Against their will the nations of the world, great and small, are being drawn, as by a great magnet, towards the Middle East, and towards the centre of God’s purpose with the earth. The divine testimony is that “… in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations …” (Joel 3:1-2).
We have seen it happen – Jewry back in the land of their fathers and Jerusalem once again in the hands of God’s people … and we are seeing it happen – the divine preparations for gathering the nations to judgment. What thrilling days we live in! But it is to Zeph.3:8 that we want to give particular attention for the purpose of this study. It is a long verse of one sentence:- “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.”
This verse is unique, not because of the plainly stated divine intention which is contains upon its surface, understandable to all who read, but because of its hidden, linguistic implications, which will also be seen to have a world-wide application.
This is because Zeph.3:8 is the only verse in the Bible which contains every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, including the five letters called “finals” (we should never have discovered this except by participation in a Jewish quiz some years ago). But with this unique feature in view the appropriateness and significance of the next verse, Zeph 3:9, is striking:- “For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.”
Verse 8 provides an unmistakable pointer to the Hebraic nature of the language which God has in store.
As God is now in the process of gathering “the nations”, “the kingdoms”, “all the earth”, for the purpose of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly, so in the future will all those that are left of the nations go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. There may still be different languages in use; yet these two verses not only indicate that in the Kingdom age there will also be one universal language of worship, but that the language will be Hebrew. There will be no confusion of language in the Lord’s temple at Jerusalem. It is not without significance that when the Lord Jesus spoke from heaven at the conversion of Saul it was, as Paul himself testifies, “… I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 26:14).
This universal language of worship in the future may not be the present form of Israeli Hebrew, but a Hebrew which has been turned by God ”I will turn to the people a pure language …” It almost seems as though not only God’s people Israel will be turned (converted), but their language tool It is a divine work, for only the Son of God can take away every impurity from the hearts and the lips of his people.
The close connection between verses 8 & 9 of Zeph.3 receives surprising confirmation in the New Testament. We have seen that the plain message of Zeph.3:8 is that God is determined to gather the nations. The very form of wording seems to be taken up and continued in Rev.16:16, “And he gathered them together …”, but now the hidden linguistic pointer is made plain in this same verse, “… into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” There is thus a double connection between Zeph.3:8-9 and Rev.16:16, both in the gathering of the nations and in the Hebrew tongue.
For nearly 2,000 years the Hebrew language has been a language for scholars, a language of the Synagogue, a language of books; but now, since the emergence of the State of Israel, Hebrew has become a living tongue, in the very lips and tongues of all its people. This verse in Rev.16:16 is therefore also a time prophecy; for only now, in these very days, could Hebrew be called a “tongue” or a living language. We see the divine process of gathering the nations proceeding before our eyes – what momentous days are these! But let us remind ourselves that in the very context of this verse Jesus has already given us the “alert” (verse 15), “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments.”
“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”