John records in his Gospel that the people of Jerusalem rejoiced when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. They hailed him as “the King of Israel” (12:13) John identified this as the fulfillment of prophecy: “just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt’” (12:15). The latter part of this statement, “behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt” is drawn from Zechariah 9:9. But the phrase, “Fear not daughter of Zion” does not occur in Zechariah. “Fear not, O Zion” occurs in Zephaniah 3:14, 16. And “daughter of Zion” is language shared by Zephaniah 3:14 and Zechariah 9:9. John evidently recognized that these verses from Zephaniah and Zechariah were related, and he conflated them in his quotation.[1]
What is the significance of John’s claim that the triumphal entry was a fulfillment of these texts. Jason DeRouchie observes,
It … seems likely that John saw Jesus’ journey unto death and resurrection as initiating the fulfillment of God’s enemy-overcoming end-time rule that Zephaniah foresaw. Jesus is already reigning as “God with us” (Matt. 1:23; cf. John 1:14; 2:21), indwelling his church through his Spirit (Matt. 28:20; John 14:16–20; Rom. 8:9–10; cf. Rev. 21:3), and in so doing he is fulfilling God’s promise of divine presence with us (cf. Ezek. 37:23–24 with 2 Cor. 6:16). Christians do not need to fear.[2]
DeRouchie is right to see an initial fulfillment of these verses in the triumphal entry. However, it is important to note that the promises of Zephaniah 3 (and Zechariah 9) reach beyond the present to a day in which all war is ended as the Messiah reigns from Zion, which will be a city purified of the proud and unjust and deceitful.
It is also important to recognize that the saved from all the nations who will populate the earth during this last, glorious, stage of the day of Yhwh include resurrected saints. The gathering of these people into Christ’s kingdom has been happening from Acts through the present. Given that Zephaniah included Cush as the exemplar of the Gentile nations, the inclusion of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Acts narrative is significant.[3]
Zephaniah which, along with Obadiah and Joel, is one of the key day of Yhwh texts has also influenced the New Testament’s teaching on the day of the Lord. This is especially the case with 2 Peter 3: “It is from Zephaniah as much as from any other biblical writer that Peter learned that the present cosmic order is reserved for fire in the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:7, 10-12).”[4] Just as Zephaniah correlated the Flood with the coming day of Yhwh, so Peter correlated the day of the Lord with the Flood. Both emphasize the fiery nature of the day of the Lord judgment.[5] Revelation speaks of fire repeatedly as part of the tribulation judgments. The first trumpet judgment involves fire being thrown to earth (8:7; cf. 8:5). In the second trumpet judgment a burning fiery object, “like a great mountain,” is thrown into the sea (8:8). In the sixth trumpet judgment demonic creatures kill a third of mankind by fire (9:18). The two witnesses are also able to kill their enemies by fire (11:5). In the fourth bowl judgment the sun itself burns people “with fire” (16:8). The prostitute and Babylon will be destroyed by fire (17:16; 18:8-9, 17). It is not clear that John is drawing on Zephaniah in any of these texts, but this emphasis on fire during the ultimate day of the Lord correlates well with Zephaniah.
[1] See DeRouchie, ESVEC, 567, 599-600. DeRouchie also ties John 12:12-15 to Zephaniah 3 with the claim that the crowd crying “Hosanna!” was “multiethnic.” Ibid., 567. This claim is based on the pericope following the triumphal entry, which begins: “Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks” (12:20).
[2] DeRouchie, ESVEC, 600.
[3] DeRouchie, ESVEC, 568. I am not convinced, however, that DeRouchie is right to correlate the “pure speech” of Zephaniah 3:9 to the tongues speaking in Acts 2.
[4] Motyer, “Zephaniah,” Minor Prophets, 3:924.
[5] For the premillennialist, the correlation of Zephaniah with 2 Peter 3 locates 2 Peter 3 with the tribulation period. Some may wish to find the referent of Zephaniah 3:8 in destruction of the nations gathered against Jerusalem at the end of the Millennium (Rev. 20:7-9). But not only does fire of that judgment seem more limited (a consuming of the deceived nations rather than a consuming of all the earth), but Zephaniah 3:9 links the fiery judgment that culminates the judgment part of the day of the Lord with the onset of the blessing part of the day of the Lord. “For at that time” the nations will be converted and they will bring Jews back to the land (cf. Isa. 66:20 (Patterson, WEC, 372). In other words, Zephaniah gives clear pattern of the earth being consumed by fire followed by the Millennium. This would further indicate that the new creation 2 Peter 3:13 speaks of likely begins with the Millennium and brought to consummation at its conclusion. See Robert D. Culver, Daniel and the Latter Days (Chicago: Moody, 1954), 177-90.