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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Z E P H A N I A H.
CHAP. I.
After the title of the book
(ver. 1)
here is,
I. A threatening of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, an utter
destruction, by the Chaldeans,
II. A charge against them for their gross sin, which provoked God to
bring that destruction upon them
(ver. 5, 6);
and so he goes on in the
rest of the chapter, setting both the judgments before them, that they
might prevent them or prepare for them, and the sins that destroy them,
that they might judge themselves, and justify God in what was brought
upon them.
1. They must hold their peace because they had greatly sinned,
But,
2, They shall howl because the trouble will be great. The day of
the Lord is near, and it will be a terrible day,
Such fair and timely warning as this did God give to the Jews of the
approaching captivity; but they hardened their neck, which made their
destruction remediless.
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1 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 Amon, king of Judah.
2 I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith
the LORD.
3 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.
4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all
the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of
Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the
priests;
5 And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops;
and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that
swear by Malcham;
6 And them that are turned back from the LORD; and those that
have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for him.
Here is,
I. The title-page of this book
(v. 1),
in which we observe,
1. What authority it has, and who gave it that authority; it is from
heaven, and not of men: It is the word of the Lord.
2. Who was the instrument of conveying it to the church. His name was
Zephaniah, which signifies the servant of the Lord, for God
revealed his secrets to his servants the prophets. The pedigree
of other prophets, whose extraction we have an account of, goes no
further back than their father, except Zecharias, whose grandfather
also is named. But this of Zephaniah goes back four generations, and
the highest mentioned is Hizkiah; it is the very same name in
the original with that of Hezekiah king of Judah
and refers probably to him; if so, our prophet, being lineally
descended from that pious prince, and being of the royal family, could
with the better grace reprove the folly of the king’s children as he
does,
v. 8.
3. When this prophet prophesied–in the days of Josiah king of
Judah, who reigned well, and in the twelfth year of his reign began
vigorously, and carried on a work of reformation, in which he destroyed
idols and idolatry. Now it does not appear whether Zephaniah prophesied
in the beginning of his reign; if so, we may suppose his prophesying
had a great and good influence on that reformation. When he, as God’s
messenger, reproved the idolatries of Jerusalem, Josiah, as God’s
vice-gerent, removed them; and reformation is likely to go on and
prosper when both magistrates and ministers do their part towards it.
If it were towards the latter end of his reign that he prophesied, we
sadly see how a corrupt people relapse into their former distempers.
The idolatries Josiah had abolished, it should seem, returned in his
own time, when the heat of the reformation began a little to abate and
wear off. What good can the best reformers do with a people that hate
to be reformed, as if they longed to be ruined?
II. The summary, or contents, of this book. The general proposition
contained in it is, That utter destruction is coming apace upon Judah
and Jerusalem for sin. Without preamble, or apology, he begins abruptly
(v. 2):
By taking away I will make an end of all things from off the face of
the land, Saith the Lord. Ruin is coming, utter ruin, destruction
from the Almighty. He has said it who can, and will, make good what he
has said: “I will utterly consume all things. I will
gather all things” (so some); “I will recall all the blessings I
have bestowed, because they have abused them and so forfeited them.”
The consumption determined shall take away,
1. The inferior creatures: I will consume the beasts, the fowls of
the heaven, and the fishes of the sea
(v. 3),
as, in the deluge, every living substance was destroyed that was
upon the face of the ground,
Gen. vii. 23.
The creatures were made for man’s use, and therefore when he has
perverted the use of them, and made them subject to vanity, God,
to show the greatness of his displeasure against the sin of man,
involves them in his punishment. The expressions are figurative,
denoting universal desolation. Those that fly ever so high, as the
fowls of heaven, and think themselves out of the reach of the enemies’
hand–those that hide ever so close, as the fishes of the sea, and
think themselves out of the reach of the enemies’ eye–shall yet become
a prey to them, and be utterly consumed.
2. The children of men: “I will consume man; I will cut off man from
the land. The land shall be dispeopled and left uninhabited; I will
destroy, not only Israel, but man. The land shall enjoy her
sabbaths. I will cut off, not only the wicked men, but all men; even
the few among them that are good shall be involved in this common
calamity. Though they shall not be cut off from the Lord, yet they
shall be cut off from the land.” It is with Judah and Jerusalem
that God has this quarrel, both city and country, and upon them he will
stretch out his hand, the hand of his power, the hand of his
wrath; and who knows the power of his anger?
v. 4.
Those that will not humble themselves under God’s mighty hand shall be
humbled and brought down by it. Note, Even Judah, where God is known,
and Jerusalem, where his dwelling-place is, if they revolt from him and
rebel against him, shall have his hand stretched out against them.
3. All wicked people, and all those things that are the matter of
their wickedness
(v. 3):
“I will consume the stumbling-blocks with the wicked, the idols
with the idolaters, the offences with the offenders.” Josiah had taken
away the stumbling-blocks, and, as far as he could, had purged the land
of the monuments of idolatry, hoping that there would be no more
idolatry; but the wicked will do wickedly, the dog will return
to his vomit, and therefore, since the sin will not otherwise be cured,
the sinners must themselves be consumed, even the wicked with the
stumbling-blocks of their iniquity,
Since it was not done by the sword of justice, it shall be done by the
sword of war. See who the sinners are that shall be consumed.
(1.) The professed idolaters, who avowed idolatry, and were wedded to
it. The remnant of Baal shall be cut off, the images of
Baal, and the worshippers of those images. Josiah cut off a great deal
of Baal; but that which was so close as to escape the eye, or so bold
as to escape the hand, of his justice, God will cut off, even all the
remains of it. The Chaldeans would spare none of the images of Baal,
or the worshippers of those images. The Chemarim shall be cut
off; we read of them in the history of Josiah’s reformation.
He put down the idolatrous priests: the word is the
Chemarim. The word signifies black men, some think
because they wore black clothes, affecting to appear grave, others
because their faces were black with attending the altars, or the fires
in which they burnt their children to Moloch. They seem to have been
immediate attendants upon the service of Baal. They shall be cut off
with the priests, the regulars with the seculars. The very name of
them shall be cut off; the order shall be quite abolished, so as to be
forgotten, or remembered with detestation. And, among other idolaters,
the worshippers of the host of heaven upon the house-tops shall
be cut off
(v. 5),
who justified themselves in their idolatry with those that did not
worship images, the work of their own hands, but offered their
sacrifices and burnt their incense to the sun, moon, and stars,
immediately upon the tops of their houses. But God will let them know
that he is a jealous God, and will not endure any rival; and, though
some have thought that the most specious and plausible idolatry, yet it
will appear as great an offence to God to give divine honours to a star
as to give them to a stone or a stock. Even the worshippers of the
host of heaven shall be consumed as well as the worshippers of the
beasts of the earth or the fiends of hell. The sin of the adulteress is
not the less sinful for the gaiety of the adulterer.
(2.) Those also shall be consumed that think to compound the matter
between God and idols, and keep an even hand between them, that halt
between God and Baal, and worship between Jehovah and Moloch, and
swear by both; or, as it might better be read, swear to the
Lord and to Malcham. They bind themselves by oath and covenant to
the service both of God and idols. They have a good opinion of the
worship of the God of Israel; it is the religion of their country, and
has been long so, and therefore they will by no means quit it; but they
think it will be very much improved and beautified if they join with it
the worship of Moloch, for that also is much used in other countries,
and travellers admire it; there is a great deal of good fancy and
strong flame in it. They cannot keep always to the worship of a God
whom they have no visible representation of, and therefore they must
have an image; and what better than the image of Moloch–a king?
They think they shall effectually atone for their sin if they swear
to Moloch, and, pursuant to that oath, burn their children in
sacrifice to that idol; and yet, if they do amiss in that, they hope to
atone for it in worshipping the God of Israel too. Note, Those that
think to divide their affections and adorations between God and idols
will not only come short of acceptance with God, but will have their
doom with the worst of idolaters; for what communion can there be
between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, God and mammon? She
whose own the child is not pleads for the dividing of it, for, if Satan
have half, he will have all; but the true mother says, Divide it
not, for, if God have but half, he will have none. Such waters will
not be long sweet, if they come from a fountain that sends forth bitter
water too; what have those to do to swear by the Lord that swear by
Malcham?
(3.) Those also shall be consumed that have apostatized from God,
together with those that never gave up their names to him,
v. 6.
I will cut off,
[1.] Those that are turned back from the Lord, that were well
taught, and began well, that had given up their names to him, and set
out at first in the worship of him, but have flown off, and turned
aside, and fallen in with idolaters, and deserted those good ways of
God which they were brought up in, and despised them. Those God will be
sure to reckon with who are renegadoes from his service, who began in
the Spirit and ended in the flesh; they shall be treated as deserters,
to whom no mercy is shown.
[2.] Those that have not sought the Lord, nor ever enquired
for him, never made any profession of religion, and think to excuse
themselves with that, shall find that this will not excuse them; nay,
this is the thing laid to their charge; they are atheistical careless
people, that live without God in the world; and those that do so
are certainly unworthy to live upon God in the world.
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7 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,
he hath bid his guests.
8 And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD‘s sacrifice,
that I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all
such as are clothed with strange apparel.
9 In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the
threshold, which fill their masters’ houses with violence and
deceit.
10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that
there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an
howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills.
11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people
are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.
12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search
Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on
their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good,
neither will he do evil.
13 Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses
a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit
them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine
thereof.
Notice is here given to Judah and Jerusalem that God is coming forth
against them, and will be with them shortly; his presence, as a
just avenger, his day, the day of his judgment and his wrath,
are not far off,
v. 7.
Those that improve not the presence of God with them as a Father, but
sin away that presence, may expect his presence with them as a Judge,
to call them to an account for the contempt put upon his grace. The
day of the Lord will come. Men have their day now, when they
take a liberty to do what they please; but God’s day is at hand;
it is here called his sacrifice, a sacrifice of his preparing,
for the punishing of presumptuous sinners is a sacrifice to the justice
of God, some reparation to his injured honour. Those that brought
their offerings to other gods were themselves justly made victims to
the true God. On a day of sacrifice great slaughter was made; so shall
there be in Jerusalem; men shall be killed up as fast as lambs for the
altar, with as little regret, with as much pleasure: The slain of
the Lord shall be many. On a day of sacrifice great feasts were
made upon the sacrifices; so the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem
shall be feasted upon by their enemies the Chaldeans; these are the
guests God has prepared and invited to come and glut themselves–their
revenge with slaughter and their covetousness with plunder. Now
observe,
I. Who those are that are marked to be sacrificed, that shall be
visited and punished in this day of reckoning, and what it is they
shall be called to an account for.
1. The royal family, because of the dignity of their place, shall be
first reckoned with for their pride, and vanity, and affectation
(v. 8):
I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, who think
themselves accountable to God, and that, high as they are, he is above
them. They shall be punished, and all such as, like them, are clothed
with strange apparel, such as, in contempt of their own country
(where, probably, it was the custom to go in a very plain dress, as
became the seed of Jacob that plain man), affected to appear in
the fashion of other nations and introduced their modes in apparel,
studying to resemble those from whom God had appointed them, even in
their clothes, industriously to distinguish themselves. The princes
and the king’s children scorned to wear any home-made stuffs,
though God had provided them fine linen and silks
but they must send abroad to strange countries for their clothes, which
would not please unless they were far-fetched and dear-bought; and even
those of inferior rank affected to imitate the princes and the king’s
children. Pride in apparel is displeasing to God, and a symptom of the
degeneracy of a people.
2. The noblemen, and their stewards and servants, come next to be
reckoned with
(v. 9):
In the same day will I punish those that leap on the threshold,
a phrase, no doubt, well understood then, and which probably signified
the invading of their neighbour’s rights. Entering their houses by
force and violence, and seizing their possessions, they leap on the
threshold, as much as to say that the house is their own and they
will keep their hold of it; and, accordingly, they make all in it their
own that they can lay their hands on, and so fill their masters’
houses with goods gotten by violence and deceit and with all
the guilt thereby contracted. Nor shall it suffice them to say that the
ill-gotten gains were not for themselves but for their masters, and
that what they did was by their order; for the obligations we lie under
to keep God’s commandments are prior and superior to the obligations we
lie under to serve the interests of any master on earth.
3. The trading people, and the rich merchants, are next called to
account. Iniquity is found in their end of the town, among the
inhabitants of Maktesh, a low part of Jerusalem, deep like a mortar
(for so the word signifies); the goldsmiths lived there
and the merchants; and they are now cut down (they are broken,
and have shut up their shops, and become bankrupts); nay, All those
that bear silver are cut off, in the first place, by the invaders,
for the sake of the silver they carry, which is so far from being a
protection to them that it will expose and betray them. The conquerors
aimed at the wealthy men, and carried them off first, while the poor
of the land escaped. Or it may be meant of a general decay of
trade, which was a preface and introduction to the general destruction
of the land. It is the token of a declining state when great dealers
are cut down, and great bankers are cut off and become bankrupts, who
cannot fall alone, but with themselves ruin many.
4. All the secure and careless people, the sons of pleasure, that live
a loose idle life, are next reckoned with
(v. 12);
they come from all parts of the country, to take up their quarters in
the head-quarters of the kingdom, where they take private lodgings, and
indulge themselves in ease and luxury; but God will find them out, and
punish them: At that time I will search Jerusalem with candles,
to discover them, that they may be brought out to condign punishment.
This intimates that they conceal themselves, as being either ashamed of
the sin or afraid of the punishment of it; when the judgments of God
are abroad they hope to escape by absconding and getting out of the
way, but God will search Jerusalem, as search is made for a
malefactor in disguise, that is harboured by his accomplices. God’s
hand will find out all his enemies, wherever they lie hid, and
will punish not only the secret idolaters, but the secret epicures and
profane; and those are the persons that are here described, and marks
are given by which they will be discovered when strict search is made
for them.
(1.) Their dispositions are sensual: They are settled on their
lees, intoxicated with their pleasures, strengthening themselves in
their wealth and wickedness; they are secure and easy, and, because
they have had no changes, they fear none, as Moab,
They have not been emptied from vessel to vessel. They fill
themselves with wine and strong drink, and banish all thought,
saying, To-morrow shall be as this day,
Isa. lvi. 12.
Their being settled on their lees signifies the same with being
enclosed in their own fat,
Ps. xvii. 10.
(2.) Their notions are atheistical. They could not live such loose
lives but that they say in their heart, The Lord will not do good,
neither will he do evil; that is, He will do nothing. They
deny his providential government of the world: “What good and evil
there is in the world comes by the wheel of fortune, and not by the
disposal of a wise and supreme director.” They deny his moral
government, and his dispensing rewards and punishments: “The Lord
will not do good to those that serve him, nor do evil to
those that rebel against him; and therefore there is nothing got by
religion, nor lost by sin.” This was the effect of their sensuality; if
they were not drowned in sense, they could not be thus senseless, nor
could they be so stupid if they had not stupefied themselves with the
love of pleasure. It was also the cause of their sensuality; men would
not make a god of their belly if they had not at first become so vain,
so vile, in their imaginations, as to think the God that made them
altogether such a one as themselves. But God will punish
them; their end is destruction,
Phil. iii. 19.
II. What the destruction will be with which God will punish these
sinners, and what course he will take with them.
1. He will silence them
(v. 7):
Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord. He will force them
to hold their peace, will strike them dumb with horror and amazement.
They shall be speechless. All the excuses of their sin, and exceptions
against the sentence, will be overruled, and they shall not have a word
to say for themselves.
2. He will sacrifice them, for it is the day of the Lord’s
sacrifice
(v. 8);
he will give them into the hands of their enemies, and glorify himself
thereby.
3. He will fill both city and country with lamentation
(v. 10):
In that day there shall be a noise of a cry from the fish-gate,
so called because near either to the fish-ponds or to the fish-market.
It belonged to the city of David
(2 Chron. xxxiii. 14; Neh. iii. 3);
perhaps the same with that which is called the first gate
and, if so, it will explain what follows here, And a howling from
the second, that is, the second gate, which was next to that
fish-gate. The alarm shall go round the walls of Jerusalem from
gate to gate; and there shall be a great crashing from the
hills, a mighty noise from the mountains round about Jerusalem,
from the acclamations of the victorious invaders, or from the
lamentations of the timorous invaded, or from both. The inhabitants of
the city, even of the closest safest part of the city, shall
howl
(v. 11),
so clamorous shall the grief be.
4. They shall be stripped of all they have; it shall be a prey to the
enemy
(v. 13):
Their household goods, and shop-goods, shall become a
booty, and a rich booty they shall be; their houses shall be
levelled with the ground and be a desolation; those of them that
have built new houses shall not inherit them, but the
invaders shall get and keep possession of them. And the
vineyards they have planted they shall not drink the wine
of, but, instead of having it for the relief of their friends that
faint among them, they shall part with it for the animating of their
foes that fight against them,
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14 The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and
hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the
mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
15 That day is 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,
16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities,
and against the high towers.
17 And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk
like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and
their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the
dung.
18 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 even a
speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
Nothing could be expressed with more spirit and life, nor in words more
proper to startle and awaken a secure and careless people, than the
warning here given to Judah and Jerusalem of the approaching
destruction by the Chaldeans. That is enough to make the sinners in
Zion tremble–that it is the day of the Lord, the day in which he
will manifest himself by taking vengeance on them. It is the great
day of the Lord, a specimen of the day of judgment, a kind of
doom’s-day, as the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is
represented to be in our Saviour’s prediction concerning it,
I. This day of the Lord is here spoken of as very near. The
vision is not for a great while to come, as those imagine who
put the evil day far from them. Those deceive themselves who
look upon it as a thing at a distance, for it is near–it is near–it
hastens greatly. The prophet gives the alarm like one that is in
earnest, like one that awakens a family with the cry of Fire!
fire! when it is at the next door that the danger is: “It is
near! it is near! and therefore it is high time to bestir
yourselves, and do what you can for your own safety before it be too
late.” It is madness for those to slumber whose damnation slumbers
not, and to linger when it hastens.
II. It is spoken of as a very dreadful day. The very voice of
this day of the Lord, the noise of it, when it is coming, shall
be so terrible as to make the mighty men cry there bitterly, cry
for fear as children do. It shall be a vexation to hear the
report of it. In the last great day of the Lord the mighty men
shall cry bitterly to rocks and mountains to shelter them; but in vain.
Observe how emphatically the prophet speaks of this day approaching
(v. 15):
It is a day of wrath, God’s wrath, wrath in perfection, wrath to
the utmost. It will be a day of trouble and distress to the
sinners; they shall be in pain, and shall see no ways of easing or
helping themselves. The miseries of the damned are summed up (perhaps
with reference to this) in the indignation and wrath of God,
which are the cause, and the tribulation and anguish of the
sinner’s soul, which are the effect,
It will be a day of trouble and distress to the inhabitants, and
a day of wasteness and desolation to the whole land; that
fruitful land shall be turned into a wilderness. It shall be a day
of darkness and gloominess; every thing shall look dismal, and
there shall not be the least gleam of comfort, or glimpse of hope; look
round, and it is all black. It is a day of clouds and thick
darkness; there is not only nothing encouraging, but every thing
threatening; the thick clouds are big with storms and tempests.
III. It is spoken of as a destroying day,
It shall be destroying,
1. To places, even the strongest and best fortified: A day of the
trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, to break into them,
and against the high towers, to bring them down; for what forts,
what fences, can hold out against the wrath of God?
2. To persons
(v. 17):
“I will bring distress upon men, the strongest and stoutest of
men; their hearts and hands shall fail them; they shall walk like
blind men, wandering endlessly, because they have sinned against
the Lord.” Note, Those that walk as bad men will justly be left to
walk as blind men, always in the dark, in doubt and danger, without any
guide or comfort, and falling at length into the ditch. Because they
have sinned against the Lord he will deliver them into the hands
of cruel enemies, that shall pour out their blood as dust, so
profusely, and with as little regret, and their flesh shall be
thrown as dung upon the dunghill.
IV. The destruction of that day will be unavoidable and universal,
1. There shall be no escaping it by ransom: Neither their silver nor
their gold, which they have hoarded up so covetously against the
evil day, or which they have spent so prodigally to make friends for
such a time, shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s
wrath. Another prophet borrowed these words from this, with
reference to the same event,
Note, Riches profit not in the day of wrath,
Nay, riches expose to the wrath of men
(Eccl. v. 13.),
and riches abused to the wrath of God.
2. There shall be no escaping it by flight or concealment; for the
whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, and
where then can a hiding-place be found? See what the fire of God’s
jealousy is, and what the force of it; it will devour whole lands; how
then can particular persons stand before it? He shall make riddance,
a speedy riddance, of all those that dwell in the land, as the
husbandman, when he rids his ground, cuts up all the briers and thorns
for the fire. Note, Sometimes the judgments of God make riddance, even
utter riddance, with sinful nations, a speedy riddance; their
destruction is effected, is completed, in a little time. Let not
sinners be laid asleep by the patience of God, for when the measure of
their iniquity is full his justice will both overtake and overcome,
will make quick work and thorough work.
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