Zephaniah: day of ruin and desolation.

by Alejandro Roque Glez.

“That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation… Therefore wait you on me, said the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour on them my indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.”

(Zephaniah 1:14-18; 2:1-3; 3:8-15, 20)

The prophet Zephaniah ministered around the years 639-608 BC in times when Josiah reigned over the Kingdom of Judah. His name means ‘protected’ and he was a member of the Levitical priestly tribe (1 Chron 6:36-38). He met the prophet Jeremiah, who personally asked him to pray to God for the fate of the Jews and Jerusalem (Jer 21:1, 37:3). Both prophets faced the difficult task of telling the people––without fear or any consideration––to better chose the path of repentance achieving salvation, or certainly they would not escape the divine judgments unless showing humility.

That is why the prophet, facing Israel and raising his gaze into the world, he admonishes them: “Seek you the Lord Yahweh, all you meek of the earth, which have worked his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be you shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger” (2:3). This is where the Holy Spirit of God makes him to lift up his prophetic eyes toward the End of Time––now close to us––stating how the nations of the world would one day be gathered for war. It is the world war we have been discussing.

The prophet preached against ignorance, superstitions, and idolatries in Israel, all of which included bloody pagan cults, and their devilish priests. Hence announcing the wrath of God for such manifested impiety: “I will also stretch out my hand on Judah, and on 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” (1:4). For a while the anger was abated thanks to king Josiah who personally sought God in his heart and sincerely reformed the kingdom, making a temporary cleaning of many evils and superstitions; however, once he was dead, the judgment was swift, and in just a few years Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was commissioned to fulfill the prophecy, destroying the city and the Temple, and taking the people captive.

All the prophets of God foretold through history this Final Judgment we are reading here directly from the Creator: “The great day of the Lord… the mighty man shall cry there bitterly… a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess” (1:14-15). It is the day of the trumpet (1 Thess 4:16) and alarm (1:16); much tribulation on humans who willingly blind to the revealed truth of God, his Word and Verb; had chosen instead the path of denial and insolence (1:17). It will be seen blazing fire in his heat and zeal (2 Pet 3:10), because certainly hasty consummation shall fall upon the inhabitants of the earth (1:18).

This is the Son of God prophesied since Creation, when God foretells to Eve about who would crush the devil on his own head (Gn 3:15). It is the Anointed foretold by Moses when Yahweh assured him that: “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brothers, like to you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” (Dt 18:18-19). It is interesting how once God said these words to the law giver Moses, is then when we see first time the name of Jesus coming into human history.

Because yes, dear reader, until then it had not been previously revealed the name of the Savior in our earthly environment, and that is why Moses changed the name of his chief general, from Hosea to Jesus––Yeshua (Joshua)––and chooses him (Nm 13:9, 17) as a substitute in charge of the conquest against the canaanites and towns around the area consumed in bloody atrocities and idolatrous injustices. He would then be responsible for entering the people of God into the promised land, becoming a symbol of the Savior, who would establish himself in Jerusalem (Is 2:1-3) and bring a given day––now very close––his flock to that land reserved since Creation. Is not this in itself a great revelation and miracle? Know as an interesting note that the book we know today in our Bibles as ‘Joshua’ was called in the Hebrew Canon ‘Josoue-ben-noum’ meaning ‘Jesus son of Nave.’

Here, in this prophecy the prophet Zephaniah did not forget to announce the blessed restitution following the Third World War. That time will give way to the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ. God then will return to the nations clean lips for all of them to invoke him in a worldwide consent (3:9). From ‘that day’the Jewish people will throw away their pride and arrogance and shall be converted to the ways of our Lord (3:11-13). “Sing… Sion…Jerusalem… Yahweh has taken away your judgments, he has cast out your enemy: the king… the Lord, is in the middle of you” (Mt 19:28); never to see evil again (3:14-15).

(What will be life on our planet once the Lord fulfills the promise of his coming? If interested you can read it in the form of a literary narrative recreated in the author's book entitled: 'The King Victorino'). Read also the author's book entitled: 'The Great Peacemaker from Hell.'

[These and other New Testament prophecies are explicatively compiled in the author's book entitled: 'Minor Prophets of the Old Testament;' in print and digital editions]

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