Zephaniah 25.7.10

O God, help us to listen to your Word with understanding, to receive it with faith, and to obey it with courage, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
One of the commentaries that I have starts off by stating that Zephaniah is today one of the least known of the Old Testament prophets, with that I can agree. It has been an interesting time trying to get under his skin; he has certainly succeeded in getting under mine! He hasn’t quite come to haunt me but keeps turning up when I least expect it, during the last week the preacher on Radio 4’s service last Sunday mentioned him and he was the biblical quote in the Times on Thursday to mention just two.
So who was he? At the end of the eighth century BC the prophetic tradition had reached a kind of peak in the distinguished ministries of men like Isaiah, our friend from last week Micah, Amos and Hosea. This was followed by a gap when little is known of any active prophetic ministry in the early part of the seventh century BC, until, Zephaniah appears like a phoenix from the ashes of the ancient tradition towards the end of the century. Many had thought that that the prophetic movement was dead, so his appearance must have been like a sign of hope, though his message contained little that was cheerful. He was a no-nonsense, all-business writer and speaker. He ushered in another great Hebrew prophetic era; he was closely followed in Judah by Jeremiah, Odadiah, Nahum and others.
He starts his book with a family tree, which again is unusual but enables us to place him accurately in history. He is not referred to in other biblical books, but Jesus alludes to him in Matthew’s gospel. He refers back to the days of Noah by saying that God will destroy the earth in order to deal with the wickedness of man. He uses different phrases to suggest a gathering of crops or in collecting troops by his use of the same verb. This gathering together will involve everything and will have a worldwide scope! Just as all creation has been corrupted since the Fall, so all creation would now be involved in the divine visitation: man, beasts of the land, birds of the air, and creatures of the sea. This would be universal judgement.
We can place this book in the mainstream of the prophetic tradition by the opening verse which says “the word of the Lord” as it came to Zephaniah. Zephaniah received a word, or divine oracles, which in turn he was responsible for communicating to his people. He made no attempt to warm up his audience with a certain amount of humour or pleasantries; he felt that the times and issues were so serious that he immediately launches into the hard facts he had to deliver from God.
The Kingdom of Judah was not a happy place when he ministered. For almost half a century they had been ruled by a corrupt King and his son. It had become little more than a colony of Assyria, but it was not just this that had made it an unhappy place; there was extensive penetration of national religion and culture by alien elements. The spiritual health that had been there was squandered and the ancient faith had been all but lost, absorbed into the invading paganism of Assyria. When Josiah succeeded to the throne he was only eight and hardly in a position to do anything, or even see that anything needed to be done. He went on to make extraordinary reformation in around 622 BC, but it is supposed that the early part of his reign remained much as it had been.
It was into this decadent society, politically servile and religiously corrupt, that Zephaniah ministered. The ancient faith of Judah was in serious danger of ending, and it was no time for half measures or cautious steps. The prophet spoke plainly and forcefully. God’s judgement is pronounced against Judah because her people “have not sought the Lord”. This is the basic problem addressed in the book that triggers the most urgent appeal in his thrice repeated invitation to “seek the Lord”. The key word is “seek”. His message is on two parts, on the one hand it is of total and devastating divine judgement, which could be universal in scope and four targets are named. First, God will ‘cut off all traces of Baal from this place’. The native Canaanite fertility gods and goddesses had been a troublesome affair ever since Israel set foot in Canaan. Their festivals of fertility, prostitution, and sexual orgies had constantly tempted the people of Israel. Secondly he would cut off ‘the names of idolatrous priests with the pagan priests’, thirdly the worship of astrological bodies originating in Mesopotamia had become popular and those who were worshipping and swearing oaths by both the Lord and Milcom.
Before he describes the day of the Lord he calls for silence in the presence of the Lord. Everyone must listen, the prophets used the command ‘be silent’ when the people were to show awe and respect, perhaps we should try it more often nowadays. I fear that many people today would not know how to show awe and respect it would be too challenging to their way of life. He proclaims that the day of the Lord is imminent just as four other prophets in three other centuries had. He can see both the events pending in the immediate future as they are linked with God’s action in the final day as being of one piece. But his vision of judgement is balanced by a more distant vision of hope. From the ruins of Judah’s destruction, he expects some of the chosen people to survive. Beyond his words of doom he sees a brighter, though distant, horizon.
The cleansing of God will completely remove the shame and the feeling of disgrace at the transgressions of the past. The new people of God will carry three marks: firstly meekness, the attitude that no one exalts themselves above God or another person, but bows one’s head in submission to the Lord. Secondly, humility, an attitude of genuine dependence on God as opposed to a self-satisfied indifference and bold assertion of one’s rights above everyone else’s; and thirdly trust in the name of the Lord, a decision to seek refuge in the character, works, and the truth of the living God.
So we may think that Zephaniah’s words were to those people of long ago, there is still a message for each one of us contained within those three chapters of his book. His passionate appeal to “seek the Lord” and his book ends with the postscript of joy that we heard read as the second section this evening. It has the character of a hymn or psalm such as were used in Israel’s great festivals, indeed part of his writing is used as a hymn and appears in the New English Hymnal, but is not one we sing much today.
The conclusion points to a central theme of the prophets, that the Hebrew’s religion was concerned with the relationship between god and his people. We are invited and encouraged to join in with the joy of a fulfilled relation with our God. To live a full life we need to be in that relationship with God and mysterious as it always must be, God’s life and joy are incomplete until he has sealed the relationship of love with all. At last God will dwell on earth in the midst of His people and joy will be unspeakably great.