The Lord your God is in
your midst, a mighty
one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with
gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with
loud singing.
God calls upon His people to sing and rejoice, then He sings and rejoices over them. Stop and consider that for a moment. The Lord God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Holy One of Israel, rejoices over His people. He exults over the faithful with loud singing. Loud singing! Rejoicing! This is not Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover.” This is not the abstract god of the philosophers. This is our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this God, the living God, rejoices over His people with gladness and loud singing.
Does this remind you of any New Testament passage? Thank about parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). The father in this parable, who represents God, sees his prodigal son returning home, and what does he do? He runs to him, embraces him, and kisses him. This was not something a dignified, elderly Jewish man did at the time. Jesus tells us there is joy in heaven when a sinner repents (Luke 15:7). It is not only the angels who rejoice. God rejoices as well. Zephaniah 3:17 vividly reminds us that our Father in heaven is not some distant deist god who cares nothing for us. It is a picture of profound and deep personal love, the kind of love that would sacrifice all for our sake. The kind of love that DID sacrifice all for our sake.