Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Zephaniah 3:17

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Zephaniah 3:17. The Lord thy God — יהוה אלהיך Yehovah Eloheycha, "The self-existent and eternal Being, who is in covenant with you;" the character of God in reference to the Jews when standing in the nearest relation to them.

Is mighty — גבור gibbor, is the prevailing One, the all-conquering Hero. The character which is given to Christ, Isaiah 9:6: "His name shall be called אל גבור El gibbor, the prevailing Almighty God."

He will save — Deliver thee from all the power, from all the guilt, and from all the pollution of thy sins; and when thus saved, "he will rejoice over thee with joy," with peculiar gladness. "He will rest in his love," - he will renew his love. He will show the same love to you that he did of old to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He will joy over thee with singing. — The conversion of the Jews will be a subject of peculiar delight and exultation to God himself! There will be a more than ordinary joy in heaven, when the Jews return to God through Christ. This event cannot be at a great distance; they are as wretched and as ungodly as they can well be. The arms of Christians are open to receive them; and all things are now ready!

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

3:9-20 SALVATION FOR THE REPENTANT

When all the sinners have been destroyed, the humble who have previously turned from their sin (see 2:1-3) will then enjoy a new life of peace and blessing. In the midst of judgment there is mercy for the repentant. Cleansed sinners from all nations will worship and serve God with pure hearts (9-10). No longer will Jerusalem be characterized by the pride, rebellion, dishonesty and deceit of Zephaniah’s day. Wrongdoing will be removed from the community of God’s people (11-13).
Although God’s people may previously have had sorrow because of his punishments upon them, now they will have joy. They will dwell together with God, their king, without fear of further judgment (14-15). In view of this promising future, they are not to be lazy or discouraged, but alert and full of confidence. Defeat will be replaced by victory. God will take away their shame and in his love give them new life (16-18). Exiles will be gathered from the lands of their oppression and be established again in their own land. Under God’s rule they will share with him in receiving praise from the whole earth (19-20).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; he will joy over thee with singing."

(See the comment under Zephaniah 3:16, which is also applicable here.) All of these verses are part of the Messianic prophecy which concludes Zephaniah, and all of them deal with the felicity, confidence, security, and joy of Christ's kingdom.

"Singing" is especially noticeable. The savage beats his tom tom; the Muslim shouts, "To prayer, to prayer!" from his minaret; the Jew intones the words of the Torah; but the Christian SINGS! In Christ has come to pass the marvelous prophecy of those "with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads!"

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save - What can He then not do for thee, since He is Almighty? What will He not do for thee, since “He will save?” whom then should we fear? “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31. But then was He especially “in the midst of” us, when God “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and Truth” John 1:14. Thenceforth He ever is in the midst of His own. He with the Father and the Holy Spirit “come unto them and make Their abode with them” John 14:23, so that they are “the temple of God. He will save,” as He saith, “My Father is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are One” John 10:29-30. Of the same time of the Christ, Isaiah saith almost in the same words; “Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees, Say to them that are of a feeble heart, Be strong, fear not, behold your God will come, He will come and save you” Isaiah 35:3-4; and of the Holy Trinity, “He will save us” Isaiah 33:22.

He will rejoice, over thee with joy - Love, joy, peace in man are shadows of that which is in God, by whom they are created in man. Only in God they exist undivided, uncreated. Hence, God speaks after the manner of men, of that which truly is in God. God joyeth “with an uncreated joy” over the works of His Hands or the objects of His Love, as man joyeth over the object of “his” love. So Isaiah saith, “As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee” Isaiah 62:5. As with uncreated love the Father resteth in good pleasure in His well-beloved Son, so “God is well-pleased with the sacrifices of loving deeds” Hebrews 13:16. and, “the Lord delighteth in thee” Isaiah 62:4; and, “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in My people” Isaiah 65:19; and, “the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good” Deuteronomy 30:9. And so in a two-fold way God meeteth the longing of the heart of man.

The soul, until it hath found God, is evermore seeking some love to fill it, and can find none, since the love of God Alone can content it. Then too it longeth to be loved, even as it loveth. God tells it, that every feeling and expression of human love may be found in Him, whom if any love, he only “loveth Him, because He first loved us” 1 John 4:19. Every inward and outward expression or token of love are heaped together, to express the love of Him who broodeth and as it were yearneth “over” (it is twice repeated) His own whom He loveth. Then too He loveth thee as He biddeth thee to love Him; and since the love of man cannot be like the love of the Infinite God, He here pictures His own love in the words of man’s love, to convey to his soul the oneness wherewith love unites her unto God. He here echoes in a manner the joy of the Church, to which He had called her 1 John 4:14, in words the self-same or meaning the same.

We have “joy” here for “joy” there; “singing” or the unuttered unutterable jubilee of the heart, which cannot utter in words its joy and love, and joys and loves the more in its inmost depths because it cannot utter it. A shadow of the unutterable, because Infinite Love of God, and this repeated thrice; as being the eternal love of the Everblessed Trinity. This love and joy the prophet speaks of, as an exuberant joy, one which boundeth within the inmost self, and again is wholly “silent in His love,” as the deepest, tenderest, most yearning love broods over the object of its love, yet is held still in silence by the very depth of its love; and then, again, breaks forth in outward motion, and leaps for joy, and uttereth what it cannot form in words, for truly the love of God in its unspeakable love and joy is past belief, past utterance, past thought. Rup.: “Truly that joy wherewith ‘He will be silent in His love,’ that exultation wherewith ‘He will joy over thee with singing, ‘Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man’ 1 Corinthians 2:9.”

The Hebrew word also contains the meaning, “He in His love shall make no mention of past sins, He shall not bring them up against thee, shall not upbraid thee, yea, shall not remember them” Jeremiah 31:34; Jeremiah 33:8; Micah 7:18. It also may express the still, unvarying love of the Unchangeable God. And again trow the very silence of God, when He seemeth not to hear, as He did not seem to hear Paul, is a very fruit of His love. Yet that entire forgiveness of sins, and that seeming absence are but ways of showing His love. Hence, God speaks of His very love itself, “He will be silent in His love,” as, before and after, “He will rejoice, He will joy over thee.”

In the next few verses Zep 3:18-21 still continuing the number “three,” the prophecy closes with the final reversal of all which, in this imperfect state of things, seems turned upside down, when those who now mourn shall be comforted, they who now bear reproach and shame shall have glory, and those who now afflict the people of God shall be undone.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 3

Now the Lord speaks against Jerusalem.

Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she receive not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God ( Zephaniah 3:1-2 ).

So God's indictment against her: she wouldn't listen, she wouldn't obey, she wouldn't receive correction, she wouldn't trust in the Lord, she would not draw near to God.

Her princes within her are as roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law ( Zephaniah 3:3-4 ).

Now we find that these are much the same indictments that Jeremiah was bringing against the nation and against Jerusalem in his prophecy. You remember how Jeremiah had a hard time with these false prophets who were coming to the king and saying, "Oh, king, you're gonna be pushing the Babylonians all over the place. They won't come near here" and all. And how that they were conspiring against Jeremiah because he dared to stand up and tell the truth. So here Zephaniah speaks of their prophets: they're light and treacherous persons, their priests have polluted the sanctuary, they've done violence to the law.

The just LORD is in the midst thereof; and he will not do iniquity: every morning does he bring his judgment to light, he fails not; but the unjust does not know shame. I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passes by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, there is no inhabitant. I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, and corrupted their doings ( Zephaniah 3:5-7 ).

God intends, actually, that judgment be for correction, first of all. When we start getting out of line, God oftentimes brings judgment in the form of chastisement into our lives. The purpose of it is to turn us back to God. But it's tragic that so many people, when God is bringing the rod of chastisement, will oftentimes rebel against the Lord, and thus, their condition only worsens. But the Lord said, "When My judgments are in the land, it will cause My people to turn to righteousness." A true child of God, when he begins to see the judgments, turns to God. But here the Lord speaks of His judgments and how that they just corrupted themselves all the more.

Therefore ( Zephaniah 3:8 )

Now we go out to the future, the great judgment of the nations which is coming.

wait ye upon me, saith 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 upon them mine indignation ( Zephaniah 3:8 ),

As we told you, the word indignation in the Old Testament is the equivalent of the Great Tribulation of the New Testament. So here God is speaking of the Great Tribulation period as He gathers the nations. Of course, gathering them into the great valley of Megiddo for the great battle of Armageddon. "Where I will pour out upon them all my indignation, even all My fierce anger."

for the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent ( Zephaniah 3:8-9 ).

Now, originally man all spoke one language. But at the tower of Babel, as men through tremendous scientific progress were building these communication towers, for extra stellar communication, to communicate with people in space, to learn from those in space. You remember as the Lord looked upon the scene of the building of the tower of Babel, He spoke of how that men gathering themselves together had advanced so far in their technology, that nothing that they determined to do could be withheld from them. So in order to thwart man from his devious plans, God brought the confusion of tongues, and the separation then into ethnic groups by language throughout the world. Now the day is coming when we're going to speak a pure language again.

I found it quite interesting when our Hebrew guide told us that there were no swear words in Hebrew. If a Jew wants to swear, he has to use English. They have no swear words in Hebrew. We were in the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and we heard this doctor talking in Hebrew. As he was talking to his colleagues, he let out a series of oaths that I understood in English. So I turned to my wife, and I said, "I guess it is true, the only way they can swear is in English." Of course, he got very embarrassed, but I thought that was quite interesting. A language in which there are no swear words. Perhaps that is the pure language. "But the Lord will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him with one consent," or with one voice.

From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring my offering. In that day shall thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain. I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD. And the remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none will make them afraid ( Zephaniah 3:10-13 ).

Now notice again the sequence, God's judgment, the indignation that is going to come, but followed by the new age; the one language, the restoration of the earth to God's order, and God's plan. Of course, then going on into verse Zephaniah 3:14 , the glorious day of the Lord, the day that the Lord comes and establishes His kingdom upon the earth.

Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. For the LORD has taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out your enemy: the King of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: and thou shalt see evil no more ( Zephaniah 3:14-15 ).

That glorious day when Jesus comes and reigns, the Lord dwelling in the midst of His people once again, even as He did when He was upon the earth two thousand years ago. The word made flesh and dwelt among us. He was in the world, the world was made by Him, but the world knew Him not. He came to His own, but His own received Him not. So the Lord dwelling in the midst of the people, the rejoicing, the singing, the glory of that wonderful day.

And in that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Don't fear: and to Zion, Let not thy hands be slack. For the LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing ( Zephaniah 3:16-17 ).

So the attention is drawn now to the Lord in the midst of His people. First of all, His mighty power is made mention. "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." Then His work, "He will save."

Really, the world today is in dire need of salvation. Man has gone just about as far as he can go without destroying everything. Man presently is spending one trillion dollars a year on military weapons. It's bankrupting the whole world. Our economy is bankrupt. The Russians' economy is bankrupt. Because we are spending so much money in our military budgets, we are bankrupting our world. A hundred and three billion dollars of deficit spending on this year alone for the defense projects. In fact, we're spending even more than that for defense. They have asked for one trillion dollars for defense over the next five years. It just boggles your mind. You can't even think in numbers like that. Even if you wanted to count to a billion, it would take you nineteen years day and night counting at a hundred a minute. A hundred and three billion dollars that they don't have, they're spending.

Now, I don't recommend you go out and write checks on funds you don't have. It's a crime, punishable by imprisonment. Yet, our government is doing exactly that, writing phony checks. Actually, they're printing phony money and passing it off on you. It used to be that the currency was covered by gold. They had gold notes. Then it was covered by silver, and they had silver notes. You noticed on the old silver notes, it was redeemable in silver. But a few years ago they called in all the silver notes. The gold notes in effect said, "We owe you twenty dollars in gold." The silver notes said in effect, "We owe you ten," or "twenty," or "five dollars in silver." Now the notes that they give you, the Federal Reserve notes, they're not backed by anything. So in reality, it says, "We owe you nothing." Sad state of affairs. Oh, how the world needs saving. Unfortunately, government can't save us. In fact, it is government that is burying us, destroying us. We can't afford government anymore. Government has become too expensive. The same is true around the world.

Only one hope for this whole sick world. From a sociological standpoint, we look at the sociological sickness of the world, we look at the sociological sickness in the United States. We see the epidemic crime levels. We see the assaults, the murders, the rapes. No solution, no answer. We need a Savior.

Now there is coming a false savior. A man who is going to have all kinds of novel, new ideas, who will seemingly save the economy for a time. Who will solve much of the social evils, because so many of the crimes involve money. All of the convenience stores that are robbed every night, the service stations that are robbed, and pockets that are picked and purses that are snatched, or goods that are heisted, and it all involves a monetary exchange. A guy rips off your television set and all so that he can go and sell it quickly for some money. Gives it to a fence, and he gets money, and it's all this thing of money.

So this man is gonna come up with a fantastic solution to the social problems, many of them of a crime, by eliminating money completely. By assigning every one a mark, recognizable by a computer scanner. A mark that will be placed in the right hand or in the forehead of everybody. No one will be able to buy or sell unless they have this mark. Did you read this week in the paper where they figure that there is between eighty and a hundred billion dollars of unpaid taxes every year from people who are skimming off the top? The government is gonna have to do something, and what better thing can you do than to get rid of money, and say, "All right if you want to buy or sell, you'll have to use the mark. No one buys or sells without a mark." That way they'll know every asset that you have. You won't be able to dispose of them, except that mark is used. All the exchanging will be done through the use of the mark, which, of course, will have your monetary equivalent within the computer bank, stored within the computer system.

Immediately all of the crimes involving money will be over. You can't hold up... it's all in the computer. Of course, there'll be then people who will be developing ways of tapping into the computer and all, but nonetheless, it's gonna change the crime. It'll take a while for people to figure the new system, at least three and a half years.

So he'll come up with some economic solutions, he'll come up with some sociological solutions. All of the world is gonna begin to hail this man as its leader, as its savior. The false Messiah, the antichrist. He will even befriend the Jewish nation; make a covenant with them, whereby they will be able to rebuild their temple on the temple mount. All of these things are in order today.

Did you know that the United States government is planning in 1984 to inaugurate a universal number system for everybody in the U.S.? We're moving down towards the line. I read this in the newspaper the other day, but I've known it for years, because one of our fellows went back to do secret work, top classified work in the Pentagon, seven years ago. He thought it was so significant he said, "Chuck, this is top classified, but," he said, "I feel I've got to tell you." 1984, he said, "I've been working on the program back in Washington D.C. In 1984 we've targeted to give a universal number to everyone in the U.S." All the plans are there. The other day in the paper someone let the leak out, so I'm not doing anything that I shouldn't by telling you.

How the world needs to be saved. The only hope is Jesus Christ. This man who pretends to be a savior, who the world thinks is a savior, is only going to ultimately plunge the world into the greatest chaos the world has ever known. For three and a half years it's gonna look like peaches and cream, and then the cream is gonna sour and things are gonna really go bad.

"The Lord thy God in the midst of thee," but Jesus is then coming. He's gonna set up His kingdom; He's gonna dwell in the midst of the people. What rejoicing, what singing, what joy in those days. "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love, He will joy over thee with singing." The Lord is gonna be singing a love song to you.

I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold, at that time, I will undo all that afflict thee: I will save her that halteth, I will gather her that was driven out; I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time I will bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all the people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD ( Zephaniah 3:18-20 ).

So the future blessing upon the nation of Israel in the glorious Kingdom Age closes the prophecy of Zephaniah. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

III. THE DAY OF YAHWEH’S BLESSING 3:9-20

Having finished the revelation dealing with God’s judgment of the world in a coming day (Zephaniah 1:2 to Zephaniah 3:8), Zephaniah now announced that He would bring great blessing to all humankind after that judgment (Zephaniah 3:9-20). As in the section of the book on judgment, he revealed God’s plans for the Gentile nations briefly first and then spoke extensively about His plans for Israel.

"Why did the prophets consistently close their books with messages of hope? For at least three reasons. To begin with, hope is a great motivation for obedience, and the prophets wanted to encourage God’s people to submit to God’s will and do what He commanded. God’s covenant blessings come to His people only when they obey His covenant conditions.

"A second reason is the prophets’ emphasis on the faithfulness of God. The Lord will keep His promises and one day establish the kingdom; and since God is faithful to keep His promises, we ought to be faithful obeying His Word. . . .

"Finally, the closing message of hope was an encouragement to the faithful remnant in the land, who were true to God and suffered because of their devotion to Him. It’s difficult to belong to that ’company of the committed’ who stand true to the Lord and His Word no matter what others may do or say. Knowing that God would one day defeat their enemies and reign in righteousness would encourage the believers [sic] remnant to persist in their faithful walk with the Lord." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 429.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

B. The transformation of Israel 3:10-20

Zephaniah had received from the Lord much more revelation about what He would do for Israel following the period of worldwide punishment. This section is also chiastic in its thought structure.

A    Israel’s purification Zephaniah 3:10-13

B    Israel’s and Yahweh’s rejoicing Zephaniah 3:14-17

A’    Israel’s regathering Zephaniah 3:18-20

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. Israel’s and Yahweh’s rejoicing 3:14-17

Zephaniah arranged this psalm of joy over salvation as another chiasm.

"A Zion singing (Zephaniah 3:14 a)

B Israel’s shouts (Zephaniah 3:14 b)

C Jerusalem’s joy (Zephaniah 3:14 c)

D Yahweh’s deliverance (Zephaniah 3:15 a, b)

E Presence of Yahweh the king (Zephaniah 3:15 c)

F No more fear (Zephaniah 3:15 d)

G Jerusalem’s future message (Zephaniah 3:16 a)

F’ No more fear (Zephaniah 3:16 b, c)

E’ Presence of Yahweh the God (Zephaniah 3:17 a)

D’ The mighty deliverer (Zephaniah 3:17 b)

C’ God’s joy (Zephaniah 3:17 c)

B’ Yahweh’s silence (Zephaniah 3:17 d)

A’ Yahweh’s singing (Zephaniah 3:17 e)" [Note: Baker, p. 87.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

"The battle cry on the day of judgment (Zephaniah 1:14) will be replaced by the poignant hush of the reuniting of two lovers." [Note: Baker, p. 119.]

In that day of blessing the people of Jerusalem will have plenty of reasons not to fear. One reason is that Yahweh their God will be in their midst (Zephaniah 3:15). He will be a victorious warrior having defeated all His enemies and all opposition worldwide (Zephaniah 1:2-3; Zephaniah 3:8). Like a bridegroom He will take joy in His people Israel, and they will rest quietly in the security of His love for them as His bride. Yahweh will even shout with joy over His beloved Israel!

"Most often the Lord’s love is expressed by the Hebrew word hesed. This is the love that issues in commitment, the ’ever-unfailing’ fidelity of love, love that lives in the will as much as in the heart. Here, however, the word is ’ahaba, the passionate love of Jacob for Rachel (Genesis 29:20) and of Michal for David (1 Samuel 18:28), the fond love of Jacob for Joseph (Genesis 37:3), Uzziah’s devotion to gardening (2 Chronicles 26:10), Jonathan’s deep friendship with David (1 Samuel 18:3), the devotee’s delight in the Lord’s law (Psalms 119:97). This too is the Lord’s love for his people (Hosea 3:1), a love that delights him (Zephaniah 3:17 c), makes him contemplate his beloved with wordless adoration (Zephaniah 3:17 d), a love that cannot be contained but bursts into elated singing (Zephaniah 3:17 e)." [Note: Motyer, p. 958.]

"We can find hope in times of difficulty if we focus on God’s power, God’s deliverance, and God’s love. He is our King (Zephaniah 3:15), our Savior (Zephaniah 3:16-17 a), and our Beloved (Zephaniah 3:17 b)." [Note: Dyer, p. 812.]

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Zephaniah 3:17

3:17 a mighty savior: God was Israel’s Divine Warrior and Redeemer (see Psalms 24:8-10; Isaiah 42:13; Habakkuk 3:8-15). One of God’s titles is “the Mighty God” (Isaiah 10:21). This title also applies to the Messiah (Isaiah 9:6).

• With his love, he will calm all your fears: Or He will be silent in his love. Greek and Syriac versions read He will renew you with his love.

• He will rejoice over you: Not only will Jerusalem and all Israel rejoice in God (Zephaniah 3:14) but God will also rejoice over them as a purified and faithful people (see Zephaniah 3:12-13).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee [is] mighty,.... Every word carries in it something very encouraging to the church and people of God; and is an antidote against those fears and faintings they are subject to; Christ "is in the midst of" them; near at hand to support and supply them, to assist and strengthen them, to protect and defend them; he is not only near by his essential presence, which is everywhere; and by his providential presence, which is concerned with all his creatures; but by his gracious presence, peculiar to his church and people; and which gives them unspeakable joy, and is a sufficient security from all fears and dismayings; see Isaiah 41:10 and he, who is in the midst of them, is the Lord, Jehovah, the Being of beings, eternal, immutable, and all sufficient, possessed of all divine perfections; and their "God", God in their nature, "Immanuel", God with us; and who is "mighty", the Almighty God, the mighty Mediator, who has all power in heaven and earth; and, as man, the man of God's right hand, made strong for himself, and so able to save his people to the uttermost; to deliver them out of the hands of every enemy; to raise up his interest when ever so low, and to maintain and support it; to help and assist his people in every duty and service he calls them to:

he will save; he is as willing to save as he is able; he readily undertook in counsel and covenant to save the chosen ones; he came in the fulness of time to seek and to save that which was lost; he has wrought out salvation for them, and sees that it is applied unto them, and will come again to put them into the full possession of it: he saves them freely, fully, and everlastingly; he saves them from sin, Satan, the law, hell and wrath, and every spiritual enemy; nor has the church of Christ anything to fear from any temporal enemy; the converted Jews will have no reason to fear the Turk that will come against them with a vast army; for Christ, who will be in the midst of them, and at the head of them, will save them from him; to which salvation this passage has chiefly a respect;

he will rejoice over thee with joy; with exceeding great joy, not to be conceived of, or expressed; as a bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride: this will be the time of the open marriage of the Lamb with the Jewish church; and there will be strong expressions of joy on this occasion; Christ will rejoice over them to do them good; and there will be such singular instances of his goodness to them as will abundantly show the joy he will have in them:

he will rest in his love; continue in his love, without any variation or change; nothing shall separate from it; it shall always remain the same; he will take up his contentment and satisfaction in it; he will solace himself with it; it will be a pleasing thing to him to love his people, and to show it to them; he will take the utmost complacency and delight in expressing his love by words and deeds unto them: or, as some render it, "he will be silent because of his love" r; and not upbraid them with their sins; or reprove, correct, and chastise them in his hot displeasure; or say one word in a way of vindictive wrath: and he "will make" all others "silent"; every enemy, or whatever is contrary to them; such is his great love to them s; he will forgive their iniquities, and cover their sins, and in love to them cast them behind his back: or, "will be dumb" t; and not speak; as sometimes persons, when their affections are strong, and their hearts are filled with love at the sight of one they bear a great regard unto, are not able to speak a word. The phrase expresses the greatness of Christ's love to his people; the strength, fulness, and continuance of it: words seem to be wanted, and more are added:

he will joy over thee with singing; there is a pleonasm of joy in Christ's heart towards his people, and so a redundancy in his expression of it; he rejoices with joy, and joys with singing; which shows how delighted he is with his people, as they are his chosen, redeemed, and called ones; as they have his own righteousness upon them, and his own grace in them; they are his "Hephzibah", in whom he delights; his "Beulah", to whom he is married; and it is his love of complacency and delight, which is the source of all the grace and glory he bestows upon them; see Isaiah 62:3.

r יחריש באהבתו "silebit", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Calvin; so Ben Melech; "tacebit", Munster, Cocceius. s So Burkius. t "Obmutescet", so some in Drusius.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.   15 The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.   16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.   17 The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.   18 I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.   19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.   20 At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD.

      After the promises of the taking away of 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. The precious promises here made to the purified people were to have their full accomplishment in the comforts of the gospel, in the hope, and much more in the enjoyment, of which, they are here called upon, 1. To rejoice and sing (Zephaniah 3:14; Zephaniah 3:14): Sing, O daughter of Zion! sing for joy; Shout, O Israel! in a holy transport and exultation; be glad and rejoice with all the heart; let the joy be inward, let it be great. Those that love God with all their heart have occasion with all their heart to rejoice in him. It was promised (Zephaniah 3:13; Zephaniah 3:13) that their sins should be mortified and their fears silenced, and then follows, Sing and rejoice. Note, Those that reform have cause to rejoice, whereas Israel cannot rejoice for joy as other people, while she goes a whoring from her God. God's promises, applied by faith, furnish the saints with constant and abundant matter for joy; they are filled with joy and peace in believing them. 2. To throw off all their discouragements (Zephaniah 3:16; Zephaniah 3:16): In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem (God will say it by his prophets, by his providences, their neighbours shall say it, they shall say it to one another), "Fear thou not, be not disposed to fear, do not easily admit the impressions of it; when things are bad, fear not their being worse, but hope they will mend; frighten not thyself upon every occasion. Let not thy hands be slack or faint; wring not thy hands in despair; drop not thy hands in despondence; disfit not thyself for thy work and warfare by giving way to doubts and fears. Pluck up thy spirits, and, in token of that, lift up thy hands, the hands that hung down,Hebrews 12:12. Lift up thy hands in prayer to God; lift up thy hands to help thyself." Fear makes the hands slack, but faith and hope make them vigorous, and the joy of the Lord will be our strength both for doing and suffering.

      Let us now see what these precious promises are which are here made to the people of God, for the banishing of their griefs and fears and the encouraging of their hopes and joys; and to us are these promises made as well as to them.

      I. An end shall be put to all their troubles and distresses (Zephaniah 3:15; Zephaniah 3:15): "The Lord has taken away thy judgments, has removed all the calamities thou hast been groaning under, which were the punishments of thy sin; the noise of war shall be silenced, the reproach of famine done away, and the captivity brought back. Though some grievances remain, they shall be only afflictions, and not judgments, for sin shall be pardoned. He has cast out thy enemy, that has thrust himself into thy land, and triumphed over thee. He has swept out thy enemy" (so some read it), "as dirt is swept out of the house to the dunghill." When they sweep out their sins with the besom of reformation God will sweep out their enemies with the besom of destruction. If they should need correction, they shall fall into the hands of the Lord, whose mercies are great, and shall not again fall into the hands of man, whose tender mercies are cruel: "Thou shalt not see evil any more, not such evil days as thou hast seen." Note, The way to get clear of the evil of trouble is to keep clear from the evil of sin; and to those that do so trouble has no real evil in it.

      II. God will give them the tokens of his presence with them; though he has long seemed to stand at a distance (they having provoked him to withdraw), he will make it to appear that he is with them of a truth: "The Lord is in the midst of thee, O Zion! of thee, O Jerusalem! as the sun in the centre of the universe, to diffuse his light and influence upon every part. He is in the midst of thee, to preside in all thy affairs and to take care of all thy interests." And, 1. "He is the King of Israel (Zephaniah 3:15; Zephaniah 3:15) and is in the midst of thee as a king in the midst of his people." With an eye to this, our Lord Jesus is called the King of Israel (John 1:49); and he is, and will be, in the midst of his church always, even to the end of the world, to receive the homage of his subjects, and to give out his favours to them, even where but two or three are gathered together in his name. 2. "He is the Lord thy God, thine in covenant, and he is in the midst of thee as thy God, whom thou hast an interest in and whose own thou art. He has put himself into dear relations to thee, laid himself by promise under obligations to thee, and, that thou mayest have abundant comfort in both, he is in the midst of thee, nigh at hand to answer both." 3. "He that is in the midst of thee as thy God and King is mighty, is almighty, is able to do all that for thee that thou needest and canst desire." 4. "He has engaged his power for thy succour: He will save. He will be Jesus, will answer the name, for he will save his people from their sins."

      III. God will take delight in them, and in doing them good. The expressions of this are very lively and affecting (Zephaniah 3:17; Zephaniah 3:17): He will rejoice over thee with joy, will not only be well pleased with thee, upon thy repentance and reformation, and take thee into favour, but will take a complacency in thee, as the bridegroom does in his bride, or the bride in her ornaments, Isaiah 62:3-5. The conversion of sinners and the consolation of saints are the joy of angels, for they are the joy of God him-self. The church should be the joy of the whole earth (Psalms 48:2), for it is the joy of the whole heaven. He will rest in his love, will be silent in his love, so the word is. "I will not rebuke thee as I have done, for thy sins; I will acquiesce in thee, and in my relation to thee." I know not where there is the like expression of Christ's love to his church, unless in that song of songs, Song of Solomon 4:9, Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one of thy eyes. O the condescensions of divine grace! The great God not only loves his saints, but he loves to love them, is pleased that he has pitched upon these objects of his love. He will joy over them with singing. He that is grieved for the sin of sinners rejoices in the graces and services of the saints, and is ready to express that joy by singing over them. The Lord takes plea-sure in those that fear him, and in them Jesus Christ will shortly be glorified and admired.

      IV. God will comfort Zion's mourners, who sympathize with her in her griefs, and will wipe away their tears (Zephaniah 3:18; Zephaniah 3:18): I will gather those who are sorrowful for the solemn assemblies, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. See, 1. Who those are whom God will rejoice in and make to rejoice. They are such as are sorrowful. Those only must expect to reap in joy that sow in tears. The sorrowful now shall be for ever joyful. 2. What is the great matter of sorrow to Zion's mourners, when Zion is in mourning. Many are her calamities. The city is ruined, and the palaces are demolished; trade is at an end, and the administration of public justice; but all these are nothing to them in comparison with the desolations of the sanctuary, the destruction of the temple and the altar, to attend on which, in solemn feasts, all Israel used to come together three times a year. It is for those sacred solemn assemblies that they are sorrowful, (1.) Because they are dispersed; there is no temple to come up to, or, if there were, no people to come up to it; so that the solemn feasts and sabbaths are forgotten in Zion,Lamentations 2:6. Note, The restraining of public assemblies for religious worship, the scattering of them by their enemies, or the forsaking of them by their friends, so that either there are no assemblies or not solemn ones, is a very sorrowful thing to all good people. If the ways of Zion mourn, the sons of Zion mourn too. And hereby they make it to appear that they are indeed of Zion, living members of that body with the grievances of which they are so sensibly affected. (2.) Because they are despised; the reproach of the solemn assemblies is a burden to them. It had been the lot of the solemn assemblies to lie under a great deal of reproach. Satan and his instruments having a particular spite at them, as the great support of the interest of God's kingdom among men. Black and odious characters have been put upon those assemblies; and this is a burden to all those that have a cordial concern for the glory of God and the welfare of the souls of men. They reckon that the reproaches of those who reproach the solemn assemblies fall upon them, fall foul upon them.

      V. God will recover the captives out of the hands of their oppressors, and bring home the banished that seemed to be expelled, Zephaniah 3:19; Zephaniah 3:20. 1. Their enemies shall be disabled to detain them in bondage: "At that time I will undo all that afflict thee, will break their power, and blast their counsels, so that they shall be forced to surrender the prey they have taken." Conficiam--I will take them to task; "I will be doing with them shortly, and so as to make an end of them." Note, Those that abuse and oppress God's people take the ready way to undo themselves. 2. They shall be enabled to assert and recover their liberty, and all the difficulties in the way of it shall be surmounted. Is the church weak and wounded? I will save her that halts, as was promised, Micah 4:7. He will help her when she cannot help herself; even the lame shall take the prey,Isaiah 33:23. Is she dispersed, and not likely to incorporate for her common benefit? I will gather her that was driven out, and bring her again at the time that I gather her. One act of mercy and grace shall serve both to collect them out of their dispersions and to conduct them to their own land. When the people's hearts are prepared, the work will be done suddenly; and who can hinder it if God undertake to effect it? "I will turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord; you shall plainly discern the hand of God in it, and say, This is the Lord's doing."

      VI. God will by all this put honour upon them and gain them respect from all about them. Israel was at first made high above all nations in praise and fame,Deuteronomy 26:19. The reproach brought upon them was therefore one of the sorest of their grievances (nothing cuts deeper to those that are in honour than disgrace does); and therefore when God returns, in mercy, to his church, it is here promised that she shall regain her credit; all the reproach shall be for ever rolled way, as Israel's at Gilgal, Joshua 5:9. The church shall be as honourable as ever she had been despicable. 1. Even those that reproached her shall be made to respect her: "I will get them praise and fame in every land, where they have been put to shame, that the same who were the witnesses of their disgrace may see cause to change their mind concerning them." Those that said, "This is Zion whom no man looks after," shall say, "This is Zion whom the great God looks after." And she that was looked upon to be the offscouring of the earth now appears to be the darling of heaven. 2. Even those that never knew her shall be brought to honour her (Zephaniah 3:20; Zephaniah 3:20): I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth. So the Jewish church was when the fear of the Jews fell upon their neighbours (Esther 8:17), and some of all nations said, we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you,Zechariah 8:23. So the Christian church was when it was made to flourish in the world, for there is that in it which may justly recommend it to the value and esteem of all the people of the earth. And so the universal church of the firstborn will be in the great day, when the saints shall be brought together to Christ, that he may be admired and glorified in them, and they admired and glorified in him before angels and men. Then will God's Israel be made a name and a praise to eternity.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

A Sermon for the Time Present

October 30th, 1887 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden." Zephaniah 3:16-18 .

Holy Scripture is wonderfully full and abiding in its inner sense. It is a springing well, whereat you may draw, and draw again; for as you draw, it springs up for ever new and fresh. It is a well of water springing up everlastingly. The fulfillment of a divine promise is not the exhaustion of it. When a man gives you a promise, and he keeps it, there is an end of the promise; but it is not so with God. When he keeps his word to the full, he has but begun: he is prepared to keep it, and keep it, and keep it for ever and ever. What would you say of a man who had wheat upon his barn floor, and threshed it until he had beaten out the last golden grain; but the next day he went and threshed again, and brought back as much as the day before; and on the day after, again taking his flail, he went to the same threshing, and again brought back his measure as full as at the first, and so on for all the days of the year? Would it not seem to you as a fairy tale? It would certainly be a surprising miracle. But what should we say if, throughout a long life, this miracle could be prolonged.? Yet we have continued to thresh the promises ever since faith was given us, and we have carried away our full portion every day. What shall we say of the glorious fact that the saints in all generations, from the first day until now, have done the same; and of that equal truth, that as long as there is a needy soul upon earth, there will be upon the threshing floor of the promises the same abundance of the finest of the wheat as when the first man filled his measure and returned rejoicing? I will not dwell upon the specific application of the text before us: I do not doubt that it was specially fulfilled as it was intended; and if there still remains some special piece of history to which this passage alludes, it will again be fulfilled in due time; but this I know, that those who have lived between whiles have found this promise true to them. Children of God have used these promises under all sorts of circumstances, and have derived the utmost comfort from them; and this morning I feel as if the text had been newly written for the present occasion, for it is in every syllable most suitable to the immediate crisis. If the Lord had fixed his eye upon the condition of his church just now, and had written this passage only for this year of grace 1887, it could scarcely have been more adapted to the occasion. Our business shall be to show this; but I would aim at much more. Let our prayer be that we, may enjoy this marvellous portion of the sacred word, and take intense delight in it. As God rests in his love, so may we rest in it this morning; and as he joys over us with singing, so may we break forth into joyous psalms to the God of our salvation. I am going to begin with the last verse of the text, and work my way upwards. The first; head is, a trying day for God's people. They are sorrowful because a cloud is upon their solemn assembly, and the reproach thereof is a burden. Secondly, we will note a glorious ground of consolation. We read in the seventeenth verse, "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing." And, thirdly, here is a brave conduct suggested thereby: "In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack." I. Beginning at the eighteenth verse, we notice A TRYING DAY FOR GOD'S PEOPLE. The solemn assembly had fallen under reproach. The solemn assemblies of Israel were her glory: her great days of festival and sacrifice were the gladness of the land. To the faithful their holy days were their holidays. But a reproach had fallen upon the solemn assembly, and I believe it is so now at this present moment. It is a, sad affliction when in our solemn assemblies the brilliance of the gospel light is dimmed by error. The clearness of the testimony is spoiled when doubtful voices are scattered among the people, and those who ought to preach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, are telling out for doctrines the imaginations of men, and the inventions of the age. Instead of revelation, we have philosophy, falsely so-called; instead of divine infallibility, we have surmises and larger hopes. The gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, is taught as the production of progress, a growth, a thing to be amended and corrected year by year. It is an ill day, both for the church and the world, when the trumpet does not give a certain sound; for who shall prepare himself for the battle? If added to this we should see creeping over the solemn assembly of the church a lifelessness, an indifference, and a lack of spiritual power, it is painful to a high degree. When the vitality of religion is despised, and gatherings for prayer are neglected, what are we coming to? The present period of church history is well portrayed by the church of Laodicea, which was neither cold nor hot, and therefore to be spewed out of Christ's mouth. That church gloried that she was rich and increased in goods, and had need of nothing, while all the while her Lord was outside, knocking at the door, a door closed against him. That passage is constantly applied to the unconverted, with whom it has nothing to do: it has to do with a lukewarm church, with a church that thought itself to be in an eminently prosperous condition, while her living Lord, in the doctrine of his atoning sacrifice, was denied an entrance. Oh, if he had found admission and he was eager to find it she would soon have flung away her imaginary wealth, and he would have given her gold tried in the furnace, and white raiment with which she might be clothed. Alas! she is content without her Lord, for she has education, oratory, science, and a thousand other baubles. Zion's solemn assembly is under a cloud indeed, when the teaching of Jesus and his apostles is of small account with her. If in addition to this, worldly conformity spreads in the church, so that the vain amusements of the world are shared in by the saints, then is there reason enough for lamentation, even as Jeremiah cried: "How is the gold become dim!" Her Nazarites, who were purer than snow and whiter than milk, have become blacker than a coal. "All our enemies have opened their mouths against us." If no longer there is a clear distinction between the church and the world, but professed followers of Jesus have joined hands with unbelievers, then may we mourn indeed! Woe worth the day! An ill time has happened to the church and to the world also. We may expect great judgments, for the Lord will surely be avenged on such a people as this. Know ye not of old that when the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they were joined unto them, then the flood came and swept them all away? I need not pursue this subject further, lest our burdens take from us the time which is demanded for consolation. It appears from the text that there were some to whom the reproach was a burden. They could not make sport of sin. True, there were many who said that the evil did not exist at all, and others who declared that it was not present in any great degree. Yes, and more hardened spirits declared that what was considered to be a reproach was really a thing to be boasted of, the very glory of the century. Thus they huffed the matter, and made the mourning of the conscientious to be a theme for jest. But there was a remnant to whom the reproach of it was a burden; these could not bear to see such a calamity. To these the Lord God will have respect, as he said by the prophet: "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." The many drank wine in bowls and anointed themselves with their chief ointments, but they were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph (Amos 6:6 ); but these were pressed in spirit and bore the cross, counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. God's people cannot bear that Christ's atoning sacrifice should be dishonored; they cannot endure that his truth should be trodden as mire in the streets. To true believers prosperity means the Holy Ghost blessing the word to the conversion of sinners and the building up of saints; and if they do not see this, they hang their harps upon the willows. True lovers of Jesus fast when the Bridegroom is not with his church: their glow is in his glory, and in nothing else. The wife of Phinehas, the son of Eli, cried out in her dying agony, "The glory has departed," and the reason that she gave was once because of the death of her husband and his father, but twice because "the ark of God is taken." For this she named her new-born child Ichabod . "The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken." The bitterest pain of this godly woman was for the church, and for the honor of our God. So it is with God's true people: they lay it much to heart that the truth is rejected. This burdened spirit, is a token of true love to God: those who love the Lord Jesus are wounded in his woundings, and vexed with the vexings of his Spirit. When Christ is dishonored his disciples are dishonored. Those who have a tender heart towards the church can say with Paul, "Who is offended, and I burn not?" The sins of the church of God are the sorrows of all living members of it. This also marks a healthy sensibility, a vital spirituality. Those who are unspiritual care nothing for truth or grace: they look to finances, and numbers, and respectability. Utterly carnal men care for none of these things; and so long as the political aims of Dissenters are progressing, and there is an advance in social position, it is enough for them. But men whose spirits are of God would sooner see the faithful persecuted than see them desert the truth, sooner see churches in the depths of poverty full of holy zeal than rich churches dead in worldliness. Spiritual men care for the church even when she is in an evil case, and cast down by her adversaries: "thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof." The house of the Lord is to many of us our own house, his family is our family. Unless the Lord Jesus be extolled, and his gospel conquer, we feel that our own personal interests are blighted, and we ourselves are in disgrace. It is no small thing to us: it is our life. Thus have I dwelt upon the fact that it is an ill day for God's people when the solemn assembly is defiled: the reproach thereof is a burden to those who are truly citizens of the New Jerusalem, and because of this they are seen to be sorrowful. The Lord here says, "I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly." They may well be sorrowful when such a burden is laid on their hearts. Moreover, they see in a hundred ways the ill effect of the evil which they deplore. Many are lame and halting; this is hinted at in the promise of the nineteenth verse: "I will save her that halteth." Pilgrims on the road to Zion were made to limp on the road because the prophets were "light and treacherous persons." When the pure gospel is not preached, God's people are robbed of the strength which they need in their life-journey. If you take away the bread, the children hunger. If you give the flock poisonous pastures, or fields which are barren as the desert, they pine and they become lame in their daily following of the shepherd. The doctrinal soon affects the practical. I know many of the people of God living in different parts of this country to whom the Sabbath is very little of a day of rest, for they hear no truth in which rest is to be found, but they are worried and wearied with novelties which neither glorify God nor benefit the souls of men. In many a place the sheep look up and are not fed. This causes much disquietude and breeds doubts and questionings, and thus strength is turned to weakness, and the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope are all kept in a halting state. This is a grievous evil, and it is all around us. Then, alas! many are "driven out," of whom the nineteenth verse says, "I will gather her that was driven out." By false doctrine many are made to wander from the fold. Hopeful ones are made to stray from the path of life, and sinners are left in their natural distance from God. The truth which would convince men of sin is not preached, while other truths which would lead seekers into peace are beclouded, and souls are left in needless sorrow. When the doctrines of grace and the glorious atoning sacrifice are not set clearly before men's minds, so that they may feel their power, all sorts of evils follow. It is terrible to me that this dreadful blight should come upon our churches; for the hesitating are driven to destruction, the weak are staggered, and even the strong are perplexed. The false teachers of these days would, if it were possible, deceive the very elect. This makes our hearts very sorrowful. How can we help it? Yet, beloved, all the time that the people of God are in this evil case, they are not without hope; for close upon all this comes the promise of the Lord to restore his wandering ones. We have the sense twice over: "I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame." "I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord. "The adversaries cannot silence the eternal testimony. They hanged our Lord himself upon a tree; they took down his body and buried it in a tomb in the rock; and they set their seal upon the stone which they rolled at the mouth of the sepulcher. Surely now there was an end of the Christ and his cause. Boast not, ye priests and Pharisees! Vain the watch, the stone, the seal! When the appointed time had come, the living Christ came forth. He could not be holden by the cords of death. How idle their dreams! "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord doth have them in derision." Beloved, the reproach will yet be rolled away from the solemn assembly: the truth of God will yet again be proclaimed as with trumpet tongue, the Spirit of God will revive his church, and converts as many as the sheaves of the harvest shall yet be gathered in. How will the faithful rejoice! Those who were burdened and sorrowful shall then put on their garments of joy and beauty. Then shall the ransomed of the Lord return with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. The conflict is not doubtful. The end of the battle is sure and certain. Methinks I even now hear the shout, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." II. Secondly, let us think of something which shines like a star amid the darkness. The second verse of the text presents A GLORIOUS GROUND OF CONSOLATION. Here is a rich text indeed. This passage is like a great sea, while I am as a little child making pools in the sand which skirts its boundless flood. A series of discourses might well be founded on this one verse: I mean the seventeenth. Our great consolation in the worst times lies in our God. The very name of our covenant God "the Lord thy God" is full of good cheer. That word, "the Lord," is really JEHOVAH, the self-existent One, the unchangeable One, the ever-living God, who cannot change or be moved from his everlasting purpose. Children of God, whatever you have not got, you have a God in whom you may greatly glory. Having God you have more than all things, for all things come of him; and if all things were blotted out, he could restore all things simply by his will. He speaketh, and it is done; he commandeth, and it stands fast. Blessed is the man that hath the God of Jacob for his trust, and whose hope Jehovah is. In the Lord Jehovah we have righteousness and strength; let us trust in him for ever. Let the times roll on, they cannot affect our God. Let troubles rush upon us like a tempest, but they shall not come nigh unto us now that he is our defense. Jehovah, the God of his church, is also the God of each individual member of it, and each one may therefore rejoice in him. Jehovah is as much your God, my brother, as if no other person in the universe could use that covenant expression. O believer, the Lord God is altogether and wholly your God! All his wisdom, all his foresight, all his power, all his immutability all himself is yours. As for the church of God, when she is in her lowest estate she is still established and endowed in the best possible sense established by the divine decree, and endowed by the possession of God all-sufficient. The gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Let us exult in our possession. Poor as we are, we are infinitely rich in having God; weak as we are, there is no limit to our strength, since the Almighty Jehovah is ours. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" If God be ours, what more can we need? Lift up thy heart, thou sorrowful one, and be of good cheer. If God be thy God, thou hast all thou canst desire: wrapped up within his glorious name we find all things for time and eternity, for earth and heaven. Therefore in the name of Jehovah we will set up our banners, and march onward to the battle. He is our God by his own purpose, covenant, and oath; and this day he is our God by our own choice of him, by our union with Christ Jesus, by our experience of his goodness, and by that spirit of adoption whereby we cry "Abba, Father." To strengthen this consolation, we notice next, that this God is in the midst of us. He is not a long way off, to be sought with difficulty, if haply we may find him. The Lord is a God nigh at hand, and ready to deliver his people. Is it not delightful to think that we cry not to God across the ocean, for he is here? We look not up to him from afar, as though he dwelt beyond the stars, neither do we think of him as hidden in the fathomless abyss; but the Lord is very near. Our God is "Jehovah in the midst of thee." Since that bright night in which a babe was born at Bethlehem, and unto us a Son was given, we know God as "Emmanuel, God with us." God is in our nature, and therefore very near unto us. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Though his bodily presence is gone, yet we hare his spiritual presence with us evermore; for he saith, "Lo, I am with you alway." He walketh among the golden candlesticks. We have also the immediate presence of God the Holy Spirit. He is in the midst of the church to enlighten, convince, quicken, endow, comfort, and clothe with spiritual power. The Lord still works in the minds of men for the accomplishment of his purposes of grace. Let us think of this when we are going forth to Christian service: "The Lord of hosts is with us." When you call your class together in the Sabbath school, say to your Lord, "If thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence." Ah, friends! if we have God with us, we can bear to be deserted by men. What a word that is, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them!" Shall not the army shout when the King himself is in their ranks! Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered! When he is with us they that hate him must flee before him. Be it our concern so to live that we may never grieve away the Spirit of God. Beloved, there is such abundant consolation in the fact of the presence of God with us, that if we could only feel the power of it at this moment, we should enter into rest, and our heaven would begin below. Let us go a step further, and note that our consolation is largely to be found in the fact that this God in the midst of us is full of power to save. "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save." That is to say, "Jehovah, thy God, is mighty to save." His arm is not shortened, he is still "a just God and a Savior." Nor is he merely able to save, but he will display that ability; "he will save." Come, my brother, we see around us this and that to discourage us; let us, like David, encourage ourselves in the Lord our God. We may very well forget all difficulties, since the God who is in the midst of us is mighty to save. Let us pray, then, that he will save; that he will save his own church from lukewarmness and from deady error; that he will save her from her worldliness and formalism; save her from unconverted ministers and ungodly members. Let us lift up our eyes and behold the power which is ready to save; and let us go on to pray that the Lord may save the unconverted by thousands and millions. Oh, that we might see a great revival of religion! This is what we want before all things. This would smite the enemy upon the cheek-bone, and break the teeth of the adversary. If tens of thousands of souls were immediately saved by the sovereign grace of God, what a rebuke it would be to those who deny the faith! Oh, for times such as our fathers saw when first Whitefield and his helpers began to preach the life-giving word! When one sweet voice was heard clear and loud, all the birds of paradise began to sing in concert with him, and the morning of a glorious day was heralded. Oh, if that were to happen again, I should feel like Simeon when he embraced the heavenly babe! Then would the virgin daughter of Zion shake her head at the foe, and laugh him to scorn. It may happen; yea, if we are importunate in prayer it must happen: "God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him." Let us not seek power of rhetoric, much less of wealth; but let us look for the power which saves. This is the one thing I crave. Oh, that God would save souls! I say to myself, after being badgered and worried through the week by the men of modern thought: "I will go my way and preach Christ's gospel, and win souls." One lifting up of Jesus Christ crucified is more to me than all the cavillings of the men who are wise above what is written. Converts are our unanswerable arguments. "Happy is the man," saith the Psalm, "that hath his quiver full of them: they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." Blessed is the man who has many spiritual children born to God under his ministry; for his converts are his defense. Beholding the man who was healed standing with Peter and John, they could say nothing against them. If souls are saved by the gospel, the gospel is proved in the surest manner. Let us care more about conversions than about organizations. If souls are brought into union with Christ, we may let other unions go. We go yet further, and we come to great deeps: behold God's joy in his people. "He will rejoice over thee with joy." Think of this! Jehovah, the living God, is described as brooding over his church with pleasure. He looks upon souls redeemed by the blood of his dear Son, quickened by his Holy Spirit, and his heart is glad. Even the infinite heart of God is filled with an extraordinary joy at the sight of his chosen. His delight is in his church, his Hephzibah. I can understand a minister rejoicing over a soul that he has brought to Christ; I can also understand believers rejoicing to see others saved from sin and hell; but what shall I say of the infinitely-happy and eternally-blessed God finding, as it were, a new joy in souls redeemed? This is another of those great wonders which cluster around the work of divine grace! "He will rejoice over thee with joy." Oh, you are trembling for the ark of the Lord; the Lord is not trembling, but rejoicing. Faulty as the church is, the Lord rejoices in her. While we mourn, as well we may, yet we do not sorrow as those that are without hope; for God does not sorrow, his heart is glad, and he is said to rejoice with joy a highly emphatic expression. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, imperfect though they be. He sees them as they are to be, and so he rejoices over them, even when they cannot rejoice in themselves. When your face is blurred with tears, your eyes red with weeping, and your heart heavy with sorrow for sin, the great Father is rejoicing over you. The prodigal son wept in his Father's bosom, but the Father rejoiced over his son. We are questioning, doubting, sorrowing, trembling; and all the while he who sees the end from the beginning knows what will come out of the present disquietude, and therefore rejoices. Let us rise in faith to share the joy of God. Let no man's heart fail him because of the taunts of the enemy. Rather let the chosen of God rouse themselves to courage, and participate in that joy of God which never ceaseth, even though the solemn assembly has become a reproach. Shall we not rejoice in him when he, in his boundless condescension, deigns to rejoice in us? Whoever despairs for the cause, he does not; wherefore let us be of good courage. It is added, "He will rest in his love ." I do not know any Scripture which is more full of wonderful meaning than this. "He shall rest in his love," as if our God had in his people found satisfaction. He comes to an anchorage: he has reached his desire. As when a Jacob, full of love to Rachel, has at length ended the years of his service, and is married to his well-beloved, and his heart is at rest; so is it spoken in parable of the Lord our God. Jesus sees of the travail of his soul when his people are won to him; he has been baptized with his baptism for his church, and he is no longer straitened, for his desire is fulfilled. The Lord is content with his eternal choice, content with his loving purposes, satisfied with the love which went forth from everlasting. He is well pleased in Jesus well pleased with all the glorious purposes which are connected with his dear Son, and with those who are in him. He has a calm content in the people of his choice, as he sees them in Christ. This is a good ground for our having a deep satisfaction of heart also. We are not what we would be; but then we are not what we shall be. We advance slowly; but then we advance surely. The end is secured by omnipotent grace. It is right that we should be discontented with ourselves, yet this holy restlessness should not rob us of our perfect peace in Christ Jesus. If the Lord hath rest in us, shall we not have rest in him? If he rests in his love, cannot we rest in it? My heart is comforted as I plainly see in these words love unchanging, love abiding, love eternal: "he will rest in his love." Jehovah changes not. Being married to his people, "he hateth putting away." Immutability is written on his heart. The turtle-dove, when he has once chosen his mate, remains faithful throughout life, and if the beloved dies, he will, in many cases, pine away with grief for her, for his life is wrapped up in hers. Even so our Lord hath made his choice of his beloved, and he will never change it: he died for his church, and so long as he lives he will remember his own love, and what it cost him: "Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" "He will rest in his love." The love of God to us is undisturbed: "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding," dwells with his love: he is not disquieted about it, but peacefully loves, and is never moved. The calm of God is wonderful to contemplate: his infallible knowledge and infinite power put him beyond fear or question. He sees no cause of alarm as to his redeemed, nor as to the cause of truth and the reign of righteousness. As to his true church, he knows that she is right, or that he will make her right. She is being transformed into the image of Jesus, and he rests in the full assurance that the image will ere long be complete. He can carry out his own purposes in his own way and time. He can see the harvest as well as the sowing; therefore he doth "rest in his love." You have seen a mother wash her child, and as she washes its face the child perhaps is crying, for it does not for the present enjoy the cleansing operation. Does the mother share the child's grief? Does she also cry? Oh, no! she rejoices over her babe, and rests in her love, knowing that the light affliction of the little one will work its real good. Often our griefs are no deeper than the cry of a child because of the soap in its eyes. While the church is being washed with tribulations and persecutions, God is resting in his love. You and I are wearying, but God is resting. "He shall rest in his love." The Hebrew of this line is, "He shall be silent in his love." His happiness in his love is so great, that he does not express it, but keeps a happy silence. His is a joy too deep for words. No language can express the joy of God in his love; and therefore he uses no words. Silence in this case is infinitely expressive. One of the old commentators says, "He is deaf and dumb in his love," as if he heard no voice of accusation against his chosen, and would not speak a word of upbraiding to her. Remember the silence of Jesus, and expound this text thereby. Sometimes also the Lord does not speak to his people: we cannot get a cheering word from him; and then we sigh for a promise, and long for a visit of his love; but if he be thus silent, let us know that, he is only silent in his love. It is not the silence of wrath, but of love. His love is not changed, even though he does not comfort us.

"His thoughts are high, his love is wise, His wounds a cure intend; And though he does not always smile, He loves unto the end."

When he does not answer our prayers with his hand, he yet hears them with his heart. Denials are only another form of the same love which grants our petitions. He loves us, and sometimes shows that love better by not giving us what we ask than he could do if he spoke the sweetest promise which the ear has ever heard. I prize this sentence: "He shall rest in his love." My God, thou art perfectly content with thy church after all, because thou knowest what she is to be. Thou seest how fair she will be when she comes forth from the washing, having put on her beautiful garments. Lo, the sun goes down, and we mortals dread the endless darkness; but thou, great God, seest the morning, and thou knowest that in the hours of darkness dews will fall which shall refresh thy garden. Ours is the measure of an hour, and thine the judgment of eternity, therefore we will correct our short-sighted judgment by thine infallible knowledge, and rest with thee. The last word is, however, the most wonderful of all: "He will joy over thee with singing." Think of the great Jehovah singing! Can you imagine it? Is it possible to conceive of the Deity breaking into a song: Father, Son and Holy Ghost together singing over the redeemed? God is so happy in the love which he bears to his people that he breaks the eternal silence, and sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God chanting a hymn of joy. Among Orientals a certain song is sung by the bridegroom when he receives his bride: it is intended to declare his joy in her, and in the fact that his marriage has come. Here, by the pen of inspiration, the God of love is pictured as married to his church, and so rejoicing in her that he rejoices over her with singing. If God sings, shall not we sing? He did not sing when he made the world. No; he looked upon it, and simply said that it was good. The angels sang, the sons of God shouted for joy: creation was very wonderful to them, but it was not much to God, who could have made thousands of worlds by his mere will. Creation could not make him sing; and I do not even know that Providence ever brought a note of joy from him, for he could arrange a thousand kingdoms of providence with ease. But when it came to redemption, that cost him dear. Here he spent; eternal thought, and drew up a covenant with infinite wisdom. Here he gave his Only-begotten Son, and put him to grief to ransom his beloved ones. When all was done, and the Lord saw what became of it in the salvation of his redeemed, then he rejoiced after a divine manner. What must the joy be which recompenses Gethsemane and Calvary! Here we are among the Atlantic waves. The Lord God receives an accession to the infinity of his joy in the thought of his redeemed people. "He shall rejoice over thee with singing." I tremble while I speak of such themes, lest I should say a word that should dishonor the matchless mystery; but still we are glad to note what is written, and we are bound to take comfort from it. Let us have sympathy with the joy of the Lord, for this will be our strength. III. I close with a brief word upon THE BRAVE CONDUCT SUGGESTED THEREBY. Let us not sorrow under the burdens which we bear, but rejoice in God, the great Burden-bearer, upon whom this day we roll our load. Here it is "In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not; and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack." There are three things for God's people to do. The first is, to be happy. Read verse fourteen " Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, 0 Israel; be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, 0 daughter of Jerusalem." Any man can sing when his cup is full of delights; the believer alone has songs when waters of a bitter cup are wrung out to him. Any sparrow can chirp in the daylight; it is only the nightingale that can sing in the dark. Children of God, whenever the enemies seem to prevail over you, whenever the serried ranks of the foe appear sure of victory, then begin to sing. Your victory will come with your song. It is a very puzzling thing to the devil to hear saints sing when he sets his foot on them. He cannot make it out: the more he oppresses them, the more they rejoice. Let us resolve to be all the merrier when the enemy dreams that we are utterly routed. The more opposition, the more we will rejoice in the Lord: the more discouragement, the more confidence. Splendid was the courage of Alexander when they told him that there were hundreds of thousands of Persians. "Yet," he said, "one butcher fears not myriads of sheep." "Ah!" said another, "when the Persians draw their bows, their arrows are so numerous that they darken the sun." "It will be fine to fight in the shade." cried the hero. 0 friends, we know whom we have believed, and we are sure of triumph! Let us not think for a single second, if the odds against us are ten thousand to one, that this is a hardship; rather let us wish that they were a million to one, that the glory of the Lord might be all the greater in the conquest which is sure. When Athanasius was told that everybody was denying the Deity of Christ, then he said, "I, Athanasius, against the world": Athanasius contra mundum became a proverbial expression. Brethren, it is a splendid thing to be quite alone in the warfare of the Lord. Suppose we had half-a-dozen with us. Six men are not much increase to strength, and possibly they may be a cause of weakness, by needing to be looked after. If you are quite alone, so much the better: there is the more room for God. When desertions have cleaned the place out, and left you no friend, now every corner can be filled with Deity. As long as there is so much that is visible to rely upon, and so much to hope in, there is so much the less room for simple trust in God: but now our song is of the Lord alone; "for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." The next duty is fearlessness: "Fear thou not." What! not a little? No, "Fear thou not." But surely I may show some measure of trembling? No, "Fear thou not." Tie that knot tight about the throat of unbelief. "Fear thou not": neither this day, nor any day of thy life. When fear comes in, drive it away; give it no space. If God rests in his love, and if God sings, what canst thou have to do with fear? Have you never known passengers on board ship, when the weather was rough, comforted by the calm behavior of the captain? One simple-minded soul said to his friend, "I am sure there is no cause for fear, for I heard the captain whistling." Surely, if the captain is at ease, and with him is all the responsibility, the passenger may be still more at peace. If the Lord Jesus at the helm is singing, let us not be fearing. Let us have done with every timorous accent. 0 rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. "Your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you." Lastly, let us be zealous: "Let not thine hands be slack." Now is the time when every Christian should do more for God than ever. Let us plan great things for God, and let us expect great things from God. "Let not thine hands be slack." Now is the hour for redoubled prayers and labors. Since the adversaries are busy, let us be busy also. If they think they shall make a full end of us, let us resolve to make a full end of their falsehoods and delusions. I think every Christian man should answer the challenge of the adversaries of Christ by working double tides, by giving more of his substance to the cause of God, by living more for the glory of God, by being more exact in his obedience, more earnest in his efforts, and more importunate in his prayers. "Let not thine hands be slack" in any one part of holy service. Fear is a dreadful breeder of idleness; but courage teaches us indomitable perseverance. Let us go on in God's name. I would stir up the members of this church, and all my brethren, to intense zeal for God and the souls of men. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." Would God that all were on Christ's side out of this great assembly! Oh, that you would come to Jesus, and trust him, and then live for him in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation! The Lord be with us. Amen.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

Lectures on the Minor Prophets.

W. Kelly.

Zephaniah like Habakkuk will be found to have some points of resemblance with the prophet Jeremiah; and this not merely in the fact that the Chaldean is the enemy of which both treat, but also in their both setting forth the blessedness reserved for Israel and Jerusalem when the judgments of Jehovah shall have been executed on the nations. Nevertheless there is this wide difference between the two lesser prophets; that Zephaniah in treating of the glory of God is much more external, while Habakkuk dwells far more on the needed exercises of heart with God's answer to the Jew both now and hereafter. Thus the two minor prophets take up each a separate item of the prophet of Anathoth. Jeremiah's prophecy abounds in internal exercises of heart, and here Habakkuk resembled him: we see his grief and hear his complaints and laments to Jehovah when evil was allowed to prevail. On the other hand he shows us the execution of divine judgment which will set aside the proud Gentiles, and reduce the people of God to their true place, in order that, being abased in heart, they may be exalted outwardly. Zephaniah presents rather the latter, as Habakkuk the former. Jerusalem is in the foreground, but in connection with the general judgment of the nations from whose evils the Jews had in no way kept themselves apart. Thus there is no precise mention of the apostate powers of the latter day. As Antichrist therefore is not named or specially described, so neither is the Messiah, save generally as the Jehovah God of Israel.

"The word of Jehovah 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." Thus we have a full and clear account of Zephaniah, as also of the time in which he wrote. It was of no small importance that there should be prophets raised up during the time of Josiah and subsequently. Jeremiah was rather the latest of the three already named. The importance morally of their prophecies then was, that no one either at the time of Josiah or afterwards should be deceived as to the facts of the partial reformation accomplished during the reign of that pious prince. There is nothing that is more apt to deceive and to disappoint than a wave of blessing which passes over a nation so far gone from righteousness as the Jews of that day. Josiah's eminent piety, his remarkable zeal in dealing sternly with what profaned the name of Jehovah, above all the subjection of heart to the word of God which peculiarly characterized himself, in no way set the nation right. Undoubtedly there must have been then, as always, sanguine hopes indulged by the excellent of the earth. It was of great moment therefore that God's mind about the matter should be made known in order that none, if deceived for the moment, should be too bitterly disappointed at last. We ought to appreciate heartily whatever of blessing God gives, and seek to be kept from a passive or insensible spirit.

On the other hand to look for more than a partial and passing accomplishment of good to individuals through the grace of God is not wise. The blessing that is given, while a matter of immense thankfulness towards souls and of praise to His own mercy, really leaves the moral state of those who reject it worse than before. It does not fail in the end to accelerate the downward course of the mass, and thus brings in a time of deeper ruin. So we see that there was but a short space indeed that separated Josiah's bright burst of pious effort for God's glory from the awful evils which succeeded and brought an insupportable judgment from God on the guilty people. Zephaniah was one of those who spoke in Jehovah's name during these promising times; and thus he begins his message: "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith Jehovah."

I do not doubt that such times as those of Josiah answer more or less to revivals of religion, or awakenings in our own or other days under the gospel. And assuredly it is solemn to feel that, besides the blessing to souls here and there, the general result is that they only increase much the responsibility of those who do not profit by the testimony God thus renders. We may and ought to be thankful for fruit to His grace, but should not forget that they evidently seem on the background to be a visitation not without grave consequences to the despisers.

At the same time, I think that the resemblance is stronger to such a dealing of God as the Reformation. For a revival is more a work of awakening sinners; whereas this was a recall of the people of God also to their place from idols and profanity. No doubt sinners were awakened, but there was a loud call to the people of God generally to hear the word of God instead of acquiescing in their own declension and dishonour. Now this is not always the case. We hear of some such effects locally; for instance in the revival which God wrought by Jonathan Edwards and others of his day in their districts of America. The Whitfield-Wesleyan movement was widespread in arousing sinners, but extremely partial as to any dealings with the state of Christian people. They were both, however zealous, too ignorant of the word and ways of God to help the church of God to any appreciable extent. I need not speak much of the comparatively recent revival chiefly in the North of Ireland, which spread over various parts of the world about the same time; but it seems plain that whatever may be God's goodness in a revival, it is in general a rebuke to the wickedness of man in its day a strong reclamation on God's part against the routine in which the mass consent to go on, as well as a display of grace exceptionally. But the effect of slighting such a summons of His, not only in others, but even in those who have shared the revival and thus enjoyed blessing from God, leaves them as the rule in a worse state than before. This seems to have always been the history of such movements.

Some I know believe that there has been a change in a large part of Christendom outwardly since the revival in the North of Ireland and in America, from 1857 to 1860, especially in its operation, so as to call forth a great many preachers of all sorts outside the clergy or the various official guides of the denominations. But I am disposed to attribute the impulse given to lay preaching to a very different testimony, though it is possible that the distress among the souls awakened at that time may have impressed on it a more practical shape. And this continues. The force of free preaching does not appear to be spent as yet, so far as outward appearances go. Whether, and how far this may be an important event towards the close has been a question sometimes. The worst sign is that in a large part even of that evangelizing which continues, it takes the shape of considerable bitterness against such truth as condemns themselves. Those who do so cannot but help on the Laodiceanism of Christendom in these days. Latitudinarianism will be increasingly a snare; and the most systematic and guilty part comes from those who should know better, but are really so much the worse because of the mercy God had shown them and of their deliverance in measure from mere traditionalism. What an ungrateful return from the heart for such goodness of God! the using grace to slight what is due to Christ and the truth and holiness of God, who calls us to a thorough renunciation of self and of the world for His name. This certainly cannot be said to have been the effect of the movement hitherto; is it so still less as time goes on? If not, a free spread of truth which does not separate to Christ from worldliness, and forms which ignore the Holy Spirit, must in the long run contribute to help on the apostacy more or less decidedly. In fact, as far as we can see, everything moves in that direction.

It would be hard to say what does not in one way or another tend to lessen the authority of divine truth in men's minds. Take, for instance, the Ecumenical Council. The promulgation of absurd decrees about the infallibility of the Pope will no doubt largely increase the superstitious party and their pride of heart and blindness. On the other hand there is the reaction of those that despise and laugh it to scorn, knowing who and what are those who put forth such exorbitant pretensions, that the claim of God's truth is the merest imposture, covering over a group of ambitious priests working out their own glory by the most glaring perversion of the word of God, and this in a way highly calculated to deceive many, because they say a great deal that is unquestionably true and right. They talk about the church just as if there was reality in the Romish system; they also decry the amazing pride and profanity of modern science in setting itself against the word of God; so that in this way there is an immense deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish. Thus on every side is seen that which leads both directly and indirectly to the abandonment of divine revelation and more particularly of Christianity, which is called the apostacy.

The Lord then pronounces through Zephaniah the clean destruction that is coming, not only in a general sentence, but by a minute enumeration of particulars. "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 Jehovah." The completeness of the ruin would prove the hand of Jehovah; for why else beast as well as man? why birds of heaven and fishes of the sea? But the root lay in the stumbling-blocks (or idols) of the wicked, who should all perish together. Hence the cutting off man from the face of the land (or earth) closes this emphatic sentence of Jehovah. The judgment should be universal.

But there is more than that: "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, the name of the Chemarim [that is, idolatrous priests only named besides in 2 Kings 23:5, Hosea 10:5, and supposed by Gesenius to be so designated from their black ecclesiastical dress] with the priests." What made this idolatry so offensive was the joining of the idols of the nations with Jehovah. To be what we might call a plain right-down idolater was not nearly so evil as to show that you know the true God and yet put false gods on a level with Him. Such an outrage against God as this is specially described here. "And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear to Jehovah, and that swear by Malcham." And certainly, to apply the principle to the present day, as we have just now been speaking of revivals such as Josiah's and their bearing on the future crisis of Christendom, as then on the crisis of Judah, this confusion is remarkably characteristic of both times. "And them that are turned back from Jehovah; and those that have not sought Jehovah, nor enquired for him." There might be both two rather different classes those on the one hand who owned Jehovah in a measure, and then had abandoned Him with slight and insult; and those on the other hand who never had been even outwardly awakened to care for Him or even enquire after Him. Then comes the warning. "Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord Jehovah: for the day of Jehovah is at hand: for Jehovah hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests. And it shall come to pass in the day of Jehovah's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel." He would begin with those who had the chief responsibility.

"In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an howling from the second, land a great crashing from the hills." It will be universal consternation and chastening from God. "Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people* are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off. And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles." Not merely those that were openly violent no one should escape, no class or condition. They "say in their heart, Jehovah will not do good, neither will he do evil." It is Sadduceanism before the Sadducees. "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;" that is, they shall be struck in the very point of their unbelief. "The great day of Jehovah is near, it is near,, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of Jehovah." They denied this altogether; they said Jehovah would do neither good nor harm: He was a God that took His ease as they did. "Even the voice of the day of Jehovah: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. 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."

* It is literally "all the people of Canaan," which may be as has been thought, a cutting designation of the men of Jerusalem generally, rather than of the trading classes. It appears to me, however, that the clause which follows is favourable to the more common version.

It is of great importance that we should hold and testify "that day," not merely the coming of the Lord but His day. Although it indicates undoubtedly much more for the state that the coming of the Lord is dear to us as our heavenly hope, nevertheless there may be an unwillingness to face the solemn truth of the day of Jehovah. Where there is high truth and low practice, the day of Jehovah can never be honestly testified; it does not then receive that place in our practical service which it has in the word of God. It will not satisfy the heart to substitute for our proper hope that which bears on the world in the judicial excision of evil here below; it will never do to live in or on it, because it is not the suited food for the soul; still it is a solemn and necessary truth to hold up before our own eyes and those of all others. Were there truthfulness with a graciously exercised heart, not only would there be a free and joyful waiting for Christ, but nothing could be allowed knowingly inconsistent with His mind to call forth His judgment. For instance we constantly find this kind of self-deceit where a Christian lives in worldliness, which leads him to say that at all events his heart is not in it.

Now it is quite possible there may be cases where one can quite understand meek trust to be the genuine feeling, as where a wife or a child may be held responsible to obey. Thus suppose such an one in the worldly mansion belonging to a worldly Christian of rank: clearly one under authority is not at liberty to enter on a crusade against splendours of furniture, equipage, or the general style of living that belongs to a great house. Nevertheless the Christian child should undoubtedly seek, while personally a Nazarite, to abstain from offensive demonstrations to its parents. This would not hinder a decided taking part with what was despised and rejected whenever an opportunity was allowed. Faith now as ever shares the afflictions of the people of God, and more particularly identifies itself with what is scorned and hated in separation from the world. But it is most happy where, along with fidelity to the Lord, one sees a meek and lowly mind giving conspicuous honour to father and mother, from which I need not say Christ in no way absolves. At the same time there should be the constant manifestation that the heart is with Him who is the treasure in the heavens. If possession came, such an one would know how to turn all to a testimony, not of sanctified worldliness, as if this could be, but to Him who suffered on the cross, whereby he is crucified to the world and the world to him. Love for Christ's appearing strengthens the pilgrim in his path, though only Christ's love makes one a pilgrim. But it is evil where one perseveres in going on with what grieves the Lord on the plea that He will set all to rights in His day.

Nor is it to be doubted that in the day of the Lord there will be something like a reflection of what the path has been here, loss in case of unfaithfulness and reward for the service of His name. But it would appear from the New Testament, I think, that this to us is rather called the day of Christ, thus distinguishing between it and the day of Jehovah. Assuredly Christ is Jehovah; but still it is a very different thought where He is so styled, as in the Revelation. And it is remarkable that in Zephaniah so external is its usage comparatively we never see Him brought in as Christ at all. We find simply Jehovah here. It is therefore more judicial. If "the day of Christ" may be received as judicial too, it has certainly more application, even in that character, to what was based on and flowed from Christ. "The day of Christ" is that aspect of the day of the Lord in which those who have lived and walked and suffered in grace will have their portion assigned to them by the Master. Hence the apostle Paul says a good deal about "the day of Christ" in the Epistle to the Philippians. There we have the results of service and of suffering, of thorough identification with Christ now.

In the common version of the second Epistle to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:2), it is a twofold mistake to present the error then at work among the saints, as "the day of Christ is at hand."* Had the false teachers said this, they had not gone far astray. But they pretended the authority of the apostle and indeed of the Spirit for the assertion that the day of the Lord was actually arrived, or then present not "at hand;" just as in another epistle we hear of such as affirmed the resurrection to have taken place already. Thus "present" was what they meant. They had, no doubt, some idea of a figurative day of the Lord, pretty much like what obtains at the present time in Christendom generally. For, strange to say, not a few theologians hold that the baptized are in the first resurrection, and that we are all throughout the Christian period reigning with Christ! The thousand years are thus of course taken as an indefinite period in a similarly vague sense. The chief difference is that the saints at Thessalonica had better knowledge than those who indulge in such thoughts now. They saw that the day of the Lord was a day of darkness and trouble; and in danger of feeling overmuch the troubles then come on themselves (cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:3-5), they too readily believed them to be at any rate the beginning of that day. Encountering persecution, they thought that the day of the Lord had come at last. But the very error shows they were so full of the coming of the Lord as to be open through lack of intelligence to a delusion on that side. Only observe it was not through excited hope but terror; because, when their troubles came, they thought that the day of the Lord was actually on them. They needed to be recalled to their hope and the gathering of the saints to the Lord so as to come with Him in that day. Such is the apostolic correction; not putting off the hope (as most do now), but distinguishing it from the day of the Lord which few seem to see; for that day cannot be till the evil is ripe which is to be then only put down.

* The true reading is the day of the Lord, not "Christ," and the proper rendering would be is present, not "at hand."

Thus "that day," "the day of Christ," is to have an aspect toward those who are now Christians, who will be with Him in the glory in the heavens. But it is "the day of Christ" more particularly which affects a Christian. "The day of Jehovah" in scripture is invariably that which deals with the world, with living men and their works on the earth, and finally with the frame and elements of the universe itself, but this rather at the close of His day than at its beginning, as we gather from the comparison of several scriptures. "The great day of Jehovah is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of Jehovah: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. 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, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Jehovah: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah'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 can be plainer. It is distinctly judicial, and this as regards the habitable world. "The day of Christ" has also a discriminative bearing, and this with a view to rewarding the saints who shall have laboured for the Lord or suffered meanwhile. All will be made up to them then. It is possible that this has been overlooked: what has not been? Excellent men, in their desire to give grace its scope in redemption and our justification by faith, have failed now and then to leave room for another principle equally plain. The apostle Paul, if weighed, would keep us by the Spirit both large in heart, and free from the confusion of things that differ. It is he who insists that we "are saved by grace," and that "every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." Not only will God be justified by our account of all as it is to Christ, but the ways and work and suffering with Christ of those who are His will have their due place and display in the glory of the kingdom by and by.

The apostle had this certainty before him as a measure and test of the present. See it in 1 Corinthians 4:1-21; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 1 Corinthians 6:1-20; 1 Corinthians 7:1-40; 1 Corinthians 11:1-34; 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, to take but one epistle; and this not the most abundant in such interweaving of the future with all the present life. "That day" becomes even more before his spirit as he approaches the end of his own labours, though we know that from the first he had not failed to preach the kingdom. I admire the exceeding breadth of Paul, as indeed well one may in every one who, steering clear of laxity, its counterfeit, proves spiritual capacity for it. It becomes not the Christian to be narrow. Nevertheless who can avoid seeing the tendency to be so on this or that? Be assured that it is not only weakness but a danger wherever it may be. I grant, however, that even narrowness in and for God's truth is far better than that lax uncertainty and spurious liberalism in divine things which is growingly a snare in this evil day.

Take the contrary of this in the apostle and his preaching. The very man to whom all are most indebted for the gospel of the grace of God, set forth as none else did that particular phase of it which is called the gospel of the glory of Christ. At the same time he preached the kingdom of God as decidedly as possible. He never was afraid of the ignorant outcry that this is low ground. The fact is that hasty and little minds say so, unable to take in more than one idea, and apt to be intoxicated with that one; but the apostle exhibits that excellent largeness and elasticity which gives its place to every message which God has revealed, which pretends not to choose in scripture, but thankfully takes and uses the testimony of God as it is given. It seems to me that we really lower the revival of truth grace has wrought by allowing the idea that this truth or that is the only truth for the day. The speciality of our blessing is that we have got into a large place, contemptible as it looks to unbelief that no truth comes amiss, and that all truth is for this day. I hold this to be an important point for us, avoiding the pettiness of fancying or seeking a factitious value for whatever happens to be dawning with especial force on our own minds.

It is a snare the more to be dreaded because it has ever led to the making of sects through an active mind laying hold of (or rather taken captive by) some favourite notion or even truth. I consider it then an essentially sectarian bias; and that the true and distinctive blessing of what God has given us now in these days is not so much laying hold of this or that truth higher than others accept, though this be true, but the heart open to the truth in all its extent, and this bound up with Christ personally, as the only possible means of deliverance, if by grace we walk there in the power of the Spirit, from every kind of pettiness. It will be found too, that it is immensely important practically for holiness, because we are so weak that we are likely to take just what we like and what at the time suits our own character, habits, position, circumstances, and capacity; whereas what we want is to detect, judge, and thus be saved from self; not that which ever spares flesh, but what gives us to mortify our members on the earth, as well as what in divine love suits the varying wants of souls around us, and above all His glory, who has given us not only a particular part of His mind, but the whole of it. Thus, as it has been well said, the peculiarity really of the right position is its universality. That is, it is not merely a special portion or phase of truth, no matter how blessed, but the truth in all its fulness as the divinely given safeguard from particular views, and the communication of the exceeding largeness of God's grace and truth and ways for us in the world. "All things are yours." Anything that tends by distinctive marks to make a party by bringing forward one's self or one's own views as practically a centre is self-condemned.

For this reason it is, I think, that, while holding fast, for instance, the precious hope of Christ's heavenly glory, and that which is so connected with its revelation, namely, the church in its heavenly relationship and privileges, to see every other aspect is in its own place of great importance. Again, the individual is important just as much as the body, and in a certain sense more so. Above all to hold up Christ is to my mind of incomparably greater moment than either the Christian or the body. Indeed the way most of all to profit both the body and the individual saint is by the constant maintenance of Christ's glory, and this too not more as the exalted man in heaven than as a divine person in the fulness of His grace on earth, yet withal the dependent and obedient man, who never sought His own will or aught save the glory of His Father who sent Him.

And as we touch on the subject, let me just make the passing remark, which may be helpful to those who desire an entrance into God's revealed mind, that a phrase too often misunderstood spite of its plain force in1 John 1:1; 1 John 1:1 "That which was from the beginning" does not refer to Christ in eternity or in heaven, but to Him on earth: so utterly mistaken is the principle of merely directing attention to that which seems the nearest object or the highest point of view. The truth is, that the snare lies in this, because the mighty work of redemption, and the position which Christ has taken, may be too much regarded in its resulting consequences for us. What brings ourselves into such special blessedness is thus in danger of being made more important than what has even glorified God the Father morally. For this last we must look not to our heavenly place and privileges but to Christ's person and work in all its extent. Here the manifestation of Christ on earth is of capital moment. It is the beginning of His presence and path here. In the beginning (John 1:1-51) He was before all things were created. The only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father declared Him. The work lays the ground for an association with Him; but His manifestation here is the beginning from which God revealed Himself in grace. In due time redemption and union with Him in heavenly places and all else follow. We must thus leave room for all the truth; if one is merely occupied with a particular point of truth, very great harm may result to one's own soul and to others.

A few words on a subject often referred to, the difference between the gospel of grace and the gospel of glory, may be seasonable here. The gospel of the grace of God is the larger expression; the gospel of the glory of Christ is a part of it. It is therefore an error to set the two in contrast, though we may distinguish and use in due season, as we find each used in the word of God. But that the one is an advance on the other is a blunder. The gospel of the grace of God includes the gospel of the glory of Christ, while it embraces a great deal more. It takes in the unfolding of redemption such as we have it for instance in Romans, "propitiation through his blood;" it takes in His death and resurrection with its immense consequences. On the other hand, in looking only at the gospel of the glory, all this may be left out; souls carried away by what is new to them are even in danger of slighting what is deepest without intending it. Let us then beware of making a system, instead of being subject to the truth. Of course it would be done unconsciously by every godly person; but in itself it is always a serious feature.

If the first chapter set forth the coming ruin of Judea because of the corruption of people and princes, and the. horrors of the day of Jehovah falling on their selfish security and vainly trusted appliances, we have a call to repentance in the second. "Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of Jehovah come upon you, before the day of Jehovah's anger come upon you." It is an appeal to humble themselves before the Lord. "Seek ye Jehovah, all ye meek of the earth." We see there are these two calls. To the nation there is a suited warning; but an earnest appeal is made to the remnant of righteous Jews. These were "the meek of the earth." "Seek ye Jehovah, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of Jehovah's anger."

Throughout scripture we see this to be the portion of the godly Jew. They do not look to be caught up to heaven as we do, but they hope to be hidden on earth. They are not removed from the scene and then the wicked judged, neither are they displayed with the Lord returning from heaven for that day; but they are hidden in the day of His anger. It is the precise opposite of the Christian's portion, though both are to be blessed. When the day comes, we shall come along with Him who brings it. In that day of judgment on the world they will be hidden in His mercy and faithfulness. Instead of their going to the Father's house, they will have their chambers to hide them on the earth. This is what Isaiah (Isaiah 26:1-21) shows clearly in his ample account of that day. "Come, my people, enter thou" not into My mansions, but "into thy chambers." Before the dawning of that day we enter into the heavenly chambers, or the Father's house. We are taken and seen there before the judgments begin. Compare Revelation 4:1-11; Revelation 5:1-14. When the day comes, instead of being hidden, we are displayed, whereas the Jews (the godly alone, of course) will not be seen, or at least they will enter into their chambers till the indignation is overpass. That hiding place is prepared for them by the pity of God. We see something analogous inRevelation 12:1-17; Revelation 12:1-17 where the woman had a place prepared of God for her in the wilderness. It is the same substantial truth whether before the day comes, or when it does come. "Hide thyself as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpass." By the "indignation" is meant God's wrath, which will be poured out on the nations, and more particularly on the apostate Jews. The indignation of God takes in both; but it is very evident that the Christian has nothing to do with either. He is called out from the earth and man's portion here, and is entitled to wait for heavenly hopes with Christ.

Not so even the faithful Jews at the end of this age. Their hope can only be enjoyed when their enemies are destroyed by divine judgments, during which they are preserved of God. For "behold Jehovah cometh out of his place to punish." But our hope is to be taken into the Lord's place before He comes out of it in vengeance. Thus in every respect the position and hopes of the Christian are contrasted even with those of the righteous remnant who follow us on earth.

We go out in spirit to meet the Bridegroom, and will have our hope at His coming for us in peace. It is no question of a special tribulation, or of being hidden, as far as the heavenly saints are concerned. To the godly remnant of Jews it will be so when the Lord deals retributively with their guilty brethren after the flesh and the nations. With the remnant common views hastily confound the hopes of the Christian; whereas a closer knowledge of the scriptures proves them to be distinct.

The essential difference arises from this, that all through a Christian is one not of the world, even as Christ is not, and hence is looking to be taken out of the earth. Accordingly it is not only true morally from the time when he is brought to God, but it runs through his calling up to the end: I do not say from conversion simply as such. For important as this may be, the work of conversion is more what takes place always in every renewed soul, Jew or not. But certainly in the believer's separation to Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost he is called out of everything here to God as manifesting Himself in Christ; and the issue will be that he, as thus called out, will be taken up to be with the Lord without disturbing things or people outside. The world goes on. The Christian hears what the world does not hear; the Christian sees a glory that is invisible to man as such. Truly if the rulers of this world had seen it, "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." We do see it. Accordingly our portion is to be thus called out from first to last; and so it will be when' Christ comes for us. Then we shall be taken, as we have remarked, into His chambers not merely enter chambers of our own on the earth, as the Jew at a later day, and be hidden there till the indignation is passed away. We are called out for heaven in the day of grace: they will be hidden in their chambers in the time of Jehovah's indignation. At that time will they be severed to Jehovah; and then will He come out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth; whereas during the whole dealing with the church of God the earth and its inhabitants are left to pursue their own way. The only testimony which goes on is one of grace towards them, if peradventure they might hear and believe.

Then we have the warning of what will take place in the day of Jehovah's anger, which no doubt has, been partially accomplished, and will be yet more. "For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted up." These were cities of Philistine power. "Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of Jehovah is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon;" which has clearly not been accomplished yet to the full. "In the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down in the evening: for Jehovah their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity." In fact the Jews have. been carried off into a longer dispersion since then. The captivity in the days of Nebuchadnezzar was nothing at all so extreme as their scattering to the ends of the earth, consequent on the Roman destruction of Jerusalem.

"I have heard the reproach of Moab." It is not merely the Philistines on the west, but Moab, etc., on the east who must come into judgment for their proud enmity. "I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. Therefore as I live, saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them. This shall they have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of Jehovah of hosts. Jehovah will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen."

It is not here the rejected Son of God turning away from the jealous religionists of tradition, and opening out the grace of the Father and the power of the Spirit, which characterize the hour that now is, during which neither Jerusalem nor Samaria is more than Japan or Sierra Leone for sanctity, but Christ received by faith displaces the old man, and flesh and forms vanish before the gift of the Holy Ghost consequent on redemption. In the period which Zephaniah contemplates there is no such absolute blotting out of special place and outward show as according toJohn 4:21-24; John 4:21-24 we now know or ought to know in Christianity. Hence we see no sentence of death as it were on the ancient city of solemnities, but only, as inMalachi 1:11; Malachi 1:11, the opening for worship elsewhere "each from his place," even all the isles of the nations.

That the great change for the earth the full putting down of idolatry awaits the execution of divine judgment is plain everywhere. We can clearly see that idolatry goes on, with the worst forms in Christendom itself; for there is nothing so bad as idolatry where Christ is named, and there is nothing that more characterizes Christendom than the prevalence of Romanism which is essentially idolatrous, besides the monstrous assumption of the Papacy more than ever towering up in its vanity against God. For what is idolatry, if not the worship of images, in whatever measure they may mete it, the worship too of saints, angels, and the Virgin Mary? Whatever may be judged of the Greek and Oriental bodies, I should say that idolatry is not characteristic of Protestantism at all, but rather headiness, and, among the worst, high-minded self-will, which sets up to judge the word of God. This is much more the public vice of corrupt Protestantism, which therefore tends to rationalism. But the ritualistic system is another root of evil, which does not tend to idolatry only, but is in fact idolatrous. (Galatians 4:9-10) I should not however call it Protestant. We all know that a certain portion among the Reformed in these and other lands is falling into Ritualism and ripe for Rome whenever it suits both.

Having seen the divine dealing with their neighbours, we find a judgment that takes place on some of those who, though farther off, came into contact with the chosen people the Ethiopians on the extreme south, and again, on the north-east, Assyria: "Ye Ethiopians also shall be slain by my sword. And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness."

It is evident, save to those who regard the prophets as impostors, that this utterance of Zephaniah must have preceded the destruction of Nineveh. He lived, there can be little doubt, in Josiah's reign. "And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations. Both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work. This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand." Thus we find it is a judgment which selects two classes, nations near and others afar off, to show the character of an universal judgment upon the world. It is the day of Jehovah on the earth.

But there follows a closer threat for the Jew. "Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!" This is not Nineveh, but Jerusalem. The most solemn word of God is always reserved for His own people, city, and sanctuary. Judgment must begin at His house: the denunciation may end with it, but judgment begins there. Hence, therefore, we find this woe to complete all. "She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in Jehovah; she drew not near to her God. Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow." We find here therefore failure first towards Jehovah, then towards every one else oppressive cruelty, and this persisted in too. Shamelessness in evil, once it is yielded to, always characterizes the fall of those that enjoyed better light but gave it up. There is nothing more blessed than light from God: where the heart basks in it, the conscience is quickened by it; but there is nothing so tremendous as where it is despised and becomes a name, a profane and common thing. "Her prophets are light and treacherous persons." They ought to have had most of all the mind of God. "Her priests have polluted the sanctuary." This would have been bad enough in the dwellings of Israel; what was it for the priests in the temple of Jehovah? "They have done violence to the law. The just Jehovah is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame." He abides faithful; so much the worse that "the unjust" should be not a heathen but an Israelite.

Consequently we have what Jehovah must do not merely to the heathen but to Jerusalem. "I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, and corrupted all their doings." As Jehovah rose early to send them messages and warnings, they rose early to indulge in their wickedness. Hence comes the sentence, "Therefore wait ye upon me, saith Jehovah, 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 upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy."

But the day of judgment on the quick ushers in the predicted era of earth's blessedness: as it is said by an earlier prophet, "the acceptable year of Jehovah and the day of vengeance of our God." How strange that good men should overlook what God's word makes so plain, if one knew not the blinding power of tradition! "For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve him with one consent." This does not mean the people of Israel, but the peoples in relationship with Jehovah among the nations. But it does not hence follow that the spread of Christianity and any check thereby given to idolatry throughout the world are here specifically predicted. When it is fulfilled, it will be no dislodgment of idolatry here or there in parts of the globe, still less will it admit of the rising up of the pollutions of anti-christian systems, while vast regions still remain the theatre of varied and most degrading idolatry. Scripture reveals an age to come, distinct from the present and before the judgment of the great white throne (Revelation 20:1-15), during which divine mercy will bless the nations far and wide. This, and not Christianity properly so called, is here set forth.

Then again we read, "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed shall bring mine offering." These suppliant worshippers are the Jews who return from beyond the rivers of Cush (the Nile and the Euphrates) which ordinarily girded them round.* In that day shame for the past will be taken from the Jews: not of course that they shall not deeply mourn and truly repent, but the reproach shall be removed from them. Their vain self-exaltation shall disappear, and they shall be the meek of the earth. The reference is not to gospel but to Messianic times, after the execution of the judgments just spoken of. It is impossible therefore justly to bring in here the spread of Christianity, which has not overthrown idolatry, but after subverting it within the Roman Empire has apostatized to it largely far and wide. Hence even the advocates of such a loose interpretation are obliged to own that it has hitherto been only partially fulfilled. There is anything but the "one shoulder" in Christendom for the service of the Lord. Do they not understand that it is only when divine judgment has been poured out on all the assembled nations that then Jehovah will work this mighty and beneficent change to His own glory? It is the blessedness of the earthly kingdom of our Lord.

*The meaning is not, as Dr. Henderson seems to incline to, a people in the west of Abyssinia, called Falashas. Isaiah (Isaiah 18:1) tells as that a nation beyond the rivers of Cush (for there was an Asiatic as well as African Cush) should interfere for Israel; but this would come to nothing. Here Jehovah promises that the Jews shall bring His offering from beyond the seats of their old enemies of chief power.

For along with God's judgment of the nations will be a new heart to Israel, and upon Jerusalem shall be the glory for a defence. There shall be then the returning tide of divine mercy, when the promises shall be fulfilled to the full and established for ever. "In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain." It is the fruit of grace undoubtedly; but it is want of intelligence to see in this the picture of the gospel state. We must leave room for the varied dealings of God according to His word. It is the new age, not the present evil age. "I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people." There must be moral integrity as well as true lowliness before they can be entrusted with the throne. They are destined to have the first dominion: ere that they will know a humiliation not by circumstances only but by grace in spirit which will fit them for their future greatness.

And the afflicted and poor people "shall trust in the name of Jehovah. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies" the very faults they have been so notorious for during their sorrowful and often persecuted sojourn among the Gentiles. Deceit has peculiarly marked the Jew in his exiled state: it is apt to be the character of a down-trodden people. Those who have things their own way can afford to have a kind of honesty after the flesh; but in the case of people for ages hunted and destroyed, and the object of unprecedented rapine and cruelty as the poor Jews were, it was not to be wondered at. Where grace is not known in Christ, persecution generates this kind of deceit in language as well as iniquity in many an other way. But the change is at hand and here announced: "The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid." There will be the removal of all the old occasion for fear externally; and even before this a moral change will have been produced by the grace of God within them. It is not in outward things really to form the heart in any case. But where mind and conscience are depraved, circumstances furnish incentives to the inroad and practice of evil, and thus aggravate, no doubt. On the other hand Jehovah in His mercy will work His own mighty work within, as He also will mow down their adversaries. Thus circumstances will be turned in their favour at the very time when Jehovah has wrought His great work. It will be what the Lord Jesus calls "the regeneration" (Matthew 19:1-30), when the twelve tribes of Israel shall judge and be blessed in more than royal glory under the Son of man. For we must remember that "regeneration" does not mean as is commonly supposed a subjective change or a new nature given as in the new birth, but a blessed position into which we are brought now by divine power in Christ, or by and by established publicly when He comes in glory. It is now known to faith of course, yet is not so much the inward work of the Spirit, but rather the new place that we enter by resurrection in virtue of His death.

Hence we read of being saved by the washing of regeneration. (Titus 3:1-15; compare 1 Peter 3:1-22) It is not merely that we are born again, but we have left the old behind and are now a new creation. Of course it supposes the new birth, or it is only a hollow form. The two things are identified in ecclesiastical writings, and frequently too in baptismal services we see the same mistake perpetrated which the Fathers first introduced. They always confound new birth and regeneration. Few Protestants have emancipated themselves from the error. But post-apostolic ecclesiastics were those that brought in the error. Regeneration goes beyond new birth, and supposes a passage into the new order of Christ, of which baptism therefore is the sign. Accordingly I should say that all saints were born again from the beginning, but that none (in this the only true sense of the word) were regenerate till after Christ's death and resurrection, when Christian baptism was instituted to set forth this truth. It is thus in my judgment not less but more full and significant. And though many may be baptized who are not born again, every one regenerate (save only in form) must à fortiori be born again. The theologians, like the Fathers, hold that every baptized person is born again, using the phrases as interchangeable. If baptized, a man was regenerate or born again according to their system. It appears to be true, however, that the washing of regeneration in Titus iii. refers to baptism; but then, as it seems to me, the language of the passage proves that the introduction into the quite new order of things in Christ is accompanied by a new nature or life; that in short the new creation supposes new life and much more, all being bound up together. "But after that the kindness and love of God appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." It is not man merely dead in sins or owning it, but "he saved us by the washing of regeneration." We must not neutralise nor attenuate salvation. It would be dangerous to take "he saved us" as here spoken of the Christian in any sense barely external.

Indeed I think a great vice at the present moment is making "salvation" too cheap and too common a word. You will find many evangelicals constantly saying when a man is converted that he is saved; whereas it is probably quite premature to say so. If truly converted he will be saved; but it is unwarrantable to say that every converted person is saved, because he may still be under doubts and fears that is, under law more or less in conscience. "Saved" brings one out from all sense of condemnation brings one to God consciously free in Christ, not merely before God with earnestness of desire after godliness. A soul is not converted unless brought to God in conscience; but then one might be the more miserable and all but despairing in this state. Does scripture allow us to call such an one "saved"? Certainly not. He who is saved as here in Titus is one who being justified by faith has peace with God. It seems therefore that the distinction between what some call being safe and being saved is quite true and even helpful. Not that those safe could be lost, but that they are not yet brought out of all difficulties into rest of soul by faith. Then they are not safe only but saved. But it clearly is not possible that a converted person can be lost, for the life is eternal. One might be enlightened, and even be a partaker of the Holy Ghost, and yet be lost. Such a statement may surprise some; but such is the unequivocal intimation ofHebrews 6:1-20; Hebrews 6:1-20; and no believer need be in the least afraid of standing to the word of God. To state it so is but repeating what scripture says: it is another matter whether we can help people to understand it. Let the truth be ever so clear and sure, with some you may not always succeed. It is easy enough to give scripture for it, which ought to be sufficient.

Hence it is a mistake to regard as saved any person who is not brought into happy relationship with God through our Lord Jesus. Thus, to take a scripture example, Cornelius was obviously converted, and not a mere self-righteous man, before Peter went to him; but he certainly was not saved until Peter preached the word which he and his house received as the glad tidings of God. Thereon they were not born again, but they received the Holy Ghost; and who could forbid water? They were saved. Such is the whole matter to my mind. It is not the difference between quickening and conversion, which is only one of different aspects of the same substantial truth. Quickening regards man, and conversion is a turning to God; but the quickened soul is converted, and the converted soul is quickened. Such distinctions may be true enough, but require more delicate handling than they too often receive; for those who could treat them properly would hardly think it worth their while. As they have no practical value for the soul or the Lord, and no particular bearing on the word of God, they should be avoided. It seems to me trifling with souls to dwell on them. One ought almost to apologize for saying so much about the matter, which I do chiefly to warn all, and especially those who are young in the enjoyment of truth, from occupying their minds with shades of distinction which have no solidity whatever in them. Wherever the word is received, there is conversion, or turning to God, and there must be life in order that this should be real, not the mere effort of nature. If there be life, assuredly they must turn to God. It must be that the life is in a feeble state if the turning to God is not manifest. We cannot affirm that there is life unless there be a manifest turning to God. We may hope that life and conversion are there; but it must be felt to be serious when anything is equivocal about the soul in such a question. It is dangerous to be over-sanguine or to foster ungrounded hopes, though nothing excuses our encouraging souls to doubt. Uncertainty here is a wretched condition; but the feeblest desire Godward is not a thing to be crushed. It is right to foster the soul spite of that state, to entreat and warn, if they may thus get through their obstacles.

The only remark I would further make about "conversion" is, that scripture uses it not merely for the first turning to God, but for a turning again to Him if one has slipped away. This is really the main distinction between conversion and quickening. For quickening can be only once, but "conversion" may be repeated. Though this is not at all its usage in our tongue, it is the fact that scripture uses the word for both turning to God, and turning back if He have been departed from. That is, it includes what we call restoration of soul; as Peter after his first conversion was "converted." (Luke 22:1-71) Here restoring may be a fair paraphrase; but the literal meaning of the word is "converted." Conversion, however, in modern phraseology is restricted, especially by Calvinists, to the first effectual work. This, however, is not well. Those who identify quickening with salvation naturally slip into a disuse of scriptural language if not really bad doctrine. Such is the effect always of an error it puts you in collision with scripture. Do not think it so slight a matter after all. Although we should never force the thought on any one, at the same time there need not be the slightest doubt of the distinctness of quickening from salvation, and of its importance. Identify quickening with salvation, and you are driven to think that Cornelius was a mere formalist at the time that he is said to be such a pious and prayerful man, abounding in almsgiving, which was not forgotten by God. Undoubtedly he was no common Gentile: there was, I doubt not, a wise choice of him to whom the gospel was sent first. To me there is not the slightest difficulty, because the same principle applies to every Old Testament saint. The peculiarity here is, that he, a pious Gentile, was brought into the proper New Testament or Christian state, (and this is what is called "salvation,") not when quickened or converted, which he may long have been, but only on hearing the gospel.

The two things then coalesced. This is sometimes important to remember; for supposing a soul heard the truth preached, and received it, there might be not conversion and quickening only, but also "salvation," practically all at once, though not, I think, ever at the same instant in any case. I doubt that it ever has been since the world began that a soul has known precisely together both conversion and salvation. So far from this, I admire God's wisdom that it is not so; if it were, it would be no small injury to a soul, because this supposes it passing in a moment out of its sense of guilt, and consequently of sin and sins of every sort, into perfect peace with God, without time left for the most needed moral exercise. To my mind such an instantaneous transition would be a real loss, not gain. That life is imparted by receiving the Lord Jesus at once is most true; as forgiveness is when the soul bows to the gospel. But we must leave room for all, without hurrying ourselves into a system which agrees neither with scripture nor experience.

In most of the epistles salvation is spoken of as a future thing. But I have spoken here of salvation as an accomplished fact, as in the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles. But the twelve men who formed the first nucleus of the church at Ephesus were clearly converted, and in a transition state before they received the gift of the Holy Ghost in the name of the Lord Jesus. They were meeting as disciples, not knowing anything beyond the testimony and baptism of John. Were not they converted? They were as truly converted as the Baptist was, and this was a very real thing no doubt: nevertheless they had not yet received the Holy Ghost in the way that they afterwards experienced. In this we have the case clearly; and it was many years after Pentecost.

There is another sense of the word "save," etc. in Timothy, where it has a providential bearing. "The Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe." To Timothy and Titus it is the truth of salvation already effected, and the subject is looked at from the same point of view. Put the way people reason on the point is quite a mistake. They assume, because it is said, "He hath saved us," that we were brought into the whole blessing from the first moment of our faith. I am not aware that this is ever said in scripture. If it be without scripture, they have no right to lay down so absolutely, "He hath saved us;" for this is said, not when we were first attracted and broken down in soul and truly converted, but when we have submitted to the righteousness of God and received the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation.

"The Lord added to the church [or together] daily such as should be saved." This is doubtless a peculiar expression, meaning those destined to salvation out of the Jews, who as a people were on the way to judgment, and to the prison in which they still lie. Such as should be saved are the righteous remnant, really who are now added to the church instead of being left in their old place as Jews. We must remember there were a great many brethren not only the hundred and twenty, but other names in Jerusalem. We hear of six hundred who saw the Lord at one time, and must have come to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. There may have been more. No doubt all these composed the assembly on whom the Holy Ghost first came. Then there were three thousand souls converted, who were added to those before, and all formed the assembly on the day of Pentecost. But the point here is that salvation precedes and is by the washing of regeneration. "He hath saved us by the washing of regeneration." This is not an expression of man, but of God; and of this change of place or standing baptism is the sign.

But besides "the washing of regeneration" there is "the renewing of the Holy Ghost," the washing of regeneration being, as I suppose, our introduction into the new place given us in Christ risen, as the renewing of the Holy Ghost is His mighty action internally, but operating in us conformably to it. That accompanies union; but I do not see that such is the point here. Regeneration is thus the new order of things seen in Christ risen, who makes all things new. As Christians we have this new place in Christ. So it is said inRomans 8:1; Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." That is the position, but of course there is also an internal reality which those have who are there. Its being a position, and so objective, does not set aside a real subjective change: still it is a position. The Christian is no longer in Adam: he is (not merely going to be) in Christ Jesus. Along with that there is a real life given. Of this verse 2 treats, which may perhaps answer to the renewing of the Holy Ghost here. "For the law of the spiritual life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

It is thus the work of the Spirit, and not merely so because the work of the Spirit is true in a new nature, but the new internal work of the Spirit is suitable to our new place. Of the renewing of the Holy Ghost it is therefore said, "which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." It is the full place and life of the Christian by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Thus there are three things in this text. First, there is salvation distinctly stated, secondly, there is position by the washing of regeneration; and thirdly there is full nature and power of the Christian by the Holy Ghost. The salvation is made ours by the grace of God; then follows what puts us into our new place and attests it outwardly; and lastly the new power of the Spirit in the new nature which accompanies the Christian position. There is the general result, and then the means by which that result is attained, as I think. The great fact is that He saved us, and this is the way in which it is effectuated and enjoyed; and this abundantly.

In John 10:1-42 it is rather "life more abundantly," life in resurrection power and fulness. Here it is said that the Holy Ghost is shed abundantly. Life in Christ is the main doctrine of John. Here the fulness of the Spirit's power is brought before us in connection with the work of regeneration. I think that there is an allusion to baptism in "the washing" of regeneration (and I agree with the Auth. Version that the sense is "washing," not laver as some critics have hastily assumed), because I believe that this is what baptism does show. Baptism sets forth not merely Christ's death, and that I am dead with Him, but, as we find here, it goes onward to the new position. It is not only death but more; and not at all death in sins, but death to sin with Christ. To suppose that it is but death is another instance of merely taking a particular part and making it the whole.

What might confirm this to some is Peter's way of looking at the matter. He says, "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us." Here again it is not merely what Christianity assumes of all mankind, but the sign of Christ's work in grace that is complete as far as the soul is concerned salvation of soul. We have not yet salvation of body, but we have what is more important after all than the body could be if the soul were not saved. Hence it is not the mere outward act of washing away the filth of the flesh. As we are told, it is the request of a good conscience by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The expression used, complicated by our habit of reading it as given in the Authorized Version, may make this a little difficult; but as we are on the point, it had better be said that it is the thing requested rather than the answer. It is what a good conscience wants. When the conscience is dealt with savingly by God, a man will not be satisfied with anything less than acceptance in Christ. This is really "the request of a good conscience toward God." He wants to be as Christ is; to be free from self, free from sin as well as from condemnation. This is the true meaning: "the request of a good conscience by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." I take the resurrection as connected both with saving and with this request. Here we must close the long discussion into which the notice of "the regeneration" has led us. We know it in Christ; Israel will enjoy it manifestly when the prophets are fulfilled.

The close of the prophecy is a call to rejoice and exult. The daughter of Zion is summoned to shout for joy. "Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem." This confirms what has been said already, that it is the general place of future blessing, and not a special one. When we hear of the peculiar position of Judah, as brought back from captivity and subjected to a fresh test to which Israel was not, then the rejected Messiah is brought in. Such is not the case with Zephaniah. We should not know from Zephaniah but that Messiah would come and bring in His glory as Jehovah all at once. In fact we do not hear Him called Messiah as such, but rather the king Jehovah. Verses 15-17 explain why they should thus rejoice. "Jehovah hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. Jehovah thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing." What indeed is lacking? There is no finer description in the Bible of His complacent satisfaction when mercy has done all for the people that He loved. But the dark and cold night of oppression is supposed in verse 18. God does not disguise that up to the time of deliverance their position will be desolate, as in other respects, so especially in relation to the solemn assemblies. "I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden." Now He appears for their exaltation from the dust as well as putting down their oppressors. "At that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out: and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith Jehovah." Most gracious promise! Jehovah will remember all the sorrows and bring the Jews in for a name and a praise among all lands and tongues of the earth, when He reverses their captivity in their own sight as also before the eyes of all men.