Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Zephaniah 1:14 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 14. 14The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse restarts the great-day proclamation with near, rapidly hastening judgment and a warrior's bitter cry.
Read It With
- Zephaniah 1:14-18
Read Zephaniah 1:14 with 1:14-18. This verse restarts the great-day proclamation with near, rapidly hastening judgment and a warrior's bitter cry. The complete unit establishes this movement: The great Day of the LORD arrives as irreversible public judgment: military strength and wealth cannot buy escape, and the poem's dark universal reach intensifies rather than dates the preceding judgment on Jerusalem.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The hymn-like intensification closes chapter 1 and makes the next call to seek urgent. It removes confidence in walls, warriors, and wealth without providing a calendar. Within that movement, this verse restarts the great-day proclamation with near, rapidly hastening judgment and a warrior's bitter cry.
Follow the Context
- Verse 14 repeats that the great day is near and rapidly approaching, with even the warrior crying bitterly.
- Verse 15 layers wrath, trouble, distress, waste, desolation, darkness, gloom, clouds, and thick darkness.
- Verse 16 adds trumpet and alarm against fortified cities and high corner towers.
- Verse 17 grounds human distress in sin against the LORD and depicts blind staggering and bodies treated as refuse.
- Verse 18 denies silver and gold's power to deliver and speaks of all the land or earth consumed in jealous fire and a terrifying completion.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“near, and hasteth greatly”
In plain language: Prophetic urgency intensifies response; it is not a timestamp for modern calculation.
Restarts the great-day proclamation with near, rapidly hastening judgment and a warrior's bitter cry. Military courage cannot master the LORD's moral reckoning.
Why it matters: The wording carries interpretive or ethical risk that requires the full unit and its stated limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
Zephaniah 1:14 does not provide a date, identify a modern army, or justify fear-based religious control.
What Remains True
Military courage cannot master the LORD's moral reckoning.
How It Can Shape Life
- Let urgency produce repentance and protection rather than prediction or panic.
Teach It Back
Explain Zephaniah 1:14's contribution to Zephaniah 1:14-18: Restarts the great-day proclamation with near, rapidly hastening judgment and a warrior's bitter cry. Include what the surrounding verses add, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Zephaniah 1:14-18 — The Great Day Is Near, Dark, and Beyond PurchaseSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The compressed Hebrew can attach 'bitter' to the day's sound or the warrior's cry in different ways.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Zephaniah 1:14-18, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Zephaniah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew words, morphology, clause relationships, repeated roots, wordplays, names, and the base wording behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Zeph.xml, 1:14-18
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Zephaniah with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, text-critical, poetic, historical, and uncertainty notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Zephaniah PDF, printed pp. 1778-1779, translation and notes on 1:14-18
Open source ↗