JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. In this second lecture at Dallas Theological Seminary, Jason shares from Zephaniah 2:1-4 and 3:8-10 that God’s faithful remnant should patiently pursue Yahweh to avoid punishment and to enjoy satisfying salvation. After Jason’s lecture, stay tuned for an announcement about a special series of podcasts releasing March 13.

Speaker 1: Welcome to the second in our Griffith Thomas Lecture series for this year. Dr. Jason DeRouchie received his PhD in Old Testament from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he presently serves as research professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and as content developer and global trainer with the mission organization Hands to the Plow Ministries. He celebrates how the whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in our Lord Jesus Christ, and he is committed to training church leaders both at home and abroad to cherish Christ and his Word. He and his wife Teresa have six children, two sons-in-law, and one grandchild. And we are delighted to have one of Jason’s sons, Ezra, with us this week. So please welcome Jason.

JD: Upon his resurrection, Jesus opened his disciples’ minds to understand the Old Testament Scriptures. He thus said, “It is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name, beginning from Jerusalem to all nations. You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24.

The prophet Zephaniah proclaimed not only the sufferings of Christ, but also his rising and the mission his victorious reign would spark. I encourage you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Zephaniah. I delight to be back with you for this second of the Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures, continuing in Zephaniah. This study today will evaluate the prophet’s two main exhortations, and then we’ll consider their relevance for the church today. My title is: “Seeking God and Waiting: Hope on the Day of the Lord” from Zephaniah 2:1-4 and Zephaniah 3:8-10.

This prophet portrays Yahweh as a mighty warrior who will decisively eradicate all evil and save those who have sought him. The punishment on the day of the Lord will come as cataclysm, conquest, and sacrifice as God’s fiery wrath will blaze against all unrepentant sinners, consuming the earth as we know it. The question before us is: will you be hidden when that day of wrath comes?

Joel says the day of the Lord is great and very awesome. Who can endure it? Similarly, Nahum writes, “Who can stand before Yahweh’s indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? his wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.” Zephaniah 1:17—God announces, “I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord.” We read in verse 18, “In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed, for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.” How desperately we need hope on the day of the Lord.

To that end, pray with me. Our Father in heaven, may your name be shown holy, your reign be realized, your will be done on earth today in this place as it is in heaven. These are dark days, God, and they will grow only darker when your judgment reaches its peak. So may we now be a people who seek first your kingdom, your righteousness, having been justified by faith through Christ’s blood. I pray that you would help each of us know peace with you, experiencing the hope of being saved by Christ from the wrath of God. May we with one voice call upon your name and make known your marvelous deeds among the peoples. Amen.

Having established the need to revere God in chapter one, Zephaniah shifts from the setting to the substance of the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction. He signals this move first by there being no connection between chapter one and the beginning of chapter two—no conjunctions whatsoever. Look with me there. And then it is here in 2:1 that he first introduces the Hebrew imperative command forms, which always have the highest level of appeal. The primary exhortation develops in two stages: seek the Lord together to avoid punishment and wait for the Lord to enjoy satisfying salvation.

Stage one of Zephaniah’s exhortation: seek the Lord together (2:1–4). Stage one of Zephaniah’s exhortation includes a charge to bundle or gather together in submission to the Lord, a charge to seek the Lord in righteousness and humility, and then two parallel reasons to seek the Lord together. We’re going to focus here on the charges in verses one through four.

Zephaniah’s charge to bundle together in submission to Yahweh: We begin in verses one and two. Look with me there. “Gather together, yes, gather, O shameless nation, before the decree takes effect, before the day passes away like chaff, before there comes upon you the anger, the burning anger of the Lord, before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord.”

Zephaniah here addresses his primary audience, Judah, as a shameless nation—very literally, the nation not longing for Yahweh. He urges his listeners to gather together, using a Hebrew root usually associated with collecting sticks or straw in contexts of punishment, but here our context is more positive as people collect desirable straw or grain after separating the chaff. So here the faithful remnant must bundle themselves together in unity. They must separate from everything destined for God’s wrath. Bundle yourselves before the decree takes effect, before there comes upon you the burning anger of God. For those who heed this charge, the implication is there is hope.

Zephaniah’s charge to seek the Lord in righteousness and humility: Look with me at verse 3. In addition to the two command forms in 2:1, Zephaniah now gives three more imperatives in 2:3. Having addressed the nation broadly, the Prophet now narrows focus to the remnant of the land who have already humbled themselves before Yahweh. That this remnant remains unnamed, and that in chapter 2:5 and chapter 2:12, he actually addresses foreign nations directly, this suggests that Zephaniah’s broader audience includes the remnant of faithful not only from Judah but beyond.

“Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land who do his just commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord.” Now the ESV treats the remnant as those who have followed Yahweh’s commands, plural. But the Hebrew, to me, suggests that the prophet regards the remnant as those who are actually humbly taking seriously his coming judgment, singular. I translate the beginning of 2:3, “Seek Yahweh, all the humble of the land who have heeded his judgment.”

In the book, Yahweh’s judgment relates to the day of reckoning that he has declared. The humble who have heeded Yahweh’s judgment, therefore, are those who revere God (1:7). It’s those who have already heeded his call to bundle together in the hope of protection (2:1). These are the ones who must now seek the Lord, seek righteousness and humility. According to 1:6, it is the remnant of Baal in Judah who are those who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him. In contrast, the humble are those who now turn from self-reliance to surrender before the living God.

Zephaniah explains his call to seek the Lord from two different angles. Look with me there in verse 3. First, having spurned the chaos of injustice and rebellion, those humbled before God should seek righteousness. Righteousness is about right order—right order in the cosmos, right order in the community. Right order exists only where God is elevated above all and where we value those made in his image. Jesus urged those who were already his followers to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Similarly here, Zephaniah urges those enjoying relationship with God to now pursue righteous deeds in their lives.

Second, the text says seek the Lord means seeking humility—a life that depends on God. The humble life receives from God’s hand without fighting against God’s providence. It embraces one’s neediness and follows God’s lead. In Peter’s words, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and in the proper time, he will exalt you.”

Only those who seek the Lord, who seek righteousness, who seek humility, may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord. The prophets regularly use qualifiers like “may” or “perhaps” to help their hearers hope in but not presume on God’s favor. Yahweh’s merciful character is unchanging. His promises are sure. And Zephaniah elsewhere emphasizes without question both the true potential of reconciliation with God and the certainty that the Lord will indeed preserve his remnant. God will protect some from his fury, but he will only hide tomorrow those who have sought him today by pursuing righteousness and humility. May we be among them. Will you be hidden from Yahweh’s wrath when he comes?

Stage two of Zephaniah’s exhortation: Wait for the Lord. Turn with me now to 3:8. After his initial exhortations in chapter 2:1-4, the Prophet digresses in 2:5 to 3:7, supplying two unmarked (that is, not grammatically marked) reasons why the faithful remnant needs to seek the Lord together. It’s because of the state and the fate of the rebels from the foreign nations (2:5–15) and the rebels from Jerusalem (3:1–7). Each of these units in the middle begins with the word “woe.” you can see “woe” in 2:5, “woe” in 3:1—first against Judah’s neighbors, then against Jerusalem herself. God’s wrath is coming, and not one unrepentant sinner will escape his judgment, including those in Judah.

In 3:1–7, Zephaniah concludes the unit speaking about Jerusalem in feminine singular language. He portrays the city as a woman, his bride. Thus, we read in 3:1, “Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city! She listens to no voice; she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord; she does not draw near to her God.” Or verse 5, “The Lord within her is righteous; he does no injustice.” And again in 3:7, Yahweh declares, using what in Hebrew are second feminine pronouns, “I said, ‘Surely you will fear me; you will accept correction O, Jerusalem. Then your dwelling would not be cut off.'”

Then 3:8, however, marks a significant transition. For Yahweh returns to addressing his faithful remnant using plural masculine speech, as we found in chapter 2:1-4. “Therefore, in view of the state and fate of the world’s rebels, wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise.”

Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the term for waiting is always used either positively or neutrally, but never negatively. Thus, we read in Psalm 33, “Our soul waits for Yahweh; he is our help and our shield.” With this, while “you” in 3:1–7 addresses the city Jerusalem in feminine singular terms, the masculine plural “you” in 3:8, recalls the addressees of the earlier commands in 2:1 and 3, and signals that we are now hearing stage two of the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction.

So I believe Zephaniah’s logic is this: First exhortation, Stage 1—Seek Yahweh together. Why? Why should I do it? The ground or reason is because of the state and fate of the rebels from the world and from Jerusalem. Inferential command: Therefore, remnant, wait for Yahweh. Amid trouble and darkness when sin is running rampant in the world, remnants of God, hear me—wait for him to rise.

Now the ESV at this point says God intends to rise up to seize the prey. It’s actually following the main Hebrew text at this point. However, following the Septuagint, listen to how the NIV has it rendered: “Wait for me to rise up to testify”—as a witness in the covenant in the context of judgment. And for a number of reasons, that reading seems superior to me. But regardless, what follows now—wait for me to rise—what follows now are two reasons why God wants his people to wait.

Look with me now at verse 8. Both of these reasons in verses 8 and the beginning of verse 9 begin with the conjunction “for,” and the second reason can only apply to a hopeful people. Look first at verse 8. Yahweh declares, “Wait for me, for my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth will be consumed.”

The first reason that the faithful followers must persist in their hope of salvation is because God still intends to judge the wicked. How long, O Lord? he’s coming. He will act. He will work justly and eradicate evil. Take hope in this. Although at present, injustice still reigns, Yahweh has determined to gather for judicial assessment all people groups, nations, all political powers, kingdoms. This in-gathering recalls the working of God in Zephaniah 1:2 and 3—he will do a great in-gathering. And not only that, it recalls the sacrificial imagery of 1:7, 17–18. At that time, God’s molten jealousy for the honor of his name will simply pour out, it says, on all the earth, destroying all those who are hostile to God. The fires of God’s just wrath will consume his enemies. And because the coming punishment is certain, the remnant of Judah, the remnant in Judah and beyond, must continue to wait in hope, confident God will act. Take hope today.

Look now at verse 9 for the second reason Zephaniah gives for the faithful remnant to persist in God-ward trust. Is this: “Wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise up. For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.”

The prophet is envisioning that some of the earth’s multiethnic peoples, plural, will not be destroyed in Yahweh’s fires of wrath, but instead they will be transformed into a community of worshippers gathered from the nations, gathered from the kingdoms. God will purify the lip or the speech of this multiethnic group, this international remnant, or as the Septuagint renders it, he will transform their tongue. This change will result in them calling on Yahweh’s name with one voice. It will result in them serving Yahweh together, shoulder to shoulder.

To call on Yahweh’s name is to outwardly express worshipful dependence on him as Savior, as King, as treasure. As the Psalmist declared in Psalms 116, “Then I called on the name Yahweh. O Yahweh, I pray, deliver my soul. I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name Yahweh. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name Yahweh.” The prophets often link calling on God’s name with the day of the Lord and the future work of God in the Messianic era.

For example, in the days when Isaiah’s child king rises in power and initiates the great end-time second exodus, Isaiah asserts, “And you will say in that day, ‘Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the nations, proclaim that his name is exalted.'” Similarly, in a day of the Lord context, Joel says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” using the exact same phrase as in Zephaniah 3.

The day of the Lord includes not only punishment; it includes renewal, new creation, the transforming of once hostile peoples from the nations and the kingdoms of mankind into servants of the new king who call out to him for help in thanksgiving in praise. They may smell like smoke, but their lives have been preserved because they look to the one who alone reigns, who saves, and who alone satisfies.

Zephaniah 3:10, look with me there now. It clarifies that 3:9 is actually envisioning the reversal of past judgment, and it intentionally uses one people group, Cush, as the only example of global restoration. Look with me: “From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshippers, the daughter of my dispersed ones shall bring my offering.”

In Zephaniah’s day, Cush was the center of Black Africa. It was located in modern Sudan, its rivers the White and the Blue Nile. As I noted in my first lecture, Zephaniah was likely biracial, having both Cushite and royal Judean blood. Furthermore, back in Zephaniah 1:2-12, he pointed to Cush as the starting point for God’s global destruction. The region of Cush and the people associated with it were named after Cush, Noah’s grandson through Ham. Cush’s son Nimrod is the very one who built Babel, Genesis 10, from which God dispersed all the peoples of the Earth, Genesis 11. We first learn of Cush in Genesis 2 where it’s identified as a terminus of one of the four rivers flowing from Eden. So because Zephaniah envisions the worshippers gathering to Yahweh at his restored Edenic sanctuary to give him offerings, it’s as if the descendants of those once exiled from Eden and scattered from Babylon are now following the rivers of life back to their source to enjoy fellowship with the great king.

Significantly, the worshippers Zephaniah foresees are made up of an ethnically diverse group from the world’s peoples. All of them have transformed speech or language such that they call on Yahweh’s name, and God calls these worshippers “the daughter of my dispersed” or scattered ones. This language recalls Genesis 11:9, which notes that the place was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language (same term) of all the earth and from there the Lord dispersed (same term) them over the face of the Earth.

Indeed, in Zephaniah 3:9 and 10, we find at least 8 terms that appear in Genesis 11:1–9: people, lip, call, all, name, Yahweh, one, and disperse. In the Old Testament, it is only in Genesis 11:1–9 and Zephaniah 3:9 and 10 where we find this grouping of language, and indeed there are no other texts that pair the language of speech or lip with the verb disperse when it signals exile. Thus, I believe Zephaniah is actually portraying Yahweh’s coming transformation as a reversal of the punishment of the Tower of Babel.

In summary, Zephaniah 3:8–10 portrays the day of the Lord as both punishment and renewal. He uses these images to motivate the faithful remnant to wait for God. Yet in what part of salvation history is Zephaniah’s grand vision of the day of the Lord fulfilled? And it’s that question that I want to focus on for the rest of my lecture. I want to propose that it relates not only to Christ’s second appearing, but also his first coming and the age of the church that we are now enjoying. And I believe this is made clear when we consider how the New Testament uses and interprets Zephaniah 3:8–10.

So some New Testament reflections on this very passage: In Zephaniah 3:9 and 10, God promises to develop his new creational international community “at that time,” namely during the day of Yahweh, when the fires of God’s just judgment burn against the rebels of the Earth’s nations and kingdoms. Now from one perspective, Paul asserts that concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, that day of the Lord will not come unless the rebellion comes first (2 Thessalonians 1). Similarly, Peter highlights the future unexpected nature of this day when he says the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly (Zephaniah is envisioning that day)—2 Peter 3.

Nevertheless, while in one sense Yahweh’s Day that Zephaniah envisions is still future for all the world, there is another very real sense in which the day of punishment for the elect is now past time, and Christ’s Church is even now enjoying the transformed speech, the unity, and the worship envisioned in Zephaniah 3:9 and 10. Remember, Peter declared that all the prophets, including Zephaniah, foretold the glories of Christ that would be preceded by his sufferings, glories that would include the days of the church (Acts 3:18 and 24, 1 Peter 1:10–11).

Zephaniah never explicitly mentions the Messiah. Yet I believe that he foretells the Messiah’s coming and mission in at least two ways. As already seen in Lecture 1, Zephaniah portrays the day of the Lord as a sacrifice by which he satisfies his wrath and gains victory over all. Growing out of this imagery, in Christ’s first coming, he serves as the object of God’s wrath against sin, representing all the elect from the nations gathered to him. In his second coming, he serves as the agent of God’s wrath on behalf of the elect against all the rebellious who have failed to repent.

Second, Zephaniah envisions the church age, wherein Christ’s death initially fulfills Zephaniah’s vision of the day of wrath against sinners and inaugurates the global in-gathering of worshippers in the presence of the Great King. And I want to consider the second of these elements now.

The church fulfilling Zephaniah’s hopes for a reconciled community of people: If the fires of judgment foreseen in Zephaniah 3:8 were borne for the elect by Christ at the cross, then his resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost marked the initiation of Zephaniah’s vision of new creation begun in 3:9 and 10. John the Baptizer said, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3). In Jerusalem, Jesus initiated a great second Exodus or in-gathering in which many peoples would be saved (Luke 9). In Caiaphas’s words, “He died for the nation of Israel, and not only for that nation, but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad” (John 11).

The church today, made up of believing Jews and Gentiles in Christ, is indeed fulfilling Zephaniah. Now, one way this is seen is in Luke’s depiction of the early church’s growth in the book of Acts. Indeed, I think Luke is actually using Zephaniah 3:8–10 as a blueprint for crafting his narrative.

In the context of explaining a mission of making worshippers to the end of the Earth (Acts 1:8), Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 cites Joel 2, which depicts the day of the Lord and mentions calling on his name, using the exact same phrase that we find in Zephaniah 3:9. But what is not found in Joel but what is present in Zephaniah 3:9 and 10 is the vision of transformed speech, which I already mentioned the Septuagint translates as “tongue.” And not only that, Zephaniah envisions united devotion, which is not part of Joel. Luke envisions tongues. Luke envisions unity. I suggest Luke is not only seeing a reversal of Babel, which a number of scholars have proposed, but is also seeing the initial fulfillment of Zephaniah’s prophecy.

This conclusion is supported by the fact that the only region Zephaniah focuses on as an example of God’s end-time global restoration is Cush, ancient Black Africa. The Greeks called ancient Cush Ethiopia, a name that is strikingly absent from the list of nations in Acts 2 from which Jews were gathered “from every nation under heaven.” I propose that the reason Luke never mentions Ethiopia in Acts 2 was because he sought to highlight the fulfillment of Zephaniah’s vision by noting the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. The first Gentile convert to Christianity was an Ethiopian, a Cushite, and this highlights that God was beginning to fulfill the shaping of his multiethnic community of worshippers, just as Zephaniah proclaimed.

So what? A proper response to what we have seen:

Number one: I urge you today, continue seeking the Lord, pursuing righteousness and humility. Alec Motyer has rightly noted that in the Bible, the only way to flee from God is to flee to him. Zephaniah yearns for his audience to be free from the fear of death, to experience the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. He thus urges his audience to hunger for the Lord with a proper orientation of life (righteousness) and to hunger for the Lord with a proper disposition of the heart (humility).

Treasuring God should awaken love for others and then also nurture a sense of personal neediness for something more than the world has to offer. To seek the Lord by pursuing righteousness and humility, we must first turn from self-reliance and self-exaltation to a radical God-dependence and God-exaltation. With John the Baptizer, may we be among those who say, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” It’s the impoverished, not the proud, who engage in prayer and in praise. By these God-treasuring acts, we magnify the Lord’s greatness, his sufficiency. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to humble people. Only in seeking the Lord is there any hope for protection on the day of wrath.

But there’s another element. To truly seek the Lord by seeking righteousness and humility requires living impartial and loving lives. Rather than being those who abuse, we must image God’s character and we must value those who were made in his image. Too easily, our God-given proficiencies and power and possessions move us to forget that God is the great giver, and it can move us to elevate ourselves over others, even at their expense. This was the case in Zephaniah’s day. Yet the Lord is one who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the Earth, and knowing him means that we will indeed mirror in practice his delight in such things. May God help us. This type of living is what Zephaniah meant by “seek the Lord, seek righteousness, seek humility.”

Finally, wait for the Lord. We live in a beautiful but very broken world. Beautiful because the creation displays the grand design of its creator. Yet broken because the Adamic curse affects and infects everything. Family celebrations are tempered by car accidents and cancer. Marvelous vistas become contexts for mass executions of Christians. City parks designed for child play become the place of riots and kidnappings. Disease runs rampant. Earthquakes, oh, we’ve been reminded of this, destroy thousands. People lose jobs. The global economy plummets. The global pandemic of alien guilt continues to produce sinners whose sin leads them to perform injustice against the living God and to devalue those made in his image.

Believers today, we live in the overlap of the ages—after Yahweh has already atoned for sin through the death of his son, yet before he has eradicated all evil and carried out the final judgment. The “already” aspects require that we call on Yahweh’s name and serve him together. Yet the “not yet” aspects necessitate that we heed Zephaniah’s charge to patiently trust, to wait on the Lord, holding unswervingly to the only God who acts for those who wait for him.

Waiting is not easy, for great are the temptations to doubt, to compromise, to fear, to become anxious. Yet before us, brothers and sisters, is a crown of life, and everyone who remains steadfast under trial will receive it. The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. So may we be those who hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. Amen.

Father, what hope we have—a living and abiding hope through the precious blood of Christ to an inheritance that is imperishable, unfading, kept in heaven for us. Help us persevere in patient trust, seeking you together for the glory of your name. Through Jesus, I pray. Amen.

JY: Thank you for listening to GearTalk. As I mentioned earlier, we’re launching a special podcast series next month. On March 13th, we’ll begin a month in the Psalms. This series of podcasts will include more than just conversations about the Psalms. We are also including downloadable artwork, allowing you to use these materials as an aid in your own preaching or teaching or small group setting.