Each morning I determine to finish our discussion of Zephaniah Chapter 1. But I keep finding little phrases or clauses or thoughts that I can’t omit! I’ve fallen in love with this Prophet, how true to His Lord he stood!
This Friday we notice again just 2 verses. “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.” Zephaniah 1:15-16, remarkably with the Lord Himself still speaking!
The “day” here implied included the tragic day Judah “fell” to the Babylonians, no doubt. Finally in 586 BC, beginning 70 years of servitude (captivity) for that little Nation. In the bowels of Nebuchadnezzar’s heathen giant!
But this “day” also includes glimpses of a yet future judgment. The “Tribulation” period described by both the Old Testament Prophets and our Lord Jesus. (Well, add the Apostle John from the Isle of Patmos too, in the New Testament Book of Revelation).
Our Text today contains a “list,” a frightening one! A litany of adjectives almost unparalleled in Scripture! “Wrath, trouble, distress, wasteness, desolation, darkness, gloominess, clouds, thick darkness, trumpet (an attacking army) and alarm!”
I can only think of one more Bible list as lengthy, but its “negatives” are blessings, really! Revelation 21:1 gloriously enumerates things that will NOT be in Heaven! “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” No tears, no death, no sorrow, no crying, no pain, no former ills at all!
But Zephaniah’s list (unlike any other I’ve found) is loaded with seldom used words in Scripture!
God’s Wrath has finally fallen!
For example, “wrath” is not “aph,” as expected, used 276 times in the Bible. But “ebrah” (an outpouring, a flood, unlike anything before, passing even God’s past record), only found 34 times in the Bible!
And the noun “distress” is found only 7 times in the whole Bible, Old Testament!
“Wasteness” only 13 times, meaning “to rush over,” hence, to destroy!
And get this. “Desolation,” only 3 times, meaning “a ravaging storm!”
“Gloominess,” just 10 Bible occurrences, “very dark,” as when the sun finally sets.
Finally, “thick darkness,” just 15 appearances in the Bible! Twice translated “gross darkness!”
Such words of judgment make me think of a song, but the title’s real meaning would have to be reversed. “What a Day that will be!” Not a day of “good tidings” as in 2nd Kings 7:9, but a day of “trouble” as in 2nd Kings 19:3.
Isaiah 22:5 expertly captures the awesome thought. “For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains.”
And that day, though partially history, is surely mostly future!
Wow!
Or better, “Woe!”
— Dr. Mike Bagwell