In earlier commentary on Zephaniah 3:6 and Zephaniah 3:7, it has been noted that the Lord is directly addressing the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. In Zephaniah 3:8, however, it becomes evident that it is specifically the believing remnant of Jerusalem whom he is addressing. We learn that for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed.
Thus, all the world’s nations will be consumed on the day of destruction, and that then includes Jerusalem, since they failed to repent while the Lord had previously punished surrounding nations. Yet God says, Therefore wait for me…for the day when I rise up to seize the prey.
He was speaking to the righteous minority in Jerusalem. The final, cataclysmic day of wrath will come, and the only hope for the remnant lay in waiting on the Lord who is both just and merciful.1 Zephaniah’s prophecy both anticipates the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC and gives a picture of the judgment to come at the end of the world, where devastation and destruction will fall upon all the nations of the world. Those who are the Lord’s must live in ways that provide a living witness to their hope in God, and this testimony is to be maintained in the midst of a persistent refusal to fear the Lord even among those who profess his name.
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8 “Therefore wait for me,” declares the LORD, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed.