Zephaniah 1.6a-The Lord Will Violently Execute As Criminals His People Who Don't Follow After Him
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday February 11, 2016
Zephaniah: Zephaniah 1:6a-The Lord Will Violently Execute As Criminals His People Who Don’t Follow After Him
Lesson # 16
Zephaniah 1:4 “So I will stretch out My hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the names of the idolatrous priests along with the priests. 5 And those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven, and those who bow down and swear to the LORD and yet swear by Milcom. 6 And those who have turned back from following the LORD, and those who have not sought the LORD or inquired of Him.” (NASB95)
“And those who have turned back from following the LORD” explains the previous prophetic statement recorded in Zephaniah 1:5.
“Those who have turned back” is composed of the following: (1) conjunction w (וְ), “and” (2) object marker ʾēt (אֵת), which is not translated (3) articular masculine plural niphal participle form of the verb sûg (סוּג), “those who have turned back.”
The verb sûg is in the niphal stem and means “to turn back oneself back” so as to be disloyal, or faithless.
The subject of this word are those Jews who have a covenant relationship with the Lord as a result of being declared justified through faith in the Lord.
Therefore, this verb speaks of these Jews “turning themselves back” from following the Lord.
This word speaks of the act of committing apostasy or as some expositors say they are guilty of “backsliding” and is a word that speaks of covenant disobedience to Yahweh.
The niphal stem of the verb is a reflexive niphal meaning that the subject is acts upon itself so the subject is also the direct object.
Here this stem indicates that there were those Jews living in Jerusalem who turned themselves back from fulfilling their obligation to the Lord to remain loyal to Him by being obedient to Him.
The object marker ʾēt preceding this substantive participle marks it as the direct object of the verb third person masculine singular hifʿîl active perfect form of the verb kārat (כָּרַת), which appears in Zephaniah 1:4 and means “I will bring about the violent removal.”
This would indicate that those Jews living in the city of Jerusalem who turned themselves back from following the Lord will receive the action of the Lord bringing about their violent removal from the city of Jerusalem.
The noun ʾǎ·ḥǎr means “following” since it pertains to a position which is “behind” relative to another position.
Here the word speaks of these Jewish believers “following behind” the Lord.
It is the object of the preposition min which means “from” since it functions as a marker of separation indicating that these Jewish believers are separating themselves from the Lord by turning themselves back from following Him through disobedience.
The construct state of the noun ʾǎ·ḥǎr means that the word is in “construction” with another noun or we can say that it is governing another noun.
Specifically, it is used to indicate that it is grammatically bound to the nominal that follows it in a broadly possessive or genitival construction.
Here it is governing the noun yhwh.
The genitive relation between these two words is an objective genitive which means that the noun yhwh is receiving the verbal action implied by the noun ʾǎ·ḥǎr.
This would indicate the Lord receiving the action of not being followed after by these Jewish believers who entered into a covenant relationship with Him when they were declared justified through faith in Him.
Zephaniah 1:4 “Furthermore, I will surely stretch out My hand against Judah as well as each and every one of Jerusalem’s inhabitants. Specifically, I will bring about the violent removal from this place the number belonging to Baal, the well-known pagan priests. 5 Also, those who repeatedly prostrate themselves on their rooftops before the multitude of celestial bodies belonging to the stellar universe. Likewise those who bind themselves by a promise to remain loyal to the Lord while at the same they bind themselves by a promise to remain loyal to the king. 6 Yes, those who turn themselves back from following after the Lord. Specifically, those who never make it their habit of seeking after the Lord’s will. Consequently, they never make it their habit of making a request of Him.” (My translation)
Zephaniah 1:6 continues the description of the individuals described at the end of Zephaniah 1:5 who were said to bind themselves by a promise to remain loyal to the Lord while at the same time they bound themselves by a promise to remain loyal to the king which is a sarcastic reference to Baal.
This is a description of Jewish believers in apostasy who had entered into a covenant relationship with God as a result of being declared justified through faith in Him.
This is indicated by the term yhwh, “Lord” which emphasizes that God has a covenant relationship with these individuals living in the city of Jerusalem who were attempting to worship Him and Baal at the same time.
This word thus indicates that the Lord through Zephaniah is speaking of those who have trusted in Him and are believers since in Old Testament Israel non-believers did not have a covenant relationship with Him but only believers.
Therefore, the second prophecy which appears in Zephaniah 1:5 speaks of those who have trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel and are a part of the covenant people Israel.
It refers to those have been declared justified through their faith.
If they lived during the church age, we would say that they are regenerated.
However, this prophecy declares that they are in apostasy because they are not remaining faithful to Him because they are attempting to worship the Lord while at the same time they are practicing idolatry by worshipping Baal.
Zephaniah 1:6 continues the description of these apostate Jewish believers living in Jerusalem by describing them as turning themselves back from following after the Lord.
This assertion in verse 6 defines the previous assertion in verse 5 in the sense that when these Jewish believers bind themselves by a promise to remain loyal to both the Lord and Baal they are actually turning away from obeying the Lord.
They are committing apostasy by doing so since the Lord demands that they worship Him and no other gods.
This verse also contains the proper noun yhwh (Yahweh) “Lord” which again indicates that the Lord through Zephaniah is speaking of those who have trusted in Him and are believers since in Old Testament Israel non-believers do not have a covenant relationship with Him but only believers.
So the Lord in Zephaniah 1:6 is stating that He will violently remove these apostate Jewish believers living in the city of Jerusalem because they turned themselves back from following after the Lord by practicing idolatry through the worship of Baal.
These individuals were thus practicing idolatry in that they were worshipping the creation of God rather than God Himself.
Thus they were worthy of death because they disobeyed the first and second of the Ten Commandments.
God warned Israel about this practice but Manasseh led Israel into this perversion according to 2 Kings 21:3, 5 (cf. 2 Kings 23:4-5).
Believers in apostasy undergo divine discipline whether they lived during Old Testament dispensations or during the church age or during the eschatological dispensations.
Zephaniah 1:6 makes clear that these believers in the city of Jerusalem will be disciplined by Him and in fact, they will suffer dying discipline because they failed to repent from the first two stages of discipline.
Thus they failed to repent of their apostate condition.
There are two categories of divine discipline that are an expression of God’s love: (1) Negative: God expresses His love for His children by disciplining them in the sense that He “punishes” them when they are disobedient to His will. (2) Positive: God expresses His love for His children by disciplining them in the sense of “training” them when they are obedient to His will and in fellowship.
Both categories of divine discipline are designed to keep the believer on track in executing the Father’s will by becoming like Christ.
The Word of God is employed in both positive and negative categories of discipline.
God disciplines His disobedient children by permitting adversity, trials, and irritations to come into their lives that are beyond their capacity to handle in order to get their attention and to focus upon their number one priority in life as children of God, which is to conformity to the Father’s will.
God disciplines His disobedient children by permitting them to reap the fruits of their bad decisions so that they might learn that conformity to His will is the only way to true joy and happiness and blessing in life (Ezek. 16:43; Gal. 6:7-8).
There are three categories of divine discipline (punishment) for the disobedient child of God: (1) Warning (Rev. 3:20; James 5:9) (2) Intense (Ps. 38:1; 2 Th. 2:11). (3) Dying (Jer. 9:16; 44:12; Phlp. 3:18-19; Re. 3:16; Ps. 118:17-18; 1 Jo. 5:16).
God disciplines His “obedient” children through adversity and underserved suffering in order to build the believer’s confidence in their relationship with God and to get them to depend on God for their security and protection rather than money and human relationships.
He disciplines His “obedient” children through adversity and underserved suffering in order to demonstrate to the believer the sufficiency of God’s Word in handling any problem or difficulty in life.
The Lord Jesus Christ disciplines the believer in the sense that He rebukes, punishes and trains the believer because He personally and affectionately loves the believer (Revelation 3:14-19).