Zephaniah 1:3

"I will consume man and beast; I will consume the birds of the heavens, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face of the ground, saith Jehovah."

"The birds of the heavens ... fishes of the sea ..." Even that life which survived the divine judgement of the great flood would be included in the final destruction. By such an emphasis as this, Zephaniah shows that, "The approaching judgment will be general over all the earth, and as terrible as the judgment of the flood (Genesis 6:7)."[9]

"I will cut off man from the face of the ground, saith Jehovah ..." (See Eakin's comment on this sentence given under Zephaniah 1:2, above.) Barnes translated as follows:

"I will cut off the whole race of man from the face of the earth, saith the Lord" ... All this shall be fulfilled in the Day of Judgment, and all other fulfillment's are earnests of the final judgment."[10]

As Hailey warned, "This all-embracing declaration is not to be explained away simply as hyperbole."[11] That the race of Adam, running wild in their rebellion against God, will most surely be eventually terminated is, in fact, the theme of the entire Bible. True, God promised death to Adam "in the day" that he rebelled; but what is that day? It is the current dispensation, as indicated in the writer of brew's reference to this whole period as "the seventh day," the very day in which Adam sinned (Hebrews 4:4-6). An understanding of this also explains why this judgment is always spoken of by the prophets as being "at hand." Moreover, all of the lesser judgments that have fallen, throughout history, upon Israel, Judah, Babylon, Assyria, Jerusalem, and Rome, etc., are but tokens and reminders of the eventual catastrophe that God has promised as the termination of his Operation Adam! One of these lesser judgments, which Zephaniah would immediately expound, was upon Judah and Jerusalem; and all of them are like the ultimate Judgment in that man himself is to blame for them because of his sin and wickedness.