Zephaniah Chapter One, Lighting Up The Dark

Zephaniah 1:12 “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.’” [13] Therefore their goods shall become booty, and their houses a desolation; they shall build houses, but not inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards, but not drink their wine.”

Here the Lord begins to discuss the thoroughness of His judgment. In verses 10 and 11 the prophet mentions districts and portions of the city, and how no portion of Jerusalem (or beyond it) will be exempt or immune from this day. Moreover, God will search the city with lamps, shedding light in its darkest recesses to reveal the peoples’ evil and apathy.

Not that God needs lamps, of course. This is pure metaphor to help the reader understand that no stone will be left unturned; there will be nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, no port left in this storm. Turning to Ezekiel, and beginning in chapter 8, we read of that prophet’s foray into the seedy underbelly of contemporary Israel in his time (and Zephaniah’s). In Ezekiel 8:5 we learn of an idol placed in the entrance of the northern altar gate of the temple, usurping God’s worship. Henry Morris, in his commentary on this passage, suggests that this idol is the infamous Queen of Heaven mentioned in the book of Jeremiah, beginning in Jeremiah 7:18. The Queen of Heaven was the cult of a mother goddess, modernly represented by Mary in Catholicism. Since Jeremiah was also contemporaneous with Ezekiel and Zephaniah, this theory certainly holds at least a little credence.

The prophet was then commanded to dig through a wall into a secret chamber filled with the abominable idols of the city’s elders, Ezekiel 8:10, 11. The Day of the Lord will bring into the light every secret man wants to hide; we don’t hide them from God because we cannot. But we think that because God does not rend the heavens to come down in judgment, we are safe. We’ve gotten away with it. God didn’t notice; God does not see. But this illusion is rudely shattered when the Holy Spirit leads Ezekiel right to the room of secrets and lays them bare to the prophet, much to his horror.

In Ezekiel 8:14 Ezekiel is dismayed to find women weeping for Tammuz. Tammuz was a Sumerian god of plantlife, the husband of the goddess Ishtar, or Astarte, who is believed by Alexander Hyslop to be a point of origin for naming modern Easter. Tammuz was betrayed by his goddess wife and murdered, with the autumn vegetation dying representing that. Every spring he was reborn when new life budded, hence mirroring reincarnation. The prophet specifically is dismayed by this instance of pagan worship. It might be the heavy anti-Biblical mythology involved in its concepts, or the reincarnation aspect, or that the rebirth of Tammuz was being attributed for the return of green life after winter. And above all that these women wept for this Sumerian deity but not for their lack of fidelity toward Yahweh.

Finally, the Holy Spirit showed Ezekiel twenty five men turned away from the temple, worshiping the sun in the temple’s door between the porch and the altar, Ezekiel 8:16. Paul wrote in Romans that men, “exchanged the truth of God for the lie (the lie told in Eden), and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever,” Romans 1:25. What was the justification for the people straying into such perversity? Their defense was summarized by the Lord thusly, “The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!” Ezekiel 9:9. Isaiah, predicting this ungodly epidemic long ago, wrote, “Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord, and their works are in the dark; they say, “Who sees us?” and, “Who knows us?” Isaiah 29:15.

Israel was rejecting God because they didn’t want Him to see what they were doing behind closed doors. They didn’t want Him to see into their thoughts and hearts, where sin and intention are born. The closer one draws to the Lord, the more keenly we must feel His cutting presence, which divides the right from the wrong in us, creating conflict and paradox. We read, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” Hebrews 4:12. God’s word is a scalpel, and God a divine surgeon; He will remove the cancer of sin from the very innards of man for our safety. But despite this, despite hearing and knowing this precious truth, our sin nature at work in us wants what is selfish and carnal. Hence every believer is given two paths to walk by: being led by the Spirit, or being led by the flesh. I know from personal experience that when I am led by the flesh I want nothing to do with God’s word, Spirit, or leadership. I would hide in the dark and foster my intentions entirely divorced from God’s person and purpose. People don’t reject God because He’s unbelievable; they know that by accepting the reality of His being, it brings light into every dark corner of human experience, and that is supremely uncomfortable.

But the alternative is infinitely more uncomfortable. Judgment awaits the soul who refuses to reconcile. Jerusalem was ripe for destruction. Its leadership peddled lies and corruption. The people were determined to blindly conform and follow. They would be plundered, ransacked, stripped of what they held valuable and watch with horror as another took possession of it. The Day of the Lord isn’t a time of losing what everyone held most dear; rather, it is a time of aggressive honesty and truth, revealing that those who thought they had, ended up having nothing of value to begin with, Matthew 25:29, Luke 8:18.