Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Zephaniah 1:12

And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.

12. I will search Jerusalem with candles ] lit. with lamps, or, lanterns, Luk 15:8. The darkest places shall be penetrated and those lurking in them discovered. Jehovah searches, though it may be by the hand of the enemy that He performs the search. It is out of these obscurist places that the men settled on their lees will have to be dragged. These are not enthusiasts who throng public places and are always in the light of day; they are the indifferent, who withdraw from public concerns, who have no zeal because no faith. In the pictures of Zephaniah as a saint he is represented carrying a lantern.

settled on their lees ] lit. thickened on their lees. The figure is taken from wine that has sat long undisturbed, and is finely expanded in Jer 48:11-12, “Moab hath been at ease from his youth and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel I will send unto him them that pour off, and they shall pour him off.” Those referred to are men who have lived at ease, without trouble or vicissitude in life, and who have therefore sunk down into unfeeling indifference or even into incredulity regarding any interference of a higher power in the affairs of mankind (next clause).

The Lord will not do good ] The phrase “do good or do evil” has come to mean little more than “do aught” (Isa 41:23), but properly it is used in a literal way; Jer 10:5, “Be not afraid of them (the idols), for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.” An Arab, poet says: “I sing a man, on whom the sun never rose a day but he did good and did evil,” i.e. to his friends and foes respectively. The persons referred to by the prophet say this “in their hearts.” The saying differs little from the other, “There is no God” (Psa 14:1), no living God who observes and interposes in the affairs of human life. Though in a different atmosphere of thought Renan expresses himself to the same effect: “it has, in fact, never been established by observation that a superior being troubles himself, for a moral or an immoral purpose, with the things of nature or the affairs of mankind” ( Hist. of Israel, ii p. ii.).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I will search – (Literally, diligently). The word is always used of a minute diligent search, whereby places, persons, things, are searched and sifted one by one in every corner, until it be found whether a thing be there or no . Hence, also of the searching out of every thought of the heart, either by God Pro 20:27, or in repentance by the light of God Lam 3:40.

Jerusalem with candles – so that there should be no corner, no lurking-place so dark, but that the guilty should be brought to light. The same diligence, which Eternal Wisdom used, to seek and to save that which was lost Luk 15:8, lighting a candle and searching diligently, until it find each lost piece of silver, the same shall Almighty God use that no hardened sinner shall escape. Cyril: What the enemy would do, using unmingled phrensy against the conquered, that God fitteth to His own Person, not as being Himself the Doer of things so foreign, but rather permitting that what comes from anger should proceed in judgment against the ungodly. It was an image of this, when, at the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans, they dragged out of common sewers and holes and caves and tombs, princes and great men and priests, who for fear of death had hid themselves.

How much more in that Day when the secrets of all hearts shalt be revealed by Him who searcheth the hearts and reins, and to Whose Eyes Psa 7:9; Psa 26:2; Jer 11:20; Jer 17:10; Jer 20:12; Rev 2:23, which are like flashing Fire, all things are naked and open! Rev 1:14. The candles wherewith God searcheth the heart, are mens own consciences Pro 20:27, His Own revealed word Psa 119:104; Pro 6:23; 2Pe 1:19, the lives of true Christians Phi 2:15. Those, through the Holy Spirit in each, may enlighten the heart of man, or, if he takes not heed, will rise in judgment against him, and show the falsehood of all vain excuses. : One way of escape only there is. If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. I will search out my own ways and my desires, that He who shall search out Jerusalem with candles, may find nothing in me, unsought and unsifted. For He will not twice judge the same thing. Would that I might so follow and track out all my offences, that in none I need fear His piercing Eyes, in none be ashamed at the light of His candles! Now I am seen, but I see not. At hand is that Eye, to whom all things are open, although Itself is not open. Once I shall know, even as I am known 1Co 13:12. Now I know in part, but I am not known in part, but wholly.

The men that are settled on their lees – Stiffened and contracted . The image is from wine which becomes harsh, if allowed to remain upon the lees, unremoved. It is drawn out by Jeremiah, Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed Jer 48:11. So they upon whom no changes come, fear not God (see Psa 55:19). The lees are the refuse of the wine, yet stored up (so the word means) with it, and the wine rests, as it were, upon them. So do men of ease rest in things defiled and defiling, their riches or their pleasure, which they hoard up, on which they are bent, so that they, Dionysius: lift not their mind to things above, but, darkened with foulest desires, are hardened and stiffened in sin.

That say in their heart – Not openly scoffing, perhaps thinking that they believe; but people do believe as they love. Their most inward belief, the belief of their heart and affections, what they wish, and the hidden spring of their actions, is, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. They act as believing so, and by acting inure themselves to believe it. They think of God as far away, Is not God in the height of heaven? And behold the height of the stars, how high they are! And thou sayest, How doth God know? Can He judge through the dark cloud? Thick goads are a covering to Him, that He seeth not; and He walketh in the circuit of heaven Job 22:12-14, The ungodly in the pride of his heart (thinketh); He will not inquire; all his devices (speak), There is no God. Strong are his ways at all times; on high are Thy judgments out of his sight Psa 10:4-5. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless, and they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it Psa 94:5-6.

Such things they did imagine and were deceived, for their own wickedness blinded them. As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not (Wisd. 2:21-22). Faith without works is dead Jam 2:20. Faith which acts not dies out, and there comes in its stead this other persuasion, that God will not repay. There are more Atheists than believe themselves to be such. These act as if there were no Judge of their deeds, and at last come, themselves to believe that God will not punish Isa 5:19; Mal 2:17. What else is the thought of all worldlings, of all who make idols to themselves of any pleasure or gain or ambition, but God will not punish? God cannot punish the (wrongful, selfish,) indulgence of the nature which He has made. God will not be so precise. God will not punish with everlasting severance from Him, the sins of this short life. And they see not that they ascribe to God, what He attributes to idols that is, not-gods. Do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and behold it together . Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good Jer 10:5. These think not that God does good, for they ascribe their success to their own diligence, wisdom, strength, and thank not God for it. They think not that He sends them evil. For they defy Him and His laws, and think that they shall go unpunished. What remains but that He should be as dumb an idol as those of the pagan?

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Zep 1:12

At that time.

At that time

The day of the Lord is any season in which He reveals Himself in a special manner. Of the dealings of God with His visible Church on that day the text presents a striking description.

I. The party here spoken of–jerusalem.

1. In the day of the Lord the visible Church is not exempted from His special notice and appropriate dealings.

2. The grounds of Gods procedure towards His Church may be the following. To whom much is given, of them shall much be required. With the visible Church the interests of the world are entrusted. With the visible Church, in a sense, the honour and glory of Gods name are entrusted. God, having loved His Church, is jealous of His Churchs love.

3. These views not only satisfy as to Gods procedure, but furnish strong inducements to faithfulness to the Church.

4. When God shall come, it will be to His Church specially

II. The peculiar aspect of the Day of the Lord towards Jerusalem. That is, the particular character of His dealings towards His Church–He shall search with candles.

1. This expression proves the existence of suspicion.

2. It shows that the Church has hidden her sin.

3. It teaches that the search is close and narrow and prying. Illustration–The woman seeking her lost piece of silver, candle in hand.

4. It teaches that God Himself will search His Church. Not to satisfy Himself, but to indicate His complete knowledge, and to lead the Church to seek knowledge.

5. God searches by various means or agencies.

1. Ministers of the Gospel.

2. Individuals or churches.

3. Events of providence.

4. All these by the candle of His Word. Are you prepared to be searched by God?

III. the result of this search in Jerusalem is the discovery of the men that are settled on their lees.

1. The class described (Jer 48:11).

2. The cause of this feature of their character. Quiescence of one and another class of feeling.

3. This is infidelity of heart.

4. There is not necessarily a quiescence of worldly feelings.

IV. The Divine treatment of this class. Their punishment may be judicial blindness. In eternity it will be Gods wrath. (James Stewart.)

I will search Jerusalem with candles.

Searching with candles

The Lord threatens, in the taking of the city, to take order with all atheists and epicures, who, abounding in wealth, lay secure and at ease (like wine on its dregs when it is not removed), in their heart denying Gods providence, or that He took any care of things beneath, to reward good or punish evil; and therefore neither loved nor believed His promises, that they might walk in His way, nor feared His justice, so as to abandon sin. Concerning these the Lord threatens, that as a man searcheth what is hid or lost with a candle, so He would narrowly search out their sins, and themselves so as to punish them for their sins, so as none should escape; and their goods to give them for a spoil; whereby their houses should become desolate, and they should be disappointed of all their expectations from their enjoyments, according to His sentence pronounced of old in His law (Deu 28:30; Deu 28:39). Doctrine–

1. Ease and prosperity slayeth the fool, and breeds such distempers of security, and settling on the earth, as justly provokes God to smite.

2. Prosperity and want of exercise, by vicissitudes of dispensations, is a great feeder of atheism, and an enemy to the observation and making use of Divine providence; and this again doth embolden and harden men yet more in their secure and wicked courses.

3. Secure atheists and contemners of God and His providence may expect that God will refute them in a language which they will understand, and make them know His providence at their own expense.

4. When the Lord strips a sinful person or people of any mercies which they enjoyed they will find upon narrow search that their enjoyment thereof hath been a snare to them, to lead them into sin; and they should read this in the stroke.

5. The holy justice of God is to be adored in disappointing men of any happiness or contentment they expected in these things for which they hazard their souls, and so rendering them twice losers who will not serve Him. (George Hutcheson.)

Soul searching

It seems to be commonly thought that the one fear and the one foe in these days is infidelity. Two things only have to be remembered by those who preach against infidelity to ordinary congregations,–the one is, that they do not, in furnishing answers, suggest the doubt with them; the other is, that they he careful to deal fairly and charitably with opponents in a place where, of course, there can be no reply.

I. Indifference is practical infidelity. Without disparaging the prevalence in these days of an intellectual and specu lative infidelity, we must feel that there are other dangers and other impediments to the life of souls which may make less demand upon the logic or the rhetoric of preachers, but which are at least as serious in their nature, and even more likely to be found in an assembly of worshippers. There is indifference. Indifference and infidelity have a closer affinity than is implied in their natures. For one person who is made sceptical by thinking or reading, twenty and a hundred persons are made sceptics by indifference. They care for none of these things, and therefore they can amuse themselves by playing with those edge-tools of sarcasm over things sacred which they would rather die than do, if they knew what may be the consequences to others now, and some day to themselves. The figure of the text is taken from the experience of vintners and wine merchants who have suffered some of the necessary processes of their business to be too long delayed, with the effect of making the wine what the margin represents the Hebrew original to call curded or thickened. The general idea seems to be that of the Psalm, Because they have no changings, therefore they fear not. It may be the sad, remorseful feeling of some one whom I address, that there is gradually sinking down upon him something of the dull, drowsy, stupid indifference towards the three paramount realities–God, the soul, and eternity, which, if it should become permanent, if it should become inveterate, will be in the most terrible of senses the very sleep of death.

II. Causes of spiritual decline. This state has many histories. It is a dangerous thing, dangerous even for the soul, to live always on one spot, in one society, a life of routine, whether that routine be of pleasure or of business. The life of what is called society not only lays a heavy weight on the soul, of weariness, of depression, of simple worldliness; it has a dissipating, it has an enfeebling action upon the vigorous energy, upon the sturdy independence, upon the pure affection of mind and heart. There is a wonderful inequality in this matter of human experience. One life has its even tenor from year to year, another life is lacerated by a succession of sorrows. There is nothing of fatalism in saying that the never being emptied by providential discipline from vessel to vessel, the never going into captivity under a chastisement not joyous but grievous, is a less advantageous treatment, morally and spiritually, than the opposite. How graphic the description of the man who is settled on his lees; the man who has lost all freshness and liveliness of feeling, in the monotony of comfort and luxury, of health and habit, of regular alternation and unbroken routine! They say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. This is the Nemesis of long forgetfulness. God, the living, acting God, disappears at last from the scene of being Then let us try earnestly to bring God back into our lives; let us try to do or forbear each day some one thing quite definitely and quite expressly because of God; because He wills, and it will please Him; or because He wills not, and therefore we will forbear. It is wonderful how this kind of self-treatment will spread and grow, till at last the blessed habit has become ours of setting God always before us, and doing all things as in His sight. (Dean Vaughan.)

Divine judgments

To the Hebrew prophets the world was without meaning if it was not moral. Righteousness–the desire for it, the endeavour after it, was at the heart of things. We may thank Matthew Arnold for the phrase The power that makes for righteousness as a definition of God. The Hebrew prophet was a moral philosopher, a statesman, a preacher of righteousness, a declarer of Gods will as expressed in the laws and tendencies of human history. He was a scientist as well as a seer, discerning the face of the sky and the signs of the times, and predicting the rise and fall of states. It was the fate of Zephaniah to fall on evil times.

I. The subject of Divine judgments.

1. They embrace the whole earth. Gods moral law is co-extensive with the whole world. Gods commandments are one and the same all the world over.

2. It is just as true that, though universal, Gods judgments are sometimes particular and special. I will search Jerusalem.. God begins at home. When God comes to make inquisition for sin He begins at the sanctuary.

3. The prophet leads us into yet inner circles–I will punish the men that are settled on their lees. The metaphor is drawn from the manufacture. By the expression two classes are intended–

(1) The indifferent and ease-loving.

(2) The carnally-minded.

The man who settles down upon the sediment that is in him takes his tone and standard from the worse and not from the better part of his nature.

3. The innermost circle of all is occupied by those who say in their heart, the Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil,–the practical atheists of the Church who swear by the Lord, but relegate Him to a distant corner of His domain.

II. The method of gods judgments. Search with candles. No half-measures, no compromise with evil will satisfy Jehovah.

III. The purpose of Gods judgments is not simply penal, but purifying and remedial. Our God is just to forgive, loving to punish. Let the Lord work His gracious fatherly will in your life. (J. D. Thompson.)

Punish the men that are settled on their lees.–

Religious indifferentism

We have it here–

I. Divinely portrayed. It is marked by two elements.

1. Carnality. The men that are settled on their lees. The image is taken from the crust that is formed on the bottom of wines that have been long left undisturbed. It is marked by–

2. Atheism. They say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. This atheism is–

(1) Not a theoretical denial of the existence of God. They say in their heart, The Lord will not do good. They assume His existence, they have no intellectual conviction for or against. The most popular and pernicious atheism is that which theoretically admits the being of God. It is a stupid, stolid, thoughtless state of mind, and you cannot argue with it. This atheism is–

(2) A heart misrepresentation of God. They say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, etc. They have a God; but He is inactive, dormant, and concerns Himself with neither good nor evil. He is a mere fiction of their depraved heart. We have religious indifferentism here–

II. Divinely detected. I will search Jerusalem with candles, or lamps. The language, of course, is highly figurative. Omniscience does not require lamps to light Him, or to employ any effort to discover. He sees all things. There is not a word on my tongue but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. The language means, Gods complete knowledge of this religious indifferentism wherever it exists. He sees it.–

1. He sees it though it may not reveal itself in any palpable forms to men. Though it may conform to all the rules of social morality and popular religion, He sees it.

2. He sees it though it may be robed in the forms of religious devotion. It may attend churches, join in liturgies, sing psalms,–yet He sees it.

III. Divinely punished. I Will punish the men that are settled on their lees. Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out (Amo 9:3). The religiously indifferent must be punished sooner or later. How? By burning moral convictions. Convictions–

1. As to the absurdity of their conduct. They will one day have the miserable god of their own hearts and the God of the universe brought into contact within them.

2. As to the wickedness of their conduct.

3. As to the ruinousness of their conduct. Because I called and ye refused, I stretched out My hand and ye would not; therefore I will laugh when your fear cometh, and mock at your day of calamity. (Homilist.)

Stagnant upon their lees

This starts questions for ourselves. Here is evidently the same public temper which at all periods provokes alike the despair of the reformer and the indignation of the prophet, the criminal apathy of the well-to-do classes sunk in ease and religious indifference. We have to-day the same mass of obscure nameless persons, who oppose their almost unconquerable inertia to every movement of reform, and are the drag upon all vital and progressive religion. The great causes of God and humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the devil, but by the slow, crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies. Gods causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon. It is not the violent and anarchical whom we have to fear in the war for human progress, but the slow, the staid, and the respectable. And the danger of these does not lie in their stupidity. Notwithstanding all their religious profession, it lies in their real scepticism. Respectability may be the precipitate of unbelief. Nay, it is that, however religious its mask, wherever it is mere comfort, decorousness, and conventionality; where, though it would abhor articulately confessing that God does nothing, it virtually means so–says so (as Zephaniah puts it) in its heart, by refusing to share manifest opportunities of serving Him, and covers its sloth and its fear by sneering that God is not with the great crusades for freedom and purity to which it is summoned. In these ways respectability is the precipitate which unbelief naturally forms in the selfish ease and stillness of so much of our middle-class life. And that is what makes mere respectability so dangerous. Like the unshaken, unstrained wine to which the prophet compares its obscure and muddy comfort, it tends to decay. To some extent our respectable classes are just the dregs and lees of our national life; like all dregs, they are subject to corruption. A great sermon could be preached on the putrescence of respectability,–how the ignoble comfort of our respectable classes and their indifference to holy causes lead to sensuality, and poison the very institutions of the home and family, on which they]pride themselves. A large amount of the licentiousness of the present day is not that of outlaw and disordered lives, but is bred from the settled ease and indifference of many of our middle-class families. It is perhaps the chief part of the sin of the obscure units, which form these great masses of indifference, that they think they escape notice and cover their individual responsibility. At all times many have sought obscurity, not because they are humble, but because they are slothful, cowardly, or indifferent. Obviously it is this temper which is met by the words, I will search out Jerusalem with lights. (Geo. Adam Smith, D. D.)

The danger of uninterrupted prosperity

God is omniscient. Why, then, should He represent Himself as searching Jerusalem with candles, as though there were the remotest possibility of any acts escaping His detection? These representations are simply intended to work powerfully on our minds. For whom is it that the Almighty institutes this close and piercing search? Not the perpetrators of any very secret and hidden sin; but men who are settled on their lees, whom prosperity has lulled into a kind of practical atheism, so that they deny the providence of God or His interference in human affairs. God would not employ this strong figure if there may not be a great deal of this sensual indifference, this haughty indolence, even in those in whom prosperity may not seem to us to have acted injuriously.

I. The natural tendencies of a state in which there is no adverse change. Take the case of a man on whom, from his youth up, everything has seemed to smile. When there is not unbroken prosperity there is often a sudden tide of success. This may apply to both public and private life. To these the description settled on their lees may apply. Prosperity is really far harder to bear than adversity. It is a great touchstone, and marvellously exposes the weakness of mans virtues. There is a direct tendency in prosperity to the fostering and strengthening the corruptions of our nature. The more a man obtains, the more will he desire. The bent of our dispositions being towards the earth, if nothing ever happen to turn them from earth there is little ground for expecting that they will centre themselves on heaven. Prosperity has a tendency to keep men at a distance from God. A religious man may be prosperous, and prosperity not prove the grave of his religion; but the prosperous man who is yet a stranger to religion is amongst the moot unpromising of subjects for moral attack.

II. What advantages follow upon uncertainties and reverses of fortune.

1. Change admonishes us of the transitory nature of terrestrial good. Every change, but yet more a succession of changes, speaks, saying, Arise ye, and depart hence, for this is not your rest. It is a gracious appointment of Providence for most of us that we are not permitted to settle on our lees. The great practical, personal truth is, the necessity, the paramount necessity, of moral renewal. To disciples the Lord presented the necessity of being converted. Regeneration is no argument against the need for conversion. (Henry Melvill, B. D.)

That say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil.–

The unheeding God

There was widespread apathy and unresponsiveness, a temper which seemed to make the judgments preached by Zephaniah inevitable. Even those who had a theoretical faith in the supremacy of Jehovah looked upon Him as of little practical account in history. This apathetic temper miserably disqualified both for worship and reform. Zephaniah, like others of his goodly fellowship, demanded not only formal allegiance to the authority of Jehovah, but a thousand loyalties of the secret and the solitary thought.

I. The prophet reminds us of the habit of life out of which this distorted view of the Divine character often grows–gross indolence. This condition of character is described by an Eastern metaphor that has become one of the commonplaces of religious speech, settled upon their lees. The figure brings before us one of the progresses of the Jewish vintage. The fermented wine was poured back upon the thick sediment of the grapes from which it had been pressed, and in this way the wine gathered to itself greater strength. But the process needed care and watch fulness, for if left upon the lees for an undue length of time the wine became highly intoxicating, and incurably harsh in flavour. It needed to be separated, by careful and repeated strainings, from the husk and sediment with which it had been mixed for a time. The man whose soul has sunk into moral and religious stupor is just like that. In his daily life and consciousness the coarse and the fine, the earthly and the spiritual, the brutish and the God-like, lie mixed together in contiguous layers. There are the base deposits of animalism within the man, and not far off there are likewise elements of purity., reverence, and righteousness. In those who are godly and zealous for the things of God an effectual separation between these opposing qualities has been brought about. The soul is no longer touched, inflamed, stupefied by the grossness of the blood. On the other hand, one who is careless of God and the things of God derives the dominating tone of his thought and life from the things that address the senses. A man, of course, is compounded of flesh and blood, and there are legitimate needs that must be satisfied. He is providentially placed in social relations, and he may rightly feel pleasure in the warmth and sunshine of those relation ships, But the type of man described in this Jewish metaphor finds in mean and sensuous things the satisfactions that fix the qualities of his personality. No separating crisis has come to save the man from his dregs and his animalisms. These words imply that men of the inert and careless type are accustomed to make the pleasant monotony of their outward lives an occasion for encouraging themselves in apathetic tempers and traditions. Intellectual and moral life stagnates in the race that is cut off by some high dividing wall from surrounding nations. We have the highest possible securities for our temporal happiness and well-being. Our national habit tends to become more and more luxurious, self-contented, imperturbable. We build ourselves up in our sleek and well-insured respectability. Nations themselves play the rich fool, saying, Soul, take thine ease. All such things tend to beget the temper of a lethargic materialism within us, and to favour our unconfessed belief that God is just as apathetic as ourselves. That, of course, applies to the individual as well as to the nation. For some in our midst life is comparatively even, although as a rule Providence sooner or later provides us with many sharp antidotes to the coma which steals upon us. Few changes may have come since the first position in business was attained. It is only at rare intervals that death creeps into our homes. Life is genial and soul-satisfying, and we should like to keep things as they are for generations to come. We discountenance new movements, because they might disturb the regime that has worked so smoothly in the past. Men settle down into a refined sensuousness that is fatal to stern conviction, keen consciousness of spiritual facts, and consuming zeal for righteousness. No wonder that the children of elegant and not entirely godless somnambulists should grow up apathetic and come to believe in an apathetic God, if indeed they hold to any figment of a God at all. And this description applies too often to the man who was once religious after the best pattern. In the earlier stages of his history many things combined to keep him active, prayerful, strenuous. His life was one of struggle, sacrifice, hardness, disappointment. But smoother and more prosperous days came to him, and he met the temptation that deteri orated the best fibres in his character. He is nominally religious still, but a model Laodicean. The danger of this condition is great, and perhaps no surer sign of it is to be found than in the change it makes in a mans view of God. A self-contented Laodicean is always under the temptation to believe that God must be more or less like himself, since he has ceased to feel any necessity to become like God.

II. The prophet ventures to put into articulate speech vague laodicean creed of the heart. The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. Men sometimes hold contradictory and antagonistic creeds at one and the same period of their history, and the creed fenced in with whispered reserves is often the more significant and decisive of the two. There is a sceptic and a believer, a pagan and a theist in most of us, and a depraved will sometimes imposes itself on a sound and healthy creed. All that is a part of the dualism of human nature Those supine and well-to-do citizens of Jerusalem denounced by the prophet may have had reserves of orthodoxy and of pious patriotism behind their time-serving expediency and supineness. God does not interfere even for the nation supposed to be under His special protection. He lets Hezekiah and Manasseh, Amen and Josiah, do as they like, and neither frowns nor smiles upon the national fortunes. The pains and pleasures of human life have no fine correspondence to character. Good and evil befall men without any special relation to the kind of lives they live. It is not easy to see any sign of Gods judicial dealings with the children of men. We need not stay to discuss the question whether it is the habit of life or a dishonouring idea of God against which the prophet threatens sharp and discerning penalty. The two things are inseparable. A careless life always fosters an irreverent creed, and an irreverent creed is formulated as excuse or sanction for a careless and self-indulgent life, and makes the carnal sleep doubly sound. It is something in the character which is to be punished, but a vice which shows itself in twofold form, disabling from all reforming enterprise on the one hand, and turning the creed into a blasphemy on the other. The wickedness of a supine and self-indulgent temper culminates when it engenders a base conception of the Most High. Sometimes a man may make God in the image of an ideal that is far loftier than anything to be found in his own character, but in the case of the man who is settled upon his lees such ideals are extinct. We cannot be tepid in our moral sensibilities without making God tepid also. The strenuous man will believe in a strenuous God, and will turn atheist if asked to do homage to an Olympian dilletante who lounges on a couch of ivory with cupbearers at his side. It is perhaps a more insulting thing to make God a Laodicean like ourselves than to think of Him as a fiction of the imagination. A denial of His existence may be better than wholesale misrepresentation. If God seems slow to act, it is because He is waiting for our repentance. Natural law is so widespread and inexorable that there is no room for moral interpositions. We can understand a being who never concerns himself with human affairs because of the limitations of his intelligence, but to concede intelligence and deny the will or the capacity for moral interest in human affairs looks like an insult of supreme shamefulness. We refuse to the Being behind and above and within the universe that which is greatest and most honourable in ourselves. We accept the broad dogma of a God, for the universe would be too much of a tangle without that, and then make His sway theoretical, secretly questioning whether He cares to exercise retributive power over the realms subject to His sway. That compromise is necessary to our mental comfort. It is often said that in comparison with the universe, man is such an insignificant atom that, even assuming the existence of a God, it would not be worth Gods while either to reward or punish him. Is it too much to say that the least thing in the world of animate is greater than the sum of all things in the world of inanimate life? The ant, after all, is more wonderful than the sun with its unfathomable marvel of brightness. Mere magnitude cannot become a true standard of value for the estimate of that which is moral and intellectual. Most of us have come to learn that there is an arithmetic which deals with quality as well as quantity, and it is perhaps the more important of the two. There is a power and possibility of feeling in God to which no conceivable term can be put. He does care even for ants, and has shown that by bestowing upon them a wonderful talent for caring for themselves and their kind. He does think about me, and it is rank blasphemy to say He cares about every side of my nature but its moral side. History teems with the rewards and punishments He never fails to administer for our encouragement and warning. If His kingship is living, competent, righteous, it is impossible He should forget His duties to those whom He governs. If we accept the message of modern science, evolution itself in its higher ethical stages is a sufficient refutation of this Laodicean travesty of God. We are told that the so-called sense of right and wrong has been slowly awakened within men, and that it has its primitive roots in an elementary susceptibility to pleasure and pain. That theory implies that through the untold cycles of the past, retributive activities have been playing upon the sense of pleasure and pain, till at last, when the animal emerged into the human, this complex and marvellous faculty appeared. For ages upon ages some unseen power has been patiently reading into the consciousness of mankind the blessings and curses of the law, and enforcing the message with lavish bounty on the one hand and strokes of the rod on the other, till at last mind-stuff quivered into the Divine thing we call conscience. That looks as though God had intervened in the past times without number, and as though His righteousness were always unresting in asserting itself. The analogies of our imperfectly ordered social life often give some kind of colour to these false and insulting estimates of God and His ways. It is said that the passing age has been one of exaggerated individualism. Men have been so much occupied in asserting the sacredness of the individual and his separate fights that they have forgotten the responsibilities of each member of the community to the organic whole. They repudiate the duties of citizenship. They will not do good, neither will they do evil. For those in authority over us to pursue a policy of masterly inaction in times of national peril and demoralisation would be a capital crime, and can it be accounted less shameful in Him whom we assume to be King of kings and Lord of lords? A man may sometimes excuse him self from taking part in public affairs, because he trusts the aggregate good sense and virtue of his fellow-citizens, and assumes things will not go very far wrong. But God cannot abstain from intervening in human history on the ground that the course of affairs will move on in the same way, whether He come upon the scene or not. We loathe the wretch for whose arrest the Poor Guardians offer a reward because he has deserted his family, and that kind of man as well as the man brought to book by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is punished. God would be just as guilty and shameless if He were to show no concern for our moral discipline and upbringing, and abstain from all interposition in our lives; and His greatness would aggravate and not excuse the misdemeanour. If we believe in a God we must believe in His moral earnestness. Is it not possible that this tendency to attenuate Gods moral earnestness may underlie the half beliefs and the limp, amiable theology of the hour? If it be true that the God in whom we have come to believe would satisfy the Laodicean ideal, the call to repentance loses its urgency, and sin neither needs specific forgiveness upon a basis of righteousness nor will the sinner have to dread an awaiting punishment, keen, overwhelming, irremediable. We can disburden ourselves of the rigid and uncomfortable doctrines of the past. He will not trouble Himself about our peccadilloes. Those thoughts concerning God to which we lean in our silent meditations, and which influence us in the critical and tempted moments of life, will be subject-matter of Divine judgment. We cannot separate this whispered creed of the heart from selfish and neglectful courses of conduct, for it is that by which we excuse ourselves. The fluid creed within us crystallises into a superstructure of character. The creed of the heart, more over, must be judged because we belong to invisible more essentially than to visible spheres. The man who says, I believe in a Laodicean God, is not only inert and selfish himself, but is bent on making his own characteristic vice dominant on the throne of the supreme sovereignty.

III. We are reminded of the far-reaching and inevitable judgment that will one day over take those who are lethargic in character. I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men who are settled on their lees. These lethargic souls had said God was slack to fulfil His promise, and careless as to the chastise ment of every hind of transgression. God will answer the libel by inexorable punishment. Their evil creed had been cherished in secret, but God will bring wrath upon them for their half-formulated aspersions upon His holy zeal, and will find them out in the dim places to which they have fled. This half-articulate murmur which makes God magnificently inert may have a power of mischief in it sufficient to wreck a universe. These minute blasphemies and scepticisms God will search out with an illuminating severity nothing can escape. This sin was more or less veiled, for at one time Jerusalem had been religious to the verge of fanaticism. And in one party in the state there was still enough of zeal to make it expedient for unbelief to be wary and reticent. With the spread of religion and the growth of a strong public opinion there is always a danger lest men should be driven into secret irreligion and unbelief. Pagan contaminations are sometimes latent where there is a devout and zealous exterior. (T. G. Selby.)

Practical atheism in denying the agency of Divine Providence exposed

Practical atheism brought the judgments of God upon the Jews.

These were fully executed in the Babylonish Captivity. By being settled on their lees we may understand their riches; for wine grows rich by being kept on the lees. So, by a long scene of peace and prosperity, the inhabitants of Jerusalem were arriving at very great riches. Or it may signify a state of security; like wine settled on the lees, they have been undisturbed. I will punish should be I will visit. The charge here brought against the Jews amounts to this–that their temper and practice were such as would not at all agree to the practical belief of a Providence. They thought and acted as if it were their real and professed belief that the Lord would do neither good nor evil, nor meddle with human affairs. This atheistical affectation of independency, and secret or practical renunciation of Divine Providence, is the fatal thing that generally overturned the empires, and impoverished, enslaved, and ruined the nations of the earth.

I. The doctrine of a Divine providence. Maybe you already speculatively believe this doctrine, but the grand defect lies in the efficacy of this belief on your hearts and lives. We may argue from the perfections of God, and His relations to us. We may argue from our confessed obligations to religion and the worship of God. The testimony of Scripture is plain. New and unexpected witnesses may be found in the heathen,–such as Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Plato, Horace, Cicero, and various poets and philosophers.

II. Things in temper and conduct which argue a secret and practical disbelief of the doctrine of providence.

1. Would there be so little prayer among us, if we were generally affected with this truth?

2. Is not the general indulgence of vice, and neglect of religion, a plain evidence of the general disbelief of a Divine providence over the country?

3. Is not the general impenitence, notwithstanding the many public calamities under which our country has groaned, a melancholy evidence of this practical atheism?

4. Is not the general ingratitude a plain evidence of the general disbelief of a providential government over the world?

5. How little serious and humble acknowledgment of the providence of God in our disappointments and mortifications is to be found among us.

III. The wickedness of this atheistical temper and conduct. To deny the agency of providence is the most daring rebellion against the King of heaven; it is to abjure His government in His own territories, in His own world which He has made. What unnatural ingratitude! What intolerable pride and arrogance! What impiety and insolence! This atheistical spirit is the source of all vice and irreligion. (S. Davies, A. M.)

Moral scepticism

Beyond a doubt there is a great deal of moral scepticism in our own time and in regard to our own lives. And there is excuse enough, explanation enough, of this sort of moral scepticism when we look round at national and political life. We think of the Armenians, of a nation massacred. It passes by, it is half-forgotten, and God is silent. Where is the God of Judgment? Surely He does not care! The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. And from a number of other sources we may feel inclined to draw that same lesson. Of course, those who look deeper will tell us the reasoning is shallow. Look, they will say, at the very empire of the Sultan. It is, by the confession of all men, on its way to ruin. It cannot stand, simply because it is corrupt and vicious and cruel. The mill of God grinds slowly, but it grinds at last, sure and small. Yes, it is certainly true, if you look at any section of human life in the political field you may draw the conclusion that there is no judgment and no moral God governing the nation. It is not so if you take a long enough view of history down its long region. Where there is a luxury and an undue love of pleasure there you sap the roots of steadfast industry, and where industry fails the nation fails. Where commercial dishonesty goes beyond a certain point, there the reputation and therefore the position of the nation suffers, Certainly there is always in national vice a tendency, an inevitable tendency, towards national decay. It is sin that is first the reproach and then the disaster of any nation. There is a tendency towards judgment, a tendency very imperfect at present in its manifestation, but even in the great national regions the tendency is there. You cannot, unless you are shallow-hearted, say that the Lord doth not good, neither doth He do evil. But let us leave the wide sphere of national life and think of this moral scepticism as it touches individual lives only. Here, too, the excuse for it is apparent enough. It is only sometimes that honesty appears to be the best policy. There are men whom we would not trust, because we believe they are hard-hearted. And yet they come to no abrupt or signal ruin; they seem to flourish as well as anybody else. There are moral collapses, disgraceful, disgusting to our moral sense, and yet a little while, and without any appearance of repentance, simply by lapse of time, the subjects of them seem to creep back into respectability or even credit. There are struggles, persevering as it seems, against vice and sin which never seem to become effectual or to succeed. The Lord in the region of our own lives, as we watch human life in experience, the Lord surely doth not in fact do good, neither doth He do evil. But, once again, the scepticism is shallow. You cannot take this as a complete account of human life. There is that in all human consciousness and in all-human experience which rebels against the conclusion. Call no mans life happy till you have seen the whole; watch the life to the end. Even cautious sin is found to ruin persons and families. And sin–is it not true?–is very seldom always cautious. So it is that we look around, and in all classes, in our own experience, we see the victims, the manifest victims, of lust and gambling and drunkenness. But these, you say, are the disreputable vices; nobody ever doubted that these open and disreputable and reckless vices brought ruin. Ay, but short of these, in respectable lives! Why are so many marriages failures, moral failures T Inquire, and you will find, because those marriages were rooted in worldliness and selfishness; there was no moral and spiritual discipline behind them. After a little time the temporary attraction wears off, and there is nothing left there but the conflict of two rival selfishnesses and the discrepant traits of divergent characters to make the bond. And what is that? It is but the mark of the Divine judgment upon selfishness. Or, look at this and that and the other individual Wilfulness is one of the commonest of human qualities–wilfulness which comes from being spoilt when one is young, or from having the opportunity to do just as one -pleases in somewhat later life, but the sort of wilfulness that will not bend itself to the Divine requirements, sooner or later brings more or less of ruin or misery. Gods judgment is in this and that and the other life which comes under our experience: Gods judgment is upon wilfulness. These are facts. But, we say, there is no complete picture of Divine judgment. No, that is the fact, no complete picture here, certainly. This world, certainly, is no sphere in which a Divine judgment works itself out full and satisfactorily. We walk by faith, certainly not by sight,–if we believe in the reality of Divine judgment–certainly by faith. But what there is is this, surely a tendency, an indication of Divine judgment which checks anybody who thinks at all. If he takes the sceptical conclusion–The Lord does not do good, neither does He do evil, there is something rooted alike in mens moral consciences and in their experiences which assures them, in spite of its imperfect manifestation here and now, that those who are on the side of righteousness are in harmony with the system of things, and those who are neglectful are walking upon a volcano. He will render to every man according to his works, by no arbitrary judgment from which there can be any possible exemption, but by an inevitable moral law which works as securely as the physical laws of growth and decay, of life and destruction. There is no chance of escape, not for a single sin. There is the difference between moral scepticism and moral belief. The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil, therefore I will not be righteous over-much, nor will I be over-much wicked. It does not really at the bottom so very much matter; there is no such very searching sieve through which my life has to be passed. That is the scepticism, that is the shallowness, that is the lie. On the other hand, there is the tendency, now the tendency pointing to its perfect realisation afterward. The Lord judges every man according to his works. He is the God of knowledge; He sifts thoroughly. There is no escape for a single sin. That is the point. Therefore awake to righteousness and sin not. Other prophets may have other topics in store for us. Let Zephaniah take this and that moral scepticism which tolerates sin because the Divine judgment, after all, does not seem to act, because it believes your hopes, it believes that the Lord does not do good, neither does He do evil. That moral scepticism is shallowness and a lie at the bottom. God is a living God; God is a God of judgment; God trieth the heart. The Lord will do good, and the Lord will do evil. Everything depends on what you are trying after, what you are tolerating, and what you are not tolerating; whether you are simply smoothing over the surface of your life, and leaving its real moral contents at the bottom, unsifted, unexamined, unresisted. (Bishop Gore.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. I will search Jerusalem with candles] I will make a universal and thorough search.

That are settled on their lees] Those who are careless, satisfied with the goods of this life; who trust in their riches, and are completely irreligious; who, while they acknowledge that there is a God, think, like the Aristotelians, that he is so supremely happy in the contemplation of his own excellences, that he feels it beneath his dignity to concern himself with the affairs of mortals.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

At that time; it was

day. Zep 1:10, which see.

I will search Jerusalem with candles: God speaks after the manner of man, who searcheth dark places with candles in hand. Gods omniscience seeth all things, and-needs no help for discovery, but by this expression he foretells how fully he would both discover and punish. It is like enough this was literally fulfilled when the Chaldeans did search the vaults, and cellars, and sewers of Jerusalem for men or goods hidden in them.

Settled on their lees; in allusion to liquors, which, not being poured out from vessel to vessel to refine them, grow thick and settled; so men that have known none or little changes settle in security, and fear no menaces.

Say in their heart; entertain an opinion, or begin to flatter themselves into thoughts.

The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil; no Providence to countenance the good, or to punish the bad; no God, or none that regardeth what is done on earth; or as they, Eze 8:12, think God hath forsaken the earth. These atheists God will punish severely, as the sin well deserveth; they shall see it shall be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. search . . . with candlesorlamps; so as to leave no dark corner in it wherein sin can escape thepunishment, of which the Chaldeans are My instruments (compareZep 1:13; Luk 15:8).

settled on theirlees“hardened” or crusted; image from the crustformed at the bottom of wines long left undisturbed (Jer48:11). The effect of wealthy undisturbed ease (“lees”)on the ungodly is hardening: they become stupidly secure(compare Psa 55:19; Amo 6:1).

Lord will not do good . . .evilThey deny that God regards human affairs, or renders goodto the good; or evil to the evil, but that all things go haphazard(Psa 10:4; Mal 2:17).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with candles,…. To find out the sins of the inhabitants of it, and the authors of them, and punish them for them, however hid and concealed from the eyes of others, or thought to be: this must be understood consistent with the omniscience of God, who knows all persons and things; nothing is hid from him; men may fancy their sins are hid, being privately and secretly committed; but all will be manifest, sooner or later; if not now, yet at the day of judgment; and sometimes they are made manifest by God in this life, as here; for what the Lord here says he would do, he did it by instruments, by the Chaldeans, whom he sent to Jerusalem; and to whom the gates of the city, the doors of houses, and the innermost recesses of them, were opened and plundered by them; and all for the sins of the people, which were hereby exposed. So the Targum,

“and it shall be at that time that I will appoint searchers, and they shall search Jerusalem, as they that search with candles;”

and no doubt but this was literally true of the Chaldeans, who with candles might search vaults and cellars, and such like dark places, where they supposed goods and riches were concealed. The allusion may be to the searching with lamps for leaven on the fourteenth of Nisan, when the passover began, in every corner of a house, and, when they found it, burnt it u; or in general to searching for anything which lies concealed in dark places, where the light of the sun comes not, and can only be discovered by the light of candles; and denotes that nothing should escape the sight and knowledge of God, by whom a full discovery would be made of their persons and sins, and cognizance taken of them in a vindictive way, as follows:

and punish the men that are settled on their lees; like wine on the lees, quiet and undisturbed; in a good outward estate and condition, abounding in wealth and riches, and trusting therein; and which, as the Targum paraphrases it, they enjoy in great tranquillity; Moab like, having never been emptied from vessel to vessel, Jer 48:11 and so concluded they should ever remain in the same state, and became hardened in sin, or “curdled”, and thickened, as the word w signifies; and were unconcerned about the state of religion, or the state of their own souls; and fearless and thoughtless of the judgments of God; but should now be visited, disturbed in their tranquil state, and be troubled and punished:

that say in their heart; not daring to express with their lips the following atheism and blasphemy; but God, who searched and tried their hearts, knew it:

The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil; which is a flat denial of his providence; saying that he takes no notice of what is done by men on earth, whether good or bad; and neither rewards the one, nor punishes the other. So the Targum, as Kimchi quotes it,

“it is not the good pleasure of God to do good to the righteous, or to do evil to the wicked;”

than which nothing is more false! the Lord does good to all in a providential way, and to many in a way of special grace; and rewards with a reward of grace all good men, both here and hereafter; and though he does not do any moral evil, yet he executes the evil of punishment in this world, and in that to come, on evildoers.

u Vid. Misn. Pesachim, c. 1. sect. 1, 4. w “concreti sunt”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “congelati”, Calvin; “coagulatos”, Montanus, Cocceius; “qui concreverunt glaciei, [vel] casei ad instar”, Burkius.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The debauchees and rioters generally will also not remain free from punishment. Zep 1:12. “And at that time it will come to pass, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and visit the men who lie upon their lees, who say in their heart, Jehovah does no good, and no evil. Zep 1:13. Their goods will become plunder, and their houses desolation: they will build houses, and not dwell (therein), and plant vineyards, and not drink their wine.” God will search Jerusalem with candles, to bring out the irreligious debauchees out of their hiding-places in their houses, and punish them. The visitation is effected by the enemies who conquer Jerusalem. Jerome observes on this passage: “Nothing will be allowed to escape unpunished. If we read the history of Josephus, we shall find it written there, that princes and priests, and mighty men, were dragged even out of the sewers, and caves, and pits, and tombs, in which they had hidden themselves from fear of death.” Now, although what is stated here refers to the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus, there can be no doubt that similar things occurred at the Chaldaean conquest. The expression to search with candles (cf. Luk 15:8) is a figure denoting the most minute search of the dwellings and hiding-places of the despisers of God. These are described as men who sit drawn together upon their lees ( , lit., to draw one’s self together, to coagulate). The figure is borrowed from old wine, which has been left upon its lees and not drawn off, and which, when poured into other vessels, retains its flavour, and does not alter its odour (Jer 48:11), and denotes perseverance or confirmation in moral and religious indifference, “both external quiet, and carelessness, idleness, and spiritual insensibility in the enjoyment not only of the power and possessions bestowed upon them, but also of the pleasures of sin and the worst kinds of lust” (Marck). Good wine, when it remains for a long time upon its lees, becomes stronger; but bad wine becomes harsher and thicker. Sh e marm , lees, do not denote “sins in which the ungodly are almost stupefied” (Jerome), or “splendour which so deprives a man of his senses that there is nothing left either pure or sincere” (Calvin), but “the impurity of sins, which were associated in the case of these men with external good” (Marck). In the carnal repose of their earthly prosperity, they said in their heart, i.e., they thought within themselves, there is no God who rules and judges the world; everything takes place by chance, or according to dead natural laws. They did not deny the existence of God, but in their character and conduct they denied the working of the living God in the world, placing Jehovah on the level of the dead idols, who did neither good nor harm (Isa 41:23; Jer 10:5), whereby they really denied the being of God.

(Note: “For neither the majesty of God, nor His government or glory, consists in any imaginary splendour, but in those attributes which so meet together in Him that they cannot be severed from His essense. It is the property of God to govern the world, to take care of the human race, to distinguish between good and evil, to relieve the wretched, to punish all crimes, to restrain unjust violence. And if any one would deprive God of these, he would leave nothing but an idol.” – Calvin.)

To these God will show Himself as the ruler and judge of the world, by giving up their goods ( chelam , opes eorum ) to plunder, so that they will experience the truth of the punishments denounced in His word against the despisers of His name (compare Lev 26:32-33; Deu 28:30, Deu 28:39, and the similar threats in Amo 5:11; Mic 6:15).

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The Prophet addresses here generally the despisers of God, who were become hardened in their wickedness. But before he openly names them, he says that the visitation would be such, that God would search every corner, so that no place would remain unexplored. For to visit with candles, or to search with candles, is so to examine all hidden places or coverts, that nothing may escape. When one intends to plunder a city, he first enters into the houses, and takes away whatever he finds; but when he thinks that there are some hidden treasures, he descends into the secret cells; and then if there be no light there, he lights a candle, and carefully looks here and there, that he may not overlook anything. By this comparison then God intimates, that Jerusalem would be so plundered, that nothing whatever would remain. Hence he says, I will search it with candles. We indeed know that nothing is hid from God; but it is evident, that he is constrained to borrow comparisons from the common practice of men, because he could not otherwise express what is necessary for us to know. The world indeed deal with God as men do with one another; for they think that he can be deceived by their craftiness. He therefore laughs to scorn this folly, and says, that he would have candles to search out whatever was concealed.

Now, as impiety had possessed the minds of almost all the people, he says, I will visit the men, who on their lees are congealed. This may indeed be only understood of the rich, who flattered themselves in their prosperity, and feared nothing, and were thus congealed on their lees: but Zephaniah shows in the words which follow, that he had in view something more atrocious, that is, that they said that neither good nor evil proceeded from God. At the same time, these two things may be suitably joined together—that he reproves here their self-security, produced by wealth—and that he also accuses the careless Jews of that gross contempt of God which is afterwards mentioned. And I am disposed to take this view, that is, that the Jews, inebriated with prosperity, became hardened, as men contract hardness often by labor—and that they so collected lees through too much quietness and abundance of things, that they became wholly stupid, and could be touched by no truth made known to them. Hence in the first place the Prophet says, that God would visit with punishment a carelessness so extreme, when men not only slumbered in their prosperity, but also became congealed in their own stupidity, so as to be almost void of sense and understanding. When one addresses a dead mass, he can effect nothing: and so the Prophet compares careless men to a dead and congealed mass; for stupidity had so bound up all their senses, that they could not be either allured by the goodness of God, or terrified by his threatenings. Congealing then is nothing else but that hardness or contumacy, which is contracted by self-indulgences, and particularly when the minds of men become almost stupefied. (81) And by lees he means sinful indulgences, which so infatuate all the senses of men, that no light nor sincerity remains.

He then mentions what they said in their hearts. He expresses here what that carelessness which he condemned brings with it—even that wicked men fearlessly mock God. What it is to speak in the heart, is evident from many parts of Scripture; it means to determine anything within: for though the ungodly do not openly proclaim what they determine in their minds, they yet reason within themselves, and settle this point—that either there is no God, or that he rests idly in heaven. ‘Said has the ungodly in his heart, No God is.’ Why in the heart? Because shame or fear prevents men from openly avowing their impiety; yet they cherish such thoughts in the heart and assent to them. Now here is described by the Prophet the height of impiety, when he says, that men drunk with pleasures robbed God of his office as a judge, saying, that he does neither good nor evil. And it is probable that there were then many at Jerusalem and throughout Judea who thus insolently despised God as a judge. But Zephaniah especially speaks of the chief men; for such above all others deride God, as the giants did, and look down as from on high on his judgments. There is indeed much insensibility among the common people; but there is more madness in the pride of great men, who, trusting in their power, think themselves exempt from the authority of God.

But what I have just said must be borne in mind, that an unhealable impiety is described by the Prophet, when he accuses the Jews, that they did not think God to be the author either of good or of evil; because God is thus deprived of his dignity; for except he is owned as the judge of the world, what becomes of his dignity? The majesty, or the authority, or the glory of God does not consist in some imaginary brightness, but in those works which so necessarily belong to him, that they cannot be separated from his very essence. It is what peculiarly belongs to God, to govern the world, and to exercise care over mankind, and also to make a difference between good and evil, to help the miserable, to punish all wickedness, to check injustice and violence. When any one takes away these things from God, he leaves him an idol only. Since, then, the glory of God consists in his justice, wisdom, judgment, power, and other attributes, all who deny God to be the governor of the world entirely extinguish, as much as they can, his glory. Even so do heathen writers accuse Epicures; for as he dared not to deny the existence of some god, like Diagoras and some others, he confessed that there are some gods, but shut them up in heaven, that they might enjoy there their leisure and delights. But this is to imagine a god, who is not a god. It is then no wonder that the Prophet condemns with so much sharpness the stupidity of the Jews, as they thought that neither good nor evil proceeded from God. But there was also a greater reason why God should be so indignant at such senselessness: for whence was it that men entertained such an opinion or such a delirious thought, as to deny that God did either good or evil, except that they attempted to drive God far away from them, that they might not be subject to his judgment. They therefore who seek to extinguish the distinction between right and wrong in their consciences, invent for themselves the delirious notion, that God concerns not himself with human affairs, that he is contented with his own celestial felicity, and descends not to us, and that adversity as well as prosperity happens to men by chance.

We hence see how men seek willfully and designedly to indulge the notion, that neither good nor evil comes from God: they do this, that they may stupefy their own consciences, and thus precipitate themselves with greater liberty into sin, as though they were free to do anything with impunity, and as though there was no judge to whom an account is to be rendered.

And hence I have said, that it is the very summit of impiety when men strengthen themselves in this error, that God rests in heaven, and that whatever miseries they endure in this world happen through fortunes and that whatever good things they have are to be ascribed either to their own industry or to chance. And so the Prophet briefly shows in this passage that the Jews were past recovery, that no one might feel surprised, that God should punish with so much severity a people who had been his friends, and whom he had adopted in preference to the whole world: for he had set apart the race of Abraham, as it is well known, as his chosen and holy people. God’s vengeance on the children of Abraham might have appeared cruel or extremely rigid, had it not been expressly declared that they had advanced so far in impiety as to seek to exclude God from the government of the world, and to deprive him of his own peculiar office, even that of punishing sin, of defending his own people, of delivering them from all evils, of relieving all their miseries. Since, then, they thus shut up God in heaven, and gave the governing power on earth to fortune, it was an intolerable stupidity, nay, wholly diabolical. It was therefore no wonder that God was so severely indignant, and stretched forth his hand to punish their sin, as their disease had become now incurable.

(81) There is a similar meaning in Jer 48:11; but the verb is different, [ שקט ], which means to be still, to rest, to settle, while the verb here is [ קפא ], which signifies to be condensed, or to be congealed, Exo 15:8. But as things congelaed become fixed, the verb seems to have the meaning of fixedness here; as wines on the lees, to which allusion is made, do not become congealed, the comparison seems to be, that as wine kept still on the lees increases in strength and flavor so the Jews, settling on their dregs—their sins—became strengthened and confirmed in their wickedness and atheistic notions. But Newcome and Henderson take another view of the metaphor, and consider that “the thoughtless tranquillity of the rich is compared to the fixed unbroken surface of fermented liquors.” Our version favors the former idea, as the verb is rendered “settled.”— Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(12) The men that are settled on their lees.The figure is taken from wine which has become harsh from being allowed to stand too long on the lees. The persons intended are selfish sybarites, whose souls have stagnated in undisturbed prosperity, and whose inexperience of affliction has led them to deny the agency of God in the world: men like the rich fool in the parable of Luk. 12:16-20.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. No one will escape, for Jehovah will penetrate the darkest recesses and bring out the guilty to deliver them to the destroyer.

With candles Better, R.V., “with lamps,” or lanterns, such as watchmen carry when they look for criminals.

The men that are settled on their lees Or, as margin R.V., “thickened on their lees.” The figure is taken from wine that has been left undisturbed until it has thickened; it describes the apathy, the spiritual insensibility, of the rich (compare Jer 48:11-12).

Say in their hearts Think within themselves.

Will not do good, neither evil They refuse to believe that Jehovah has anything to do with the affairs of this world (compare Isa 5:18-19; Mal 2:17). “Those referred to are men who have lived at ease, without trouble or vicissitude in life, and who have therefore sunk down into unfeeling indifference or even into incredulity regarding any interference of a higher power in the affairs of mankind.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Zep 1:12. The men that are settled on their lees The prophet here describes those men, who, trusting in their riches, paid very little regard to the threats of the prophets, and seemed intirely safe in their own eyes, while they kept their beloved treasures near them.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 1227
THE SECURE AND ATHEISTICAL CONDEMNED

Zep 1:12. It shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees; that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.

SUCH was the state of the Jews for a long time previous to the Babylonish captivity, that the prophets had little to do, but to denounce the judgments of God against them. The promises which they were inspired to utter had respect to a different and distant period, a period for the most part yet future; shadowed forth indeed by their deliverance from Babylon, but to be realized only by their future conversion to the faith of Christ. Nevertheless, the warnings given to them are of use to the Church of God in all ages. The Christian Church at this time is in a state not very dissimilar to that of the Jews in the land of Canaan. We are externally the chosen people of God: we enjoy the ordinances of religion in their purity: and we have all the means of grace richly afforded us. But we rest in external services, as they did; and have as little of real piety as the generality of that infatuated nation. Whilst we call ourselves the people of the Lord, we differ but little from the nations that know not God. We conform in many things to customs most repugnant to true religion; and in the spirit and habit of our minds, shew, that, whatever we may retain of the form of godliness, we are strangers to its power. The evils which God reproved amongst them, are to be found in no less degree amongst us also: and the judgments that were denounced against them shew what reason we also have to dread the displeasure of God. In confirmation of this truth, we will consider,

I.

The characters here described

Such we behold in every place; persons sunk in,

1.

Carnal security

[The metaphor by which the state of these persons is depicted exhibits it in a most striking point of view. Wine, when settled on its lees, retains for a long time its strength and flavour, which, if it were emptied from vessel to vessel, it would soon lose. In like manner, when, through a long period of ease and prosperity, persons have their natural dispositions fixed, and inveterate habits formed, they retain throughout their whole man, and manifest throughout their whole conduct, a savour of earthly things. The very habit of sin hardens them in sin; and the forbearance which God in his mercy exercises towards them, confirms in them an expectation of final impunity. This is the description which the Prophet Jeremiah gives of Moab [Note: Jer 48:11.]; and with it agrees the testimony of David respecting the ungodly in all ages: as long as they have no changes to awaken them from their slumber, they fear not God. How true this is, we cannot but see in all around us. How securely do men live in a total neglect of their everlasting concerns! They have no dread of Gods displeasure; no anxieties about the future judgment; no alternations of hope and fear as arising from an examination of their state before God. Whatever God may say in his word, they regard it not. If he tell them, that broad is the road that leadeth to destruction, and that many, even the great mass of mankind, walk therein; but that narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it; they account it worthy of not the least attention: they cannot believe that they are in any danger; and they hold fast their delusions with a confidence that nothing can shake.]

2.

Atheistical presumption

[Persons, the more effectually to exclude all misgivings from their minds, deny that God takes any cognizance of their state. Tush, say they, how shall God know? is there knowledge in the Most High [Note: Ps. 73 11.]? They think it would be dishonouring God to conceive of him as marking all the ways of the children of men in order to a future judgment. True indeed, they hear him denounce many threatenings against the ungodly: but they will not believe that he will execute them. They hear him, too, promising many things to his humble and obedient people: but they cannot persuade themselves that he will fulfil them. They imagine that he has, as it were, forsaken the earth [Note: Eze 8:12.]: and quite contented are they that he should do so, since the very thought of his presence would disquiet them. Thus do they, in fact, say like the fool, There is no God [Note: Psa 14:1.]

Not that this is the language of their lips: they would be ashamed to avow such sentiments as these. But it is the language of their hearts: they say in their hearts, The Lord will not do good; neither will he do evil. If they believed in their hearts the promises and threatenings of God, they would manifest a suitable regard to them in their lives: but, as they neither delight themselves in the one, nor tremble at the other, they shew beyond all doubt what the secret feeling of their hearts is, and that the construction which God puts upon their conduct is true. They may be moral and decent in their outward conduct; but radically in their hearts they are Atheists in the world [Note: Eph 2:12. See the Greek.].]

After this view of the persons described in our text, we shall not wonder at,

II.

The judgments denounced against them

Two things God declares in the words before us;

1.

That however hidden they may suppose their state to be, God will search it out

[The Jews at the passover would search every corner of their houses with candles, in order to find the smallest portion of leaven which might lie concealed: and God will search with candles, not Jerusalem only, but every place, yea and every heart, to find the abominations which have been just described. They may not betray themselves by any overt acts, so as to excite the attention of men: they may even exist where all the outward conduct is correct; even as the most offensive masses of corruption are hid under a whited sepulchre. But God will not be deceived by any appearances, however specious; The darkness is no darkness with him; but the night is as clear as the day: before him all things are naked and opened: the thoughts and intents of the heart are discerned by him: and he will make manifest its most hidden counsels. He searcheth the heart, and trieth the reins, and weigheth the spirit as in a balance; and will interpret as infallibly the language of the heart, as if it had been manifested by ten thousand acts. Let this be duly considered. We may deceive others, and we may deceive ourselves: but we cannot deceive our God; for he knows the things that come into our mind, every one of them.]

2.

That however innocent they may suppose their state to be, God will punish it

[God cannot look upon persons of this description without the deepest resentment: for they place him on a level with the basest idol, whose proper character is, that it can do neither good nor evil [Note: Jer 10:5.]. And how can a holy and jealous God endure this? Be it so: their wickedness is only, as it were, of a negative kind; and consists rather in a neglect of what is good, than in a perpetration of what is evil: but was this unpunished in the antediluvian world? They ate, they drank; they planted, they builded; they married, and were given in marriage: and, What harm, it may be asked, was there in all this? None: but the evil was, that they lived without any regard for God: and therefore God sent a deluge, and swept them all away. And so will he do with respect to those who now cast off all fear of him, and, in heart at least, banish him from the world which he has created. See in what light he views such conduct: he declares the iniquity of it to be exceeding great [Note: Eze 9:9.]; and denounces against it his heaviest indignation [Note: Deu 29:19-20.]. And so far are these persons from being out of danger, that the more secure they apprehend themselves to be, the greater and more imminent their danger is. They may say, Peace and safety; but sudden destruction will come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape [Note: 1Th 5:3.]; they may sleep; but their judgment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. The sins of some are open beforehand, going before to judgment: but they that are otherwise cannot be hid [Note: 1Ti 5:24-25.]. It is in vain to say that they do no harm: for the unprofitable servant, no less than the openly wicked, shall be cast into outer darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.]

Address
1.

Those who are living in the state above described

[I will appeal to you yourselves respecting the wickedness of your lives. Judge ye between God and your own souls. Consider yourselves but as creatures; and does it become you to live without any regard for your Creator? But view yourselves as sinners redeemed by the blood of Gods only dear Son; and then say, whether a life of carnal security and atheistical presumption be such an one as your condition calls for? Look into the Scriptures, and see whether you can find any countenance for such a life, either in the commands of God, or in the examples of his saints? Think whether your own opinion of such a state will always remain what you now profess it to be? Do you find that any awakened soul looks back on such a life with complacency? Does it appear to him a light matter to have lived all his days as without God in the world? If you continue to harden yourselves against God, he may give you up to your own delusions, and leave you under the power of them in your dying hour: but what think you will be your views of such a life the very instant your eyes are opened on the invisible world? What will be your views of it when standing in the presence of your Judge? and what will be your views of it, when you are eating the fruit of your own ways in that place from whence there is no return, and in which your residence will be fixed to all eternity? If in your hearts you think that you will then rejoice in the retrospect of a carnal life, go on; and sleep out the little remainder of your days. But if conscience tell you, that in that day you will have far different views from those which you now profess, then awake from your slumbers, and turn unto God without delay. God has given you a candle wherewith to search yourselves; (for the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly [Note: Pro 20:27.]:) make use of it then with all diligence: search and try your ways, and turn unto the Lord your God: and doubt not but that in Christ you shall find a full and complete redemption. Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead; and Christ shall give thee light.]

2.

Those who have attained deliverance from it

[Blessed be God, if any of you have been quickened from your death in trespasses and sins: and now beware, lest ye relapse again into your former state of atheistical supineness. It is no uncommon thing for persons to run well for a season, and then turn back again; to begin in the Spirit, and end in the flesh. But to you also will I make my appeal: Is it a vain thing to serve the Lord? Will he not do good to those who seek him in sincerity and truth? Is he not, as he has said, the Rewarder of all such? Does he not even now impart to the soul blessings that are of more value than ten thousand worlds? Does he not answer prayer? Does he not communicate to the soul a peace that passeth all understanding? Does he not lift up the light of his countenance on the poor and needy? Does he not shed abroad his love in the heart? Does he not give the witness of his Spirit to the soul, and seal it unto the day of redemption? On the other hand, does he not hide his face when you become remiss, and leave you to feel what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from him? Yes: you can testify that there is a God that ruleth in the earth; you can testify how rich his grace is, and how abundant his mercy in the Son of his love. You can testify that Christ reveals himself to his people as he does not unto the world; and that he dwells in them, and gives them, by the manifestations of his love, an earnest and a foretaste of their future inheritance. Go on, then, living by faith upon him, and cleaving unto him with full purpose of heart; and shew to all around you what the Christian life is. Run, as in a race, for an incorruptible crown: wrestle as one that is striving against all the principalities and powers of hell: and fight manfully till all your enemies are put under your feet. So shall you be living witnesses for God in this world, and partakers of all his blessedness in the world to come.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

Zep 1:12 And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.

Ver. 12. I will search Jerusalem with candles ] Which yet he needs not do, sith the “darkness hideth not front him, but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are to him alike,” Psa 139:12 cf. Job 34:22 Jer 23:24 . Deo obscura lucent, muta respondent, silentium confitetur, Night will convert itself into noon before God, and silence become a speaking evidence. His eyes also are “a flaming fire,” that needs no outward light, but sees by sending out a ray; but when Jerusalem is threatened to be searched with lights, the meaning is, that it shall be set all upon a light fire, and the inhabitants ferreted out of their lurking holes, their princes and potentates pulled out of privies and sepulchres by the pursuing enemy, as Jerome out of Josephus here affirmeth they once were. Besides that, they shall be brought to a particular and punctual account for their sins; God will be very exact and accurate with them that way; setting all their evil deeds in order before their eyes, Psa 50:21 , and bringing wrath upon them to the utmost, 1Th 2:16 . This is fearful, Psa 130:3 , and shall be fulfilled especially at the last day, when wicked men shall give an account of every detail, of all their atheistical thoughts, Psa 14:1 , ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him, Jdg 1:15 , with the whole world flaming about their ears, 2Pe 3:7 ; 2Pe 3:10 ; 2Pe 3:12 1Co 4:5 2Th 1:8 .

And punish the men that are settled on their lees ] Coagulati, curded or thickened, congealed and condensed; that are habituated and hardened in their evil practices; that have got a sward, nay, a hoof upon their hearts; that have brawny breasts and horny heartstrings; that stick stiffly in the mire of their sins, as Moab, Jer 48:11 , and being deeply drowned in the world, are desperately divorced from God, whom they basely fancy to be a God of clouts. one that, however he speak big words, yet will do neither good nor hurt.

That say in their heart ] As that sapless fellow doth, Psa 14:1 , . Some set their mouths against heaven, and shame not to utter their reasonings and resolutions of this kind. These are Epicuri de grege porci; such as was Lucretius, Diagoras, Horace with his

— credat Iudaeus Apella.

Non ego, namque deos didici securum agere aevum.

Let the Jews believe a providence; not I, &c., saith that profane poet. But behold here were Jews, yea, and that in good Josiah’s days, that said in their hearts (those feculent hearts of theirs, full of dregs and dross),

The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil ]

“ Nec bene pro meritis capitur, nee tangitur ira. ”

Of such practical atheists, that say in their hearts there is no God, and live thereafter, there are great store even among us; of such dust-heaps we may find in every corner. And when men are once arrived at this Terra del Fuego, this desperate degree of atheism, what wonder though they run riot in all sinful licentiousness.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

candles = lamps.

evil = harm. Hebrew. ra’a’. App-44.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

that I: Jer 16:16, Jer 16:17, Amo 9:1-3, Oba 1:6

the men: Jer 48:11, Amo 6:1, Rev 2:23

settled: Heb. curded, or thickened

The Lord: Job 21:15, Psa 10:11-13, Psa 14:1, Psa 94:7, Isa 5:19, Jer 10:5, Eze 8:12, Eze 9:9, Mal 3:14, Mal 3:15, 2Pe 3:4

Reciprocal: Gen 18:21 – see Job 10:6 – General Job 10:17 – changes Job 22:13 – doth God know Psa 10:15 – seek Psa 55:19 – no changes Psa 73:11 – How Psa 139:4 – there is not Isa 5:18 – draw Isa 28:15 – We have Isa 29:15 – seek Jer 13:22 – if Jer 23:17 – No Dan 4:4 – was Mal 2:17 – Where Mat 22:11 – when Mar 11:11 – when

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Zep 1:12. Candles should not convey the thought of a weak light because such articles in ancient times were not made as they are today. The original word means something that would furnish a searchIng light. Lees are the settlings of wine that has become fixed and undisturbed. It is used figuratively to indicate the feeling of satisfaction that the leading men in Jerusalem had in spite of the warning predictions of the prophets that a calamity was soon coming upon the city. Not do good or evil means that they did not believe that the Lord was really going to do anything about the situation. They had lulled the peopIe into a state of indifference as to their conduct by the false prophecies of peace made to them by the corrupt teachers.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Zep 1:12-13. At that time, I will search Jerusalem with candles I will deliver up Jerusalem into the hands of the Chaldeans, who shall let no corner of it escape them, but shall diligently search the houses, even with lights or torches, that they may plunder them of every thing. And punish the men that are settled on their lees Who live securely in ease and plenty: see notes on Jer 48:11, and Amo 6:1. That say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, &c. Who have not God in all their thoughts, or imagine that he doth not concern himself with the affairs of the world, and that neither good nor evil is brought to pass by his providence. The prophet especially describes those men, who, trusting in their riches, paid very little regard to the threats of the prophets, and seemed entirely safe in their own eyes, while they kept their beloved treasures. Therefore their goods shall become a booty, &c. The enemy shall plunder their goods, and turn them out of their houses and possessions, so that they shall not inherit the houses they have built, nor drink the wine of the vineyards which they have planted.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1:12 And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with {h} candles, and punish the men that are settled {i} on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.

(h) So that nothing will escape me.

(i) By their prosperity they are hardened in their wickedness.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The Lord would search among the residents of Jerusalem carefully then, as one searches by using a lamp (cf. Luk 15:8). He would punish the people whose love for Him had stagnated, like wine left undisturbed too long (cf. Rev 3:15-16), and who concluded indifferently that He was complacent and would not act (cf. Isa 32:9; Eze 30:9; Amo 6:1).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)