And I will stretch forth my hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, the name of the Chemarim with the priests;
Zephaniah has just threatened the whole land. Now the warning narrows to one address: Judah and Jerusalem, the place where God's name was known. Why does judgment fall hardest there, and why was Baal worship still alive under a king who was cleaning up the nation?
The hand stretched out is not aimed first at foreign nations but at God's own land and city. One writer traces this through the whole book:
From first to last he is clearly occupied with the day of Jehovah on Jerusalem. The land and the Jewish remnant are fully in view for that day. The reign of the last God-fearing king did not stop it or put it off… If Jehovah must judge His people, all the world must bow; no nation can escape. What Nebuchadnezzar did was only a first instalment of a great and complete judgment. Yet Jehovah had to begin with His land, people, and city, as in Zephaniah 1.
Zephaniah prophesied while Josiah was cleaning up the nation. Yet he speaks as if nothing had changed. One writer explains why:
A great reformation was under way. Like all reformation, it ended in deformation. That produced a reaction, and the reaction plunged the house of Judah into its final turning away from God. The reformation seems to have been mainly an outward one. In their hearts the people still longed for the idols and the detestable practices that went with them.
One writer asks why this outward improvement was not enough:
But why could God not rest in the outwardly improved state of Judah in Josiah's day? He looked beneath the surface. He looked for what was real: a tender conscience, and a heart that bowed to His word. He did not find it… Nothing less than thoroughness will ever satisfy God.
A remnant is what is left over. Baal worship had already been cut back, yet even the leftovers come under the sentence. Where the ESV says "idolatrous priests," older translations keep the Hebrew word "Chemarim," and the writers quoted here use it. One writer explains both names:
The remnant of Baal will be cut off, and the Chemarim with the priests. Whatever is left of idolatry will then be wiped out completely. Baal was the idol god of the Phoenicians and Canaanites. The word means "lord" or "owner," and sexually immoral practices went along with his worship. Chemarim is the name of the idolatrous priests who ran the high places. The kings of Judah appointed them to that service (2 Kings 23:5).
The verse names two groups in one breath: the idol-priests "along with the priests." That pairing is the offence:
The Chemarim are idolatrous priests. The Bible names them only here and in 2 Kings 23:5 and Hosea 10:5, and Gesenius thought they were called this because of their black priestly dress. What made this idolatry so offensive was the joining of the idols of the nations with Jehovah. To be what we might call a plain, outright idolater was not nearly so evil as to show that you know the true God and yet put false gods on a level with Him.
Josiah had already moved against these very men:
Josiah puts down the Chemarim, the priests the kings of Judah had set up to burn incense to false gods… He completely breaks off fellowship with a religion that had dared to despise the only gathering centre for the people, even though that religion had separated itself from idolatry. In this we find instruction for the day in which we live.
The chapter names offenders one by one instead of condemning the nation in bulk:
There is Judah, and there is Jerusalem, and the nations all around them, north, south, east, and west. All come in for this common and complete exposure, down to the smallest distinctions. The remnant of Baal, the name of the Chemarim with the priests, idolaters, those who swear by the Lord and by Malcham, the backsliders, the careless, and those who wear foreign clothing — God visits each one separately. The candle of the Lord searches out those who have settled down in comfort and who despise the fear of judgment. Nothing escapes.
- Begins at home. God stretches out His hand first on Judah and Jerusalem; if He must judge His own people, no nation can expect to escape.
- Outward only. Josiah's reform changed the surface. The people's hearts still wanted the idols, so the prophet announces judgment as if the revival had not happened.
- Remnant. God marks even the leftovers of Baal worship, a cult already cut back, for complete removal.
- Mixture. The idol-priests stand "along with the priests": the real offence is putting false gods on a level with the God they claim to know.
- Nothing escapes. God searches out each group with a candle, down to the careless and the comfortable.
and them that bow down to the host of the heavens upon the housetops; and them that bow down to Jehovah, that swear by [him], and swear by Malcham;
Zephaniah preached while King Josiah was tearing down the altars of Judah. Yet his message is not praise. It is a list of people God means to cut off, and they are not open pagans. They are people who bow to God and then bow to something else.
The name in the second half of the verse belongs to an idol. The people who swore by it were not outsiders to Israel's faith.
An idol worshipped by some Jews who also professed to worship Jehovah. Zeph. 1:5. Some judge it to have been the same as Molech.
Commentators differ on which idol is meant:
God could still see the followers of Baal there. He could see the Chemarim, the idol priests named in 2 Kings 23:5 and Hosea 10:5, margin. He could see those who worshipped the host of heaven, and those who swore by Jehovah and by Malcham, or "their king," that is, Baal.
(The ESV renders the name "Milcom.")
The first group in the verse climbed to the flat roofs of their houses to bow to the stars. One writer ties this to a habit still alive today.
Verses 5 and 6 name other forms of idolatry. They worshipped the host of the heavens from their housetops. They worshipped the stars and studied their movements, as if the stars could help them and give them a revelation. Astrology, still practised so widely among civilized nations today, is an ancient cult (2 Kings 21:3, 5; Jer. 8:2; 19:13). Others used the Holy Name of Jehovah and at the same time used the name of Malcham. It was all a turning back from Jehovah and a dishonouring of His Name.
The sin named here is not abandoning God. It is keeping Him and adding to Him. One commentator argues that this is the sharper offence of the two:
What made this idolatry so offensive was that they joined the idols of the nations to Jehovah. To be a plain, outright idolater was not nearly as evil as to show that you know the true God and yet put false gods on a level with Him. It is exactly this outrage against God that the verse describes here.
The same writer shows how small such a compromise looks to the people who allow it:
There may be no deliberate plan to abandon His worship. It may only be what they count a small thing: occasional conformity to idolatry while they still profess His name. But God refuses any such unholy compromise. He refuses it quite apart from the danger, for those who allow it, of full revolt from Him. It strikes at His majesty, at holiness and truth, and He will not tolerate it.
Josiah was a godly king, and his clean-up of the land was real. It still did not save the nation.
Josiah was a deeply godly man. He was strict and zealous against whatever dishonoured the name of Jehovah, and above all he bowed his own heart to the word of God. None of this set the nation right. No doubt there were then, as always, bright hopes among the best people of the land. So it mattered greatly that God should make His mind on the matter known. Then no one, even if fooled for a moment, would be bitterly disappointed in the end.
What God was looking for, He did not find:
But why could God not be satisfied with the outward improvement in Judah in Josiah's day? He looked beneath the surface. He looked for something real, for a tender conscience, for hearts bowed to His word. He did not find them.
The same divided heart is alive now. One writer names its modern form:
For most professing Christians today it is the Lord and some form of the world, some addition to Himself. It is the mixed worship of the Samaritans, who served the Lord and their own gods at the same time (2 Kings 17:33). It is a sad admission that the Lord is not enough to satisfy, and a love of pleasure more than a love of God.
- Named: Malcham was an idol served by people who also claimed to serve God — read by some as Molech, by others as "their king."
- Mixed: They did not drop God. They kept Him and added other gods on top — stars on the roof, oaths sworn to both.
- Worse: To know the true God and still set false gods beside Him is a greater outrage than plain, open idolatry.
- Rejected: God refuses such "occasional conformity" outright. He looked beneath Josiah's reform for a real, tender heart, and did not find it.
- Repeated: The same divided heart lives on as "the Lord and some form of the world" — an admission that the Lord alone is not enough.
and them that turn back from after Jehovah, and that do not seek Jehovah, nor inquire for him.
Zephaniah closes a list of people God will cut off from Jerusalem with the quietest group of all: not Baal-worshippers or star-gazers, but people who drifted away, and people who never came near at all. Is ignoring God safer than fighting Him?
The verse does not name one group but two, and their histories are not the same.
There might be both — two quite different classes. Some had acknowledged Jehovah to a degree, and then abandoned Him with contempt and insult. Others had never even been stirred on the surface to care for Him or to inquire after Him.
The same pairing turns up in Paul's letters. Commentators point to his words about the vengeance that falls on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The original language makes it as plain as possible that two classes will suffer this vengeance. Those who do not know God are one class. Those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ are the other. This makes the judgment of the living even more solemn, because it reaches so widely... Those who do not know God may mark out the people who were too indifferent to pay attention to the gospel. Those who do not obey the gospel will be the people who deliberately rejected Christ. But a common doom will be their portion. (Compare Zeph. 1:6.)
Verse 6 closes a list, and the list explains it. The people named just before were not swapping God for an idol. They were keeping both.
What made this idolatry so offensive was the joining of the idols of the nations with Jehovah. To be a plain, out-and-out idolater was not nearly as evil as to show that you know the true God and still put false gods on a level with Him. That is the outrage against God singled out here.
One writer reads the sins listed just before — star-worship on the rooftops, divided oaths — as adding up to what verse 6 names.
They worshipped the stars. They studied their movements as if the stars could help them and reveal things to them. Astrology, practiced so widely among civilized nations today, is an old cult... Others used the Holy Name of Jehovah, and at the same time they used the name of Malcham. All was a turning back from Jehovah and dishonoring His Name.
The timing is the sharpest thing about this verse. Zephaniah spoke under Josiah, a good king who was clearing idolatry out of the land. God still says the people are not seeking Him.
Zephaniah prophesied in the days of that good king Josiah, and yet the burden of his message was judgment. The king tried hard, and he set a reformation going. Even so, the people clearly stayed stubbornly tied to their heathen idolatries and superstitions.
Commentators differ over when Zephaniah spoke. Some hold that this very list of sins shows he prophesied before the reform began, and that his preaching may have helped to start it.
Many scholars believe Zephaniah prophesied even before king Josiah's reformation. That reformation started in Josiah's 18th year, around 622 BC. References such as Zephaniah 1:4-6, 8-9, 12 and 3:1-3, 7 support this view. It is possible that Zephaniah's own ministry brought king Josiah and the people back to God.
The charge in verse 6 is that they did not seek Him. The next chapter turns that same word into an invitation. It goes not to the nation as a whole but to a smaller group inside it — the people older translations call "the meek of the earth."
We see there are these two calls. The nation gets a fitting warning, but the remnant of righteous Jews gets an earnest appeal. These were "the meek of the earth." "Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD" (ESV).
- Two classes. The verse names people who turned back from God, and people who never sought Him at all.
- One doom. Commentators link this with Paul's pairing of those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel. Different roads, but "a common doom will be their portion."
- Mixture, not just idols. Knowing the true God and still putting false gods on a level with Him is worse than plain idolatry.
- Revival is no cover. Zephaniah spoke in the days of good king Josiah. An official reformation did not change hearts still tied to their heathen idolatries.
- Seek Him. The charge of not seeking becomes the remedy one chapter later: "Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land... perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD."