Zephaniah Chapter Three, Bringing Israel Home Again

Zephaniah 3:20 At that time I will bring you back, even at the time I gather you; for I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I return your captives before your eyes,” says the Lord.

The final verse of Zephaniah still focuses God’s word upon the Day of the Lord, and what it means for Israel. In the time of the prophet, under the godly rule of Josiah, the kingdom seemed stable on the surface. But Yahweh revealed to Ezekiel–a Jewish captive in the time of Zedekiah’s reign–images of Judah’s grotesque infidelity, Ezekiel 8:9-11.

If the elders created hidden places to worship unclean things in the dark during the reign of Zedekiah, a spineless and godless king, they certainly hid such sacrilege and abomination in Josiah’s day. But God forecasts well ahead, assuring that, while Israel is facing impending judgment and exile for their national disobedience, they will likewise enjoy the comfort and certainty of a national restoration. In Isaiah’s time, God lamented Israel's condition, saying, “I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, according to their own thoughts,” Isaiah 65:2. The ensuing verses are an indictment the likes of which is found in Ezekiel chapter 8 concerning the sins Israel has committed to drive God to anger and wrath, Isaiah 65:3-5.

Despite this, He comforts His people. The lame and the exile will be gathered on the Day of the Lord. Godless Israel will be driven out during the intense persecution of Antichrist. Satan will come perilously close to achieving his coveted goal of national destruction. Israel will flee their homeland during the final part of the Tribulation period due to an unprecedented assault, Zechariah 14:1, 2. At that time, during their final desperate flight when it seems that the Jewish nation will at last be removed from the earth, Christ will descend in glory to the Mount of Olives, Zechariah 14:4, Acts 1:11, 12. The mount will split in twain, and the Jewish people will escape from the ambitions of Antichrist, Zechariah 14:5. Christ will fight and annihilate the enemy army and deliver Israel from the hopes of Satan’s ambition, Zechariah 12:8, 9. The people of Israel will see and grieve for the Messiah they had so long rejected, Zechariah 12:10-14. Then Christ will restore Israel’s fortunes, and as they may have left their homeland due to persecution largely godless, they will return unified in thought and heart, Zechariah 13:1, 2, 14:9, 11.

God will gather the Hebrews from every land where persecution and contempt had been the norm. He will personally bestow upon them fame (lit. a name) and praise. From whom? From the nations that remain, now called by the Lord’s name, who exalt Israel to the head of nations, where they once fleetingly were under during the rule of David and Solomon. They shall be again, glorified through Christ Jesus who reigns from David’s throne and makes Israel the heart of earth’s political, economic and religious pulse. Christ will be a priest ruling from a king’s throne, marrying civil and ecclesiastical duties forever in Him, Zechariah 6:13.

To clarify the matter, the prophet iterates that the Jews will both be brought out–and receive fame and praise–from among all the peoples of the earth. This fame and praise is intrinsically linked to the restoration of the Jewish captivity and the Diaspora, or dispersion of Jewry from their homeland, especially after the failed rebellion of 135 AD following the Bar Kokhba revolt. The term Palestine, coined long before the Arabs dwelt in Israel, was a term of vexation and derision toward the Jews. There are historical hints that the term Palestine is even older, predating Roman occupancy back to the Greeks, always involving the Jewish people. The nations tried to annex and delete the Jews. 

Numerous Roman Catholic Popes notoriously hated the Jewish people and had no compunctions ordering their deaths when they were not dehumanizing them by making them wear clothing to set them apart from other nationalities. Treating the Jewish nation as the filth of the earth, whilst simultaneously making them Devil-worshiping plotters scheming behind every government seems to echo as a haunting refrain through every generation. God will disperse all of this when at last, before the shocked eyes of the world, He restores Israel’s captives to live in their homeland, the homeland He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel will be restored in faith and will enter into the thousand year reign of their Lord with joy. God has spoken as much, so we know with certainty that it will come to pass.