Zephaniah 1:1-18

The Day of Jehovah a Day of Judgment for guilty Judah

The prophecy opens with the declaration of universal destruction for all living things. In his way the prophet impresses upon his hearers the completeness and appalling nature of the impending judgment. In the succeeding vv. he defines in detail the character of the punishment and the guilty classes in Judah upon which it will especially fall. It is in keeping with the genius of the Semitic mind thus to pass from the general to the specific. The Hebrews, for example, began with God and then turned to note the evidence of His work in history and nature; while the Aryan mind first gathered the evidence from life and a study of the universe, and then from these ultimately rose to the conception of a deity.