Zephaniah 1:8 — And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord ‘s sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

Zephaniah has been charged with prophesying imminent judgment — a universal day of judgment on Judah and, specifically, on the nation’s around her. He is also to comfort Judah with prophesy of restoration. So much for the content of this small but important book. In this piece, though, I am concentrating on just this one verse from the verse chapter which calls out two groups for special condemnation.
Josiah the King was a godly man. He restored the temple, was behind the collection of key scriptures and worked to eradicate idolatry and the worship of false gods. But Zephaniah makes it clear that Baal worship was still rife and that Josiah had made little impact on major social ills.
The problems started just where they shouldn’t — at the top, where right examples should have been set. “The princes, and the king’s children” referred to the court and the officials and they were the leaders of a group who wore “strange apparel”. “Strange” is a translation of a word that more exactly means “foreign”. They are wearing fashions imported from Nineveh, Babylon and Egypt. There were two certain problems and two more that might be suspected.
There is no doubt that those wearing foreign clothes were disobeying God’s directions as to proper attire — and distancing themselves from the laws of Moses and the culture they were raised in.
The adoption of expensive foreign clothes was also evidence of — to say the least — an unhealthy preoccupation with material things.
There is a clear possibility, too, that the foreign clothes were a sign of adherence to the pagan religions that Josiah was working so hard to eradicate. In its turn that might have been a sign of disobedience — rejection of the king’s reforms.
We live in a world that shows many of the same symptoms as Zephaniah’s. Corruption at the highest levels of civil society. Weakness, at best, in religious leadership. Idolatry, materialism … All these are rife.
A society that had a strong religious foundation has seen it eroded with dreadful immediate consequences, but there is worse to come.
Zephaniah prophesied the coming of the “Day of the Lord”. Dr. Roy Zuck clarifies Zephaniah’s understanding of that day. It would be a day when the Lord personally intervened in man’s affairs. He would inspect and punish those highly punished offenders. The day of the Lord would be a day that would demonstrate His universal sovereignty and superiority. It will be a day of judgment. It will be the day that the Lord executes the terms of His covenant with Israel.
If America was founded in a covenant with the Lord we must surely fear that for America too, there is a Day of the Lord coming.
It’s to “dress smart” … and put off “strange apparel”.