Zephaniah 2

Repentance for Judah and Judgment for The Nations

Zephaniah’s prophecy continues with a call to repentance for Israel and a detailed description of the judgment surrounding nations will endure as a warning. 

Judah Can Repent

Vs. 3 - Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be concealed on the day of the Lord’s anger.

This section of the book concludes with an appeal to the Judeans to repent and so avoid the punishment.    - Thomas Constable

The prophet meant in that terrible description of approaching judgments not to drive the people to despair, but to drive them to God and to their duty-not to frighten them out of their wits, but to frighten them out of their sins.                  - Matthew Henry

The Nations Will Also Be Judged

All Directions

Vs. 10-11 - This is what they get for their pride, because they have taunted and acted arrogantly against the people of the Lord of Armies. The Lord will be terrifying to them when he starves all the gods of the earth. Then all the distant coasts and islands of the nations will bow in worship to him, each in its own place.

To impress upon the Jerusalemites that no sinners will escape God’s wrath, Zechariah gives them examples of coming judgment on neighboring nations.          - Don Fleming 

Since all people need to seek the Lord, Zephaniah revealed that judgment was headed for the nations around Judah as well as for Judah. He selected nations that lived in four directions from Judah to represent all the nations. Philistia lay west of Judah, Moab and Ammon east, Ethiopia south, and Assyria north.

Zephaniah prophesied to the people of Judah about these nations rather than to these nations themselves, though they might have heard about Zephaniah’s prophecies. His prophecies about the nations reminded the Judeans that Yahweh was sovereign over all the earth and that He was not just singling out Judah for punishment.                   - Thomas Constable

Assyria’s Future

Vs. 13 - He will also stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria; he will make Nineveh a desolate ruin, dry as the desert.

Zephaniah also prophesied the destruction of Assyria to Judah’s north and her capital Nineveh. Since Nineveh fell to the combined forces of Babylonia, Media, and Scythia in 612 B.C. Zephaniah must have uttered this prophecy before that date.                 - Thomas Constable

Vs. 14 - he will expose the cedar work

Zephaniah’s metaphor was descriptive of God’s purpose in judging His people.  His judgments are revelatory.  They are meant to expose the futility of trusting in any other god.