14 The great day of Yahweh is near. It is near, and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Yahweh. The mighty man cries there bitterly.
Be silent at the presence of the Lord Yahweh, for the day of Yahweh is at hand. For Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated his guests.
Yahweh thunders his voice before his army; For his forces are very great; For he is strong who obeys his command; For the day of Yahweh is great and very awesome, And who can endure it?
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.
For the day is near, even the day of Yahweh is near; it shall be a day of clouds, a time of the nations.
Behold, their valiant ones cry outside; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
The sun will be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. They told the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?"
In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn't linger, and their destruction will not slumber.
Don't grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won't be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God's trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,
Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
In that day, says Yahweh, there will be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, a wailing from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills.
He said, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then Yahweh said to me, "The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.
The sun will be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.
Blow you the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of Yahweh comes, For it is close at hand:
Tell them therefore, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but tell them, The days are at hand, and the fulfillment of every vision.
An end is come, the end is come; it awakes against you; behold, it comes. Your doom is come to you, inhabitant of the land: the time is come, the day is near, [a day of] tumult, and not [of] joyful shouting, on the mountains.
A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the principal of the flock! for Yahweh lays waste their pasture.
A voice of tumult from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of Yahweh that renders recompense to his enemies.
Therefore said I, Look away from me, I will weep bitterly; don't labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people. For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts, in the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Zephaniah 1
Commentary on Zephaniah 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Prophecy of Zephaniah
Chapter 1
After the title of the book (v. 1) here is,
Such fair and timely warning as this did God give to the Jews of the approaching captivity; but they hardened their neck, which made their destruction remediless.
Zep 1:1-6
Here is,
Zep 1:7-13
Notice is here given to Judah and Jerusalem that God is coming forth against them, and will be with them shortly; his presence, as a just avenger, his day, the day of his judgment and his wrath, are not far off, v. 7. Those that improve not the presence of God with them as a Father, but sin away that presence, may expect his presence with them as a Judge, to call them to an account for the contempt put upon his grace. The day of the Lord will come. Men have their day now, when they take a liberty to do what they please; but God's day is at hand; it is here called his sacrifice, a sacrifice of his preparing, for the punishing of presumptuous sinners is a sacrifice to the justice of God, some reparation to his injured honour. Those that brought their offerings to other gods were themselves justly made victims to the true God. On a day of sacrifice great slaughter was made; so shall there be in Jerusalem; men shall be killed up as fast as lambs for the altar, with as little regret, with as much pleasure: The slain of the Lord shall be many. On a day of sacrifice great feasts were made upon the sacrifices; so the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem shall be feasted upon by their enemies the Chaldeans; these are the guests God has prepared and invited to come and glut themselves-their revenge with slaughter and their covetousness with plunder. Now observe,
Zep 1:14-18
Nothing could be expressed with more spirit and life, nor in words more proper to startle and awaken a secure and careless people, than the warning here given to Judah and Jerusalem of the approaching destruction by the Chaldeans. That is enough to make the sinners in Zion tremble-that it is the day of the Lord, the day in which he will manifest himself by taking vengeance on them. It is the great day of the Lord, a specimen of the day of judgment, a kind of doom's-day, as the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is represented to be in our Saviour's prediction concerning it, Mt. 24:27.