CHAPTER ONE

Contents: Coming judgment on Judah prefiguring the coming day of the Lord.

Characters: God, Zephaniah, Josiah.

Conclusion: Those who will not improve the presence of God with them as a Father, may expect His presence with them as a Judge, to call them to account for all their contempt of His grace. The day of His wrath will strip sinners of all that they have and will leave them nothing but distress and pain with no way of helping themselves.

Key Word: Day of wrath, v. 15.

Strong Verses:   18.

Striking Facts: vv. 7, 14. The day of the Lord here is a small specimen of the great "day" that is to come, in which all earth judgments will culminate, to be followed by Israel's restoration and blessing under Christ.

CHAPTER TWO

Contents: Call to remnant of Israel in the day of the Lord. Judgment threatened upon Assyria, Philistia and other nations.

Characters: God.

Conclusion: The nations that rebel against the precepts of God's Word have the threatenings of His Word against them, and the effect will be no less than their total destruction in the day of His fierce anger. It concerns each one to make it sure to themselves that they shall be hid in the day of God's wrath, in a hiding place of God's providing.

Key Word: Jehovah's anger, v. 2.

Strong Verses:   3.

Striking Facts: v. 3. The only safe hiding place from the wrath of God against sin is the righteousness of Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 10:1-3). To be "hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:2) is to be in the chambers of safety.

CHAPTER THREE

Contents: Jerusalem's moral state in time of Zephaniah. The coming judgment of nations and kingdom blessing for restored Israel. ,

Characters: God.

Conclusion: The end of nations that have continued to he of the earth and of the devil, when Christ comes to set up His kingdom, shall be destruction. The reproach of Israel shall then be removed, and all who are permitted to enter that Kingdom will have occasion, with all their hearts, to eternally rejoice in Him, for God will have forever removed calamities from them, the noise of war will be silenced, sinful nature put under control and God and His Christ made all in all.

Key Word: Judgment of nations, v. 8. (Kingdom blessing, 14-20.)

Strong Verses:   8, 9, 17.

Striking Facts: v. 15. It is the Lord Jesus, the rejected and glorified King, who will be in the midst forever, to receive the homage of His subjects and to give out His favors.