Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
Zephaniah 1:7
New International Version (NIV)
7 Be silent before the Sovereign Lord,
for the day
of the Lord is near.
The Lord has prepared a sacrifice;
he has consecrated those he has invited.
In
Zephaniah 1:7 - The sacrifice is the guilty nation of Judah being offered to divine justice. His guests are the nations summoned to execute His judgment.
There is as grisly a picture of God’s
judgment as there is anywhere in the Bible. "The
Lord has prepared a sacrifice; he has consecrated those he has invited."
It’s just one line, and there aren’t any elaborate adjectives in it, but the
picture is horrible. The "sacrifice" referred to the people of
Israel, the consecrated guests would be their Babylonian conquerors.
Every Jew
knew what sacrificing entailed: slitting an animal’s throat, butchering the
carcass, eating a portion of the meat and burning the remains.
That’s what the pagan Babylonians, as God’s
consecrated ones, were going to do to the Israelites as they feasted on the
plunder.
Descriptions of ancient battles confirm the
brutality of which these consecrated ones were capable. This type of judgment
was shockingly pertinent to Israel’s sin. Since they wouldn’t offer themselves
as living sacrifices to God in their actions. God himself would make a deadly sacrifice
of them in judgment.
Zephaniah is absorbed by the theme of judgment,
generally toward Israel and its enemies but really toward the whole world. He
writes God’s words, "I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather
the kingdoms and to pour my wrath on them – all my fierce anger. The whole
world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger" (3:8).
What does this mean for those who pray that God’s
kingdom will come? It means that one-day
time will run out, and those who refused to pray will suddenly pray for
mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of God (see
Revelation 6:15-17). It means our prayers should be sober and urgent; for every
prayer for Jesus to come implies a prayer for the great and final cosmic Day of
the Lord, of which Zephaniah’s prophecy was but a foretaste.
In Christ,
Playwright Janet Irene Thomas
Founder/CEO
Bible Stories Theatre of
Fine & Performing Arts
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