Zephaniah 1:2-6
I will utterly consume
The sweep is deliberately total and runs backwards through creation, beasts, birds and fish, before narrowing to those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops.
People of the Bible
Zephaniah
Traced his own family back four generations to a king, and then announced the end of everything.
Zephaniah gives a longer genealogy than any other prophet, back to Hezekiah, and prophesies in the days of Josiah, which places him at or just before the great reform. The opening is total: I will utterly consume all things from off the land, man and beast, the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea. What follows is the day of the LORD described as darkness and gloominess, a day of the trumpet and alarm, in which neither silver nor gold shall be able to deliver them.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Zephaniah
- 01
- 02
Zephaniah 1:12
Settled on their lees
He will search Jerusalem with candles and punish the men who say in their heart that the LORD will not do good nor evil. The picture is wine left undisturbed until it thickens.
- 03
Zephaniah 2:1-3
Seek meekness
Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth, who have wrought his judgment. Seek righteousness, seek meekness, it may be you shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.
- 04
Zephaniah 3:14-20
He will rejoice over you with singing
The book ends on a reversal so complete that the judge becomes the one rejoicing. He will save, he will rest in his love, and he will joy over you with singing.
Why it matters
Zephaniah names the particular sin of a comfortable religious city: men settled on their lees who say in their heart that the LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil. The indifference is the charge. And then the book turns completely in its last paragraph, and the God who was the judge is described singing: he will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing, which is the only place in Scripture where God is said to sing.
6 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
