Here are a few salient quotes from my commentary reading for last week’s sermon on Zephaniah 1:14-18:
Contrary to the assumption that God is transcendent but not imminent in history, there is a God to whom the human race will one day have to give an account, however marginal they may seek to make him in the present.
The day of the Lord is not arbitrary; it is the logical outgrowth of what humankind is (1:17b), it will bring what humankind deserves (1:17a, c), and it will expose the uselessness of what humans trust (1:16b, 18a).
Humans may categorize their sins into the serious, the mediocre, and the insignificant. To Zephaniah (see James 2:10-11) the mere fact of sin excited and merited the whole weight of divine rage.
J. Alec Motyer,”Zephaniah,” The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical & Expository Commentary, Thomas Edward MComiskey, ed., 912, 921.
