Zephaniah 3:14

3:14-20 After the promises of taking away sin, follow promises of taking away trouble. When the cause is removed, the effect will cease. What makes a people holy, will make them happy. The precious promises made to the purified people, were to have full accomplishment in the gospel. These verses appear chiefly to relate to the future conversion and restoration of Israel, and the glorious times which are to follow. They show the abundant peace, comfort, and prosperity of the church, in the happy times yet to come. He will save; he will be Jesus; he will answer the name, for he will save his people from their sins. Before the glorious times foretold, believers would be sorrowful, and objects of reproach. But the Lord will save the weakest believer, and cause true Christians to be greatly honoured where they had been treated with contempt. One act of mercy and grace shall serve, both to gather Israel out of their dispersions and to lead them to their own land. Then will God's Israel be made a name and a praise to eternity. The events alone can fully answer the language of this prophecy. Many are the troubles of the righteous, but they may rejoice in God's love. Surely our hearts should honour the Lord, and rejoice in him, when we hear such words of condescension and grace. If now kept from his ordinances, it is our trial and grief; but in due time we shall be gathered into his temple above.

Zephaniah ZION’S JOY AND GOD’SZephaniah 3:14 , Zephaniah 3:17 . What a wonderful rush of exuberant gladness there is in these words! The swift, short clauses, the triple invocation in the former verse, the triple promise in the latter, the heaped together synonyms, all help the impression. The very words seem to dance with joy. But more remarkable than this is the parallelism between the two verses. Zion is called to rejoice in God because God rejoices in her. She is to shout for joy and sing because God’s joy too has a voice, and breaks out into singing. For every throb of joy in man’s heart, there is a wave of gladness in God’s. The notes of our praise are at once the echoes and the occasions of His. We are to be glad because He is glad: He is glad because we are so. We sing for joy, and He joys over us with singing because we do. I. God’s joy over Zion. It is to be noticed that the former verse of our text is followed by the assurance: ‘The Lord is in the midst of thee’; and that the latter verse is preceded by the same assurance. So, then, intimate fellowship and communion between God and Israel lies at the root both of God’s joy in man and man’s joy in God. We are solemnly warned by ‘profound thinkers’ of letting the shadow of our emotions fall upon God.

No doubt there is a real danger there; but there is a worse danger, that of conceiving of a God who has no life and heart; and it is better to hold fast by this-that in Him is that which corresponds to what in us is gladness. We are often told, too, that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is a stern and repellent God, and the religion of the Old Testament is gloomy and servile. But such a misconception is hard to maintain in the face of such words as these. Zephaniah, of whom we know little, and whose words are mainly forecasts of judgments and woes pronounced against Zion that was rebellious and polluted, ends his prophecy with these companion pictures, like a gleam of sunshine which often streams out at the close of a dark winter’s day. To him the judgments which he prophesied were no contradiction of the love and gladness of God. The thought of a glad God might be a very awful thought; such an insight as this prophet had gives a blessed meaning to it. We may think of the joy that belongs to the divine nature as coming from the completeness of His being, which is raised far above all that makes of sorrow. But it is not in Himself alone that He is glad; but it is because He loves. The exercise of love is ever blessedness. His joy is in self-impartation; His delights are in the sons of men: ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.’ His gladness is in His children when they let Him love them, and do not throw back His love on itself.

Zephaniah 3:14-15 . Sing, O daughter of Zion — At that time, O daughter of Zion, thou shalt break forth into loud and joyful praises to Jehovah, for his goodness toward thee; and thou mayest even now do it, for thou shalt certainly enjoy this prosperous state. The injunction here to Zion, to be thankful and joyful, is trebled, sing, shout, and rejoice, as it is elsewhere in both Testaments; and it is a sin for the people of God not to rejoice, as well as not to repent. Thus, after the promises to take away sin, here follow promises of the taking away of trouble; for when the cause is removed, the effect will cease. What makes a people holy, will make them happy of course. But the precious promises here made to God’s purified people, although in some measure fulfilled to the Jews at their return from captivity, yet, in their full propriety of meaning, belong to the times of the gospel, and have their full accomplishment only in the comforts and joyful hopes of future felicity, which are the portion of the true disciples of the Lord Jesus. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments — That is, thy punishments. The prophet speaks of what was future, as though it were already past; of what God certainly would do, as if it were done already. He hath cast out thine enemy — Hath taken away the power of hurting thee from those who were before injurious to thee; or, hath removed thine enemies, who were the instruments of his vengeance.

The King of Israel, &c ., is in the midst of thee — He is returned to redeem and save thee, and gives manifest tokens of his presence in thee, and protection over thee. Thou shalt not see evil any more — While thy conduct is as becomes my presence with thee, thou shalt neither feel, nor have cause to fear, such evils as thou hast formerly suffered.