John Calvin Commentary Zephaniah 1:12

"And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps; and I will punish the men that are settled on their lees, that say in their heart, Jehovah will not do good, neither will he do evil." — Zephaniah 1:12 (ASV)

The Prophet addresses here generally the despisers of God, who had 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 to examine all hidden places or hiding places so thoroughly that nothing can escape.

When someone intends to plunder a city, he first enters the houses and takes whatever he finds. But when he thinks that there are some hidden treasures, he descends into the secret chambers; and then if there is no light there, he lights a candle and carefully looks here and there, so that he does not overlook anything. By this comparison, then, God intimates that Jerusalem would be so plundered that nothing whatever would remain. Therefore He says, I will search it with candles. We indeed know that nothing is hidden from God; but it is evident that He is constrained to borrow comparisons from common human practices, because He could not otherwise express what is necessary for us to know. The world indeed deals with God as people do with one another, for they think that He can be deceived by their craftiness. He therefore laughs this folly to scorn and says that He would use 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 understood to refer only to the rich, who flattered themselves in their prosperity, feared nothing, and were thus congealed on their lees. But Zephaniah shows in the words that 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 mentioned later. And I am disposed to take this view: that the Jews, intoxicated with prosperity, became hardened—just as people often contract hardness through labor—and that they so collected lees through too much quietness and abundance of things, that they became entirely stupid and could not be touched by any truth made known to them.

Therefore, in the first place, the Prophet says that God would visit with punishment such extreme carelessness, where people not only slumbered in their prosperity but also became congealed in their own stupidity, so as to be almost devoid of sense and understanding. When one addresses a dead mass, he can achieve nothing. And so the Prophet compares careless people to a dead and congealed mass, because 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 other than that hardness or stubbornness which is contracted by self-indulgence, particularly when people's minds become almost stupefied. And by lees he means sinful indulgences, which so infatuate all the senses of people that no light or sincerity remains.

He then mentions what they said in their hearts. He expresses here what that carelessness which he condemned brings with it: namely, that wicked people fearlessly mock God. What it means to speak in the heart is evident from many parts of Scripture; it means to determine anything inwardly. For though the ungodly do not openly proclaim what they determine in their minds, they still 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 people from openly avowing their impiety; yet they cherish such thoughts in their hearts and assent to them.

Now the Prophet describes here the height of impiety, when he says that people 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 people above all others deride God, as the giants did, and look down as if 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 of not thinking God to be the author either of good or of evil, because God is thus deprived of His dignity. For unless He is acknowledged as the judge of the world, what becomes of His dignity?

The majesty, authority, or 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, to exercise care over mankind, and also to make a distinction between good and evil, to help the miserable, to punish all wickedness, and to check injustice and violence.

When anyone takes these things away from God, he leaves Him as 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, heathen writers accuse Epicurus; for as he dared not deny the existence of some god (like Diagoras and some others), he confessed that there are some gods, but shut them up in heaven so that they might enjoy their leisure and delights there. But this is to imagine a god who is not a god.

It is no wonder then that the Prophet condemns with such sharpness the stupidity of the Jews, since 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 why did people entertain 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 so that they might not be subject to His judgment?

Therefore, those who seek to extinguish the distinction between right and wrong in their consciences invent for themselves the delirious notion that God does not concern Himself with human affairs, that He is contented with His own celestial felicity and does not descend to us, and that adversity as well as prosperity happens to people by chance.

We therefore see how people willfully and designedly seek to indulge the notion that neither good nor evil comes from God: they do this so 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 were no judge to whom an account must be rendered.

And therefore I have said that it is the very summit of impiety when people strengthen themselves in this error: that God rests in heaven, and that whatever miseries they endure in this world happen through fortune, 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, so that no one might feel surprised that God should punish with such 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 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: namely, that of punishing sin, defending His own people, delivering them from all evils, and 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, indeed, entirely 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 now become incurable.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as almost the whole world breaks out into such excesses that there is no moderation, no reason—O grant, that we may learn not only to confine ourselves within those limits which You approve and command, but also to delight and glory in the smallness of our portion, since the wealth, honors, and pleasures of the world so fascinate the hearts and minds of all that they elevate themselves into heaven and carry on war, as it were, avowedly with You. Grant also to us, that in our limited portion we may be so humbled under Your powerful hand as never to doubt that You will be our deliverer even in our greatest miseries; and that, ascribing to You the power over life and death, we may feel fully assured that whatever afflictions happen to us proceed from Your just judgment, so that we may be led to repentance and daily exercise ourselves in it, until at last we come to that blessed rest which is laid up for us in heaven, through Christ our Lord. Amen.