Mining the Minors: Zephaniah (6)

The last verses of the previous chapter of Zephaniah contemplate the obliteration of the capital city of Assyria, Nineveh.

Much has been said in the writings of other prophets concerning the evils of the world’s biggest cosmopolitan center in that day. Through Zephaniah, God singles out the sin of self-confidence, though the rulers of Nineveh had plenty more than that for which to account. Nineveh put its trust in a natural moat, rivers that surrounded it on three sides and forced attackers to approach it from the west. Its inhabitants said to themselves, “I am, and there is no one else”, because they could not imagine anyone more powerful than they were.

But of course there was. There was always God. Nineveh fell to the Chaldeans in 612 BC, as the Hebrew prophets foretold, and it was the Lord who gave Nebuchadnezzar his victory over them.

The Bible’s chapter divisions are generally chosen with a fair bit of sensitivity to changes of subject. This one is a little unfortunate, because I suspect the Lord was using his critique of a pagan city to lead into his final condemnation of Jerusalem, the place where he had set his own name. Nineveh would fall, and 26 years later so would the dwelling place of God. There is a comparison to be made between the two great cities that gets lost when you read the chapters separately.

Zephaniah 3:1-2 — Unteachable Jerusalem

“Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city! She listens to no voice; she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord; she does not draw near to her God.”

This is the second “woe” of Zephaniah. The first is back in 2:5, at the beginning of fifteen straight verses about the judgment of various pagan nations. This one marks the fourth switch in the object of God’s judgment, as YHWH zeroes in on the most culpable nation of all: the one that has had his revealed word for more than 800 years, and has obdurately refused to hear it.

All Judah had fallen into deep spiritual decline, but Jerusalem epitomized the problem. If Nineveh had overconfidence issues, so did Jerusalem, and even more so because the Lord had given his people so much patient instruction and so many unheeded prophetic warnings. Nineveh was oblivious to God, while Jerusalem deliberately refused to hear him at all. “She listens to no voice; she accepts no correction.”

YHWH was never Nineveh’s God; he was Judah’s. The best deal Nineveh ever got was a visit from the reluctant Jonah to delay her judgment for a century because God is compassionate and longsuffering. But Jerusalem, the “oppressing city”, added to her sins by refusing to trust in and draw near to the God who had set her apart from all the cities of world by making Jerusalem his place of residence on earth, and giving Israel his law so they would understand his desires for them.

Zephaniah 3:3-5 — Wrong with God, Wrong with Man

“Her officials within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning. Her prophets are fickle, treacherous men; her priests profane what is holy; they do violence to the law. The Lord within her is righteous; he does no injustice; every morning he shows forth his justice; each dawn he does not fail; but the unjust knows no shame.”

Authorities Akilter

The Hebrew word translated “officials” is a generic word for authority figures at many levels that is often translated “princes”. It is likely intended to refer to the highest authorities in the nation under the king himself, but would also include every man in the Judean bureaucracy. Everybody in these positions of trust was a “roaring lion”, a threat to the common man and someone who abused the office with which he had been entrusted.

Judah’s moral failings were comprehensive. Every significant office in the nation had become compromised and corrupted: officials, judges, prophets and priests. When you went to the secular authorities, there was no justice to be had. You were dealing with predators. When you went to the men who were supposed to speak for God, they told lies and betrayed their office.

A Righteous God

In contrast, Zephaniah writes, “The Lord within her [Jerusalem] is righteous.” God was the one exception, the single authority to whom the oppressed in Judea could flee. “He does no injustice; every morning he shows forth his justice; each dawn he does not fail.” That is our God. When all the authorities to whom men would normally appeal have shown themselves bankrupt, God can be trusted to hear the voice of the persecuted and downtrodden.

Here we see the consequences of a godless worldview. Remove the correction and judgment of God from the picture, and men will walk all over each other to get what they want. This is why there is no hope for the collectivist ideology. Someone always has to administer it, which gives them the opportunity to take advantage of others. And without a keen awareness that their position of responsibility is merely a single notch in a hierarchy of authority ending at the top with God, they will never feel the sense of accountability necessary to seek justice and grant it to those in need of it.

Zephaniah 3:6-7 — You Have Been Warned!

“I have cut off nations; their battlements are in ruins; I have laid waste their streets so that no one walks in them; their cities have been made desolate, without a man, without an inhabitant. I said, ‘Surely you will fear me; you will accept correction. Then your dwelling would not be cut off according to all that I have appointed against you.’ But all the more they were eager to make all their deeds corrupt.”

This is a callback to the last few verses of chapter 2. Philistia, Ammon, Moab, Cush and Assyria would all eventually be judged, or had already been by the time Judah reached its last days. God can say, “I have cut off nations.” The citizens of Jerusalem could look around them and see it. If they didn’t pay attention to that, they could look north to the fate of the ten tribes of Israel. History tells the attentive this is what God does when wickedness has reached a point that it cannot be allowed to continue.

All these judgments were lessons for Judah. They took place in order to convince the people of God to humble themselves in order that they not face the same experiences as their neighbors. Regrettably, the lesson was never learned.