“On that day I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold…” –Zephaniah 1:9
There are some verses in the Old Testament which leave us scratching our heads. I’ve always kind of laughed at the condemnation of sacred raisin cakes in Hosea 3. I know its because I’m missing the full significance of what raisin cakes symbolize, but it seems to me that there are much bigger fish to fry than raisin cakes. And so, because I’m not aware of the idiom, I think it’s a little funny.
Zephaniah 1:9 is another one of those places that seems a bit like an overreaction. A threshold is that strip of wood, metal, or stone which is at the doorway when you enter a room. It’s also that thing you carry your new bride over when you walk into the door. It’s a type of entry point. And so for us it has come to symbolize a new beginning. This is what think of today when we carry our new bride over the threshold—we are carrying her into a new phase of life.
So why is God so upset with those who leap over thresholds?
For homes in Zephaniah’s time, the threshold was made of a single stone that spanned the doorway and was raised slightly above the door. Entryways in ancient culture were considered both sacred and vulnerable. In fact, this is actually where the carrying of the bride over the threshold comes from. It was thought that many demons would be lurking about around the entry to your home. If your new bride stepped upon them then she would be carrying demons into the home. A similar thing is why people in Zephaniah’s day were leaping over thresholds. They leaped over the threshold so as not to allow evil spirits and evil gods to gain admission.
Some Middle Eastern cultures still have similar superstitions today. (And I suppose our carrying the bride over the threshold means that we do too). Even still, why is God so upset with this silly little superstition?
This is actually exhibit A to display the depth of the Israelites idolatry. They went to great trouble to adhere to the most minute detail of superstition and yet they trampled upon God’s law and ignore the most fundamental aspects of it. Their lives were controlled and patterned by “laws” that weren’t prescribed by God. It was evidence that they were receiving instruction from their surrounding culture instead of Yahweh.
So God is punishing threshold jumpers not because he has some weird aversion to people jumping in through a door frame, but because it is symbolic of their idolatry and disdain for His law. I cannot help but think that we might have similar issues. Have you ever known someone who would actually become concerned and incredibly anxious at the sight of someone walking under a ladder, throwing salt on the floor, breaking a mirror, opening an umbrella in a house, etc. and yet will not bat an eyelash at the prospect of sitting among gossip, slander, grumbling, foolish talk, or other expressions of ungodliness?
Thankfully Christ died for threshold jumpers. Because the truth is, that’s all of us. We all put things—even silly little superstitions—above God’s Law. By nature we treasure our own unwritten codes of conduct against God’s clear way of living. We like to think we exert control over our environment. We’d rather “play it safe” and jump over thresholds “just in case” instead of trusting wholly in God’s provision for us. But Jesus is in the process of redeeming our threshold jumping hearts and replacing it with those who defiantly walk over them knowing the blood of Christ slays any demon—real or imagined.
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