assyria is also in line for destruction. We already know something of the fall of Assyria and its capital of Nineveh from the writings of the prophet Nahum. Zechariah predicts what Nahum celebrates—the day when the LORD will "make Nineveh a desolation" (2:13). This prophecy is fulfilled when the city falls to the Medes and Babylonians in 612 B.C., and the "exultant city that lived secure" (2:15) did indeed become "a lair for wild animals."
But Zephaniah reserves his most elaborate condemnation for the holy city of Jerusalem itself—the "soiled, defiled, oppressing city" (3:1), as the prophet calls it. Unashamed and unreformed, "it has not trusted in the LORD; it has not drawn near to its God" (3:2), but remains unrepentant. "The LORD within it is righteous" (3:5), but everyone else is corrupt. Its officials are predatory; the prophets attached to the temple have proved themselves "reckless, faithless persons" (3:4); its priests tolerate of idolatry and violate the Law of Moses. All are secure in the promise to David that the city will be protected by the LORD.
But God has destroyed other greater cities and mightier nations and made them desolate. Their example should by rights make the citizens of Jerusalem more ready to "accept correction." But these examples have not improved them--in fact its inhabitants seem even "more eager to make all their deeds corrupt" (3:7) than ever.
Again the prophet finds himself in the cosmic courtroom—"wait for me, says the LORD, for the day when I arise as a witness" (3:8). His testimony cannot be controverted and his verdict is already in—only the sentence waits to be carried out. "In the fire of my passion all the earth shall be consumed" (3:8), says the LORD. But this is not the end; from this fire will come a new creation in which the "speech of the peoples" will be changed "to a pure speech," so that they may "call on the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord" (3:9). In this restoration the LORD's "suppliants," his "scattered ones" from the furthest corners of the earth will bring offerings; "from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia" (Cush) they will come to Jerusalem to worship (3:10).
From these suppliants, a new nation shall emerge, "humble and lowly" (3:12) and purged of the "proudly exultant ones." This new Israel shall "no longer be haughty in [the LORD's] holy mountain (3:11). And out of this "remnant" the LORD will fashion a new humanity who shall "utter no lies" and no "deceit" shall "be found in their mouths" (3:13). They shall live in integrity, and the LORD, the Good Shepherd, will pasture and protect them so that "no one shall make them afraid" (3:13).
So in the end the kingdom of God shall be established in history, not beyond it. The wicked shall perish and the righteous shall live in peace in a Promised Land restored and enlarged. So the Book of Zechariah reaches its happy conclusion, not in the Jerusalem that is, but in the Jerusalem to come. There the LORD will take control as "king of Israel," and the city will "fear disaster no more" (3:15). God "the warrior who gives victory" will renew his love of the city and share with it his glory. He will establish justice there, dealing "with all [the people's] oppressors" (3:19), both indigenous and foreign. Those who have been marginalized by custom and religious law will be gathered into a new community, marked by mercy and equality. The LORD will "save the lame and gather the outcast" (3:19), transforming their shame into praise. When the LORD steps in to "restore [the] fortunes" (3:20) of Judah and Jerusalem, those who once were scattered throughout the earth will be brought back to the Promised Land in a new and glorious Exodus, and the LORD will make Israel again "renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth" (3:20).
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