NOTES for Zep 3:1-20

The Book of the Prophet Zephaniah is short. We have already reached its final chapter. Yet how vividly its message is expressed! God is holy and can no longer endure sin, falsehood, and injustice among the people of Israel. He calls people to come to their senses and turn to Him, but they do not listen. He warns them of the approaching danger and promises to avert it if they remember God, but they pay no heed. Then no other path remains, and catastrophe—the destruction of Israel and Judah—is coming. Yet God is not only just but also merciful. Even in captivity He will call out to His people, and part of the people, the “remnant,” will turn back, humbly acknowledge their dependence upon God, and cast aside their pride. Then God will return His people from captivity to the Promised Land and restore the ruined kingdom. The book ends with a hymn of joy about radiant Zion and glorified Jerusalem.

Actual history confirmed the truth of these predictions, but the Old Testament prophecies are also important to us because they prefigure the movements of the soul, the personal history of every human being. We too can see here a description of our own path, heed the warnings in time, repent, and enter the Lord’s triumph in His New Jerusalem.

Humility and simplicity are often mentioned in the Bible as distinguishing qualities of the righteous. But what kind of simplicity is meant? Is social position in view, or education, or something else? If poverty guaranteed righteousness, then class struggle against owners and exploiters to the final victory would be the only possible means of building the Kingdom of God. But none of the prophets, who highly valued social justice, posed the question in this way.

Then what should be considered simplicity? Perhaps refusal of education, of excessive learning? Of course, illiteracy is not a sin, nor is stupidity, although both sometimes create many problems. Yet illiteracy and lack of education in themselves bring no one closer to righteousness and the Kingdom.

But what, then? In the Hebrew text of the Bible, the ideas of "simplicity" and "straightforwardness, wholeness" are often designated by one and the same word. Perhaps the answer lies here. Indeed, spiritual life becomes simple and natural when the one living it gains inner wholeness, above all wholeness of will, which presupposes concentration, resolve, and readiness to go to the end along the path once chosen.

And God helps the one who walks, but only when he is ready to submit to God completely and without reservations. Such readiness is humility, the real humility that is not connected with any words, gestures, or still less with a style of clothing. Humility and simplicity understood in this way really do help the righteous person follow God. And enter the Kingdom.

“The Lord your God is in your midst; He is mighty to save you.” Here is the answer to the question: what is there to rejoice in? Perhaps no reason for joy can be seen right now. Perhaps today there is darkness and emptiness in your heart. But whatever happens, the Lord is with you and is mighty to save you. If He permits this darkness for now, that does not mean He is not near. An old parable comes to mind: a person sees the path of his life. Along the entire path are his footprints beside God’s. But at certain moments—the most difficult moments of his life—there is only one set of footprints. “Lord, where were You?” “I was carrying you in My arms.” Whatever happens, He is near, whether we remember it or not, whether we feel it or not. And this is an inexhaustible source of joy. Let us not forget to draw from this source.

The prophet Zephaniah describes what a converted person looks like. Of course, we would not be mistaken in seeing this text as addressed to the Mother of God as well, for Her orientation toward God and Her self-surrender to Him are perfect. The radical change in the life of a person into whose life Jesus has entered is described very simply in this text: “you shall see evil no more.” It is not that evil is no longer nearby, or that it does not try to kill or destroy whatever it can reach. A person looking at the newborn Child can no longer see evil. How could one even think of evil at such a moment?

The assertion of the prophet that Israel "shall not see evil any more", in a historical perspective it seems too optimistic. Indeed, this prediction, judging by what we know today about the prophet and his period, was connected to the collapse of the Assyrian empire, which brought in Judea (as, moreover, in all the Middle East) a lot of evil. But the historic misfortunes of Judeans and Jewish people as is known, are far from ending in it: in front was the Babylonian captivity, the conflict with the Samaritans and Persian authorities in the years of the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple, the persecution of Antiochus Epiphany, finally, the disaster of 70 after J.C., ending the history of the old Judea.

It could have of course been possible to localize the prediction of Zephaniah in the time and take it only to this concrete situation, which developed in Palestine in the middle of VII s before J.C. when nothing really threatened the Judea directly. But then it would have been necessary to recognize that this prediction has only a historic interest. And however, the prophet sees not only a closer perspective; he also speaks about this trial, which will arrive at the people for the denial.

And the joy of getting rid of the terrible enemy turns out for him only a prototype of the celebration, which awaits those who resisted this trial to come. And unites them something already goes beyond the borders of the historical existence, as such: the presence of God among His people, which actually, makes of the Jewish people the people of God in all the sense of these words. Well then all the history becomes the history of this presence, the history of the revelation, current at all periods.