Zephaniah, book of (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. The Writer, ii. Contents of the Boole, iii. Date and Unity. iv. Literarj' Characteristics, Condition of Text, etc. T. Religious Value. Literature. i. The M^riter.— The title of the book reads : ' The word of the LORD, which came unto Zeph- aniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariali, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Anion, king of Judah.' The name Zephaniah (n;;5i-, LXX -o<poi'lai; cf. the name Sl'ajss in No. 107 of the Phoen.

inscriptions in CIS) means 'he whom J" has hidden or protected,' and is borne in the OT by tliree men (see art. ZEPH- ANIAH) besides the author of the prophecy before ns. It has plausibly been inferred that the ^eze- Jciah named in the title is the Juda'in nion.arch of that name (so Hitzig, followed by most modems). This would account for the genealogy of Zephaniah bein" carried back four generations, whereas the usual practice in the case of the prophets is to name only their father (cf.

Is 1' ' Isaiah the son of Amoz,' Jer 1" Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah,' Ezk P 'Ezeki«l the son of IJuzi,' Jl 1' 'Joel the son of Petliuel '). No argument against this conclusion can be drawn from tlie absence of the title ' kin" of Judah ' after ^ezeki•■^h's name. This title could have been inserted only somewhat awkwardly, seeing that it liad to be aj)pended also to Josiah's name, and may have been lelt to be unnecessary in the case of so well-known a name as that of ^leze. kiah.

Zephaniah's great-grandfather, Aniariah. will thus liave been a younger brother of king Man.asseh, and no difficulty in the way of Zeph- aniah's being a contemporary of Josiah is occasioned by the circumstance that the succession IJezekiah — Manasseh — Amon — Josiah appears to contain a generation fewer than Uezekiah — Amariah — Geda- liah— Cushi — Zephaniah.

For we learn from 2 K 21'- " that Manasseh was 45 years old when his son Amon was born, a date at which his brother Amariah might easily have had a grandson (Cushi). Zephaniah may tlius have been as old as, or even older than, Josiah. If the prophet belonged to the royal family, all the greater interest attaches to his strictures upon 'the princes and tlie king's sons ' (!*• ').

He w,as, clearly enough, a dweller in Jerusalem (note his familiarity with the various localities of the city, the Fish Gate, the Second Quarter, the Maktesh [1'°-"], and esp. the words in I'' ' I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place '). ii. Contents of the Book.— The prophecy falls into two unequal divisions, the first and larger of these being occupied with threatenings, tlie second with promises. A. The Threatening, 1, 3'.

A destructive judgment, universal in its scope, is proclaimed in terms which reca.U those that heraldpd the approach of the Deluge (Gn 6' ; cf. also Hos 4' and Ezk 38') ; man and beast, the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea, the stumbling-blocks with the wicked, are to be cut ofl (P-»). The word ni'?p'3 in v. 3 is doubtful. In its only other occur- rence (in the sing.

nV^pp Is 3^) it means 'overthrown mass, 'ruin,' which of course does not suit here; and even the rendering ' stumbling-blocks ' {i.e. idols ; cf. the use of the cog- nate S^c^rp in Ezk 14^- -1- 7) is hardly appropriate t^ the context. Schwally would emend 'ri'~::'51 [G. A. Smith prefers Hiph. T'i^r'?'] 'and I will cause (the nicked) to stumble' (cf. v.n ' they shall walk like blind men '). LX5 reads ««i affBitrrovrit tl airt^Ct ( = C"i*v^v' ^'^rr^)- Wellh. and Now. (cf.

Davidson) regard the words C'Vv'"n'nN n^^^^^n as an interpolation of a late glossator, who missed a definite allusion to the sweeping away of idols in the general destruction. In particular this judgment will overtake idola- ters and syncrctists in Judah and Jerusalem ( vv,"^). The 'day of tlie Lord' (on this conception see the references in art. Obadiah, vol. iii. p. 578) is at hand ; He has prepared a sacrificial feast {cf.

Is 13 34«, Jer 46^, Ezk SQi^), where thr victims are the people of Judah, and to this t^:e instruments of His vengeance (prob. the Scythian hordes ; see helow under Date ') as ' sanctified ' guests (cf. 1 S 16' 20-^) are invited (v.'^). From the royal house downwards all classes are guilt}', and shall share in the terrors of that day (vv.^'*'). Nowack'8 transposition of v.

9b and v,8b ('i will punish the princes and the king's sons, who All their master's house with violence and deceit; and I will punish all who leap over the threshold, and all who clothe themselves with foreign apparel ') is perhaps somewhat arbitrary, but it is attractive. As the clauses stand, the * leaping over the threshold ' is connected in such a way with the 'filling of their master's house with violence and deceit,' as to amount to a charging of the royal princes with housebreaking.

Perha]>s the prophet means to bring such a charge ajjainst them (Davidson, et o/.); but, oo the other hand, there is much to be said in favour of the sup- position that what he has in view is their imitation of a foreign {? Philistine [see art. Ciifrbtmites, vol. i. p. S77»]) custom of leaping over the threshold in cnt^rinp a house. TTpon Nowack'B arrangement of the clauses, this habit and the apmg of foreign manners in dress fall into line with one another.

In that day Jahweh will search Jerusalem with lanterns {cf. for the figure Lk 15»), and hunt from their hiding-places (cf. Am 9^) the men who are now sunk in religious indiflerentism and who say, The Lord will not do good, neit!ierwill he do evu' (v.^ ; cf. Pa 10* 14^ etc., and, for the proverbial ZEPHANIAH, BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH, BOOK OF 975 expression, Is 41^, .ler 10'). The utter ruin and the war alarms of that day are furtlier described iu vv."'"

Then in 2''' the prophet turns to his countrymen with an appeal yet to seek the Lord, if perchance they may Ve hid in the da^ of His fierce anger, when the Philistines (vv. ■""'), Moab and Amnion (>-v.-"), Cash (v."), and Assj-ria (vv."-'») shall be overwhelmed. There la no sulHcient ground for Wellhausen's mippcsition that in 2 the situation and tone are pfiiR-wJiat different from those of ch.

1, a difference due to the clioice of the coast road by the Scythian host, and a consequent anticipation on the part of the proptiet that Judoli might, after all, escape the Btorm. Vv.^-7 and 1^15 are in the ktvak measure (see Lamrntations, vol. iii. p. 20^, and Poetry, a'hove, p. 5), although the rhythm is, now at least, in several instances imperfect.

In 3''' Jerusalem is once more the subject of denunciation, as the rebellious, polluted, oppressing city, whose princes, judges, pro]ihets, priests, are all alike unfaithful to tlicir duty, and whose in- habitants have failed utterly to learn the lesson Ciod meant to teach them by His judgments upon the nations. V.* appears to form the connecting link between the Threatening and — 15. T/ie Promise, 3""=".

The faithful in Jerusalem are to wait till the judgment is accomplished, when all peoples shall lie brought to serve the LORD with one consent (vv.'''") Israel's sinfulness and pride shall be no more, they shall trust in the name of the Lord and shall dwell .safely (vv."'") The book closes with a triumphant i-all to the people to rejoice in the Lord wno <lwells in their midst, and who gives to them a high and honourable place amongst the nations (vv. '*■"»).

The general sense of these closing verses Is clear, but there Is sonic uncertainty as to details, .is the text is in several places more or less corrupt (see below, § iv.) iii. Date and Unity. — 1. The title of the book a-ssigns the [^irojihecy, as we have seen, to the days of king Josiah. So far as ch. 1 is concerned, the correctness of this date is almost universally ad- mitted, even by those who do not regard the title as an original part of the book. The only important exception is Ed.

Konig (Einleit. ind. AT 852 f.), who would as^i^;n the prophecy to the period of reaction that followed the dcith of Josiah (B.C. COB). But, while much In the book would suit such a date, there is one circumstance which appears sutticient to condciim K(tnig's view, namely the aljsence of any censure upon the king in i*^. This is suitable In the case of Josiah but not of Jchoial^im (see 0. A. Smith, Twelve I'Tophtln, ii. S9 f.) But the reign of .losiah (B.C.

639-608) is crossed by an important dividing line in the year 621, the date of the reformat ion on the basis of the Deutero- nomic law-lxiok. On which side of this line dois our prophecy naturally range itself? We have no hesitation in reaching the conclusion that the de- scription of the idolatrous practices in 1*'' and of the whole religious, moral, and social condition of things in l'- » '= (not to speak of 3' etc.), points to a period prior to the year 021.

This o]]inion, whiili is the prevailing one among scholars (of moderns it may stillice to name A. 1$. Davidson, Driver, G. A. Smith, Wellhausen, Nowack, Cornill, Bnilde, Strack), is opposed for various reasons by Delitz.sch (in PEE"), Kleinert (in Lange's Bibel- werh), and ."^chulz (Com. 18il2), who would date the prophecy subsequent to the reforms of B.C. 6'_'1. The argument for a late date, which is diawn from supposed echoes of Deuteronomy (e.g. Zejih ju. u.

n compared with Dt 28="- »'), need not detain ns, for it is weak in the extreme. Nor can any great weight be laid upon the expression ' the remnant of Baal ' in 1^ as if this were an allusion to the survival of I!aal worship after the drastic mea-svires ado])tcd against it oy Josiah in 621. For (a) it is possible that the original text was ' the navies [mcr instead of nKE* ; LXX t4 dvifutra] of Baal ' ; cf.

IIos 2" ' I will take away the names of the Baalim out of her mouth,' and Zee IS'' 'I will cut oil' the names of the idols out of the land.' Or (6) iiJy' may be taken in the sense of ' the rest' = ' every vestige,' so that the meaning will be ' I will wholly root out Baal-worship,' ' I will cut it off tUl not a trace of it is left' (cf. Is H'-"^ ' I will cut ofl from Babylon name and remnant ') ; so A. B. David.son, Wellhausen, NoAvack.

Probably the same sense should be attributed to the n'lx^f* of Am 1' and the rnq!! of Am 4'- !)' Or (c), even if the expres.sion be taken in its narrowest sense, the ' remnant of Baal ' may refer to the Baal-worship which survi\od the reforms which, if we can trust the Chronicler (2 Ch 34'' ), Josiah had undertaken six years previously. Besides, as A. B. David.son points out, Baal may stand here for any kind of false worship, even that which is nominarty oli'cred to Jaliweh.

On the Chemarim see article under that title. A (litticulty in the way of assigning the prophecy to the earlier part of Josiah's reign has been felt owing to the mention of 'the king's sons' in I', seeing that it is imjiossible that Josiah, who could not have been much over 21 years of age at the time (cf. 2 K 21'-'), could have had sons capable of perpetrating the outrages attributed to them in v." But here again (a) it is not unlikely that the LXX 6 oiA-ot Tov ^a<jiX^ws [i.e.

-'■^n n'5 instead of TiSsn -jj] has S reserved the original reading — ' the king's house.' r (h) ' the king's sons ' may mean simply members of the royal family (who had a king, but not neces- sarily the reigning king, among tlieir ancestors) ; cf. 1 K 22=^ 2 K IP, Jer SG'-" [see Hitzig-Graf] 38'. Owing to the youth of the king, his relatives at court would have all the freer scope for their mal- practices.

The early date for which we are contending is further supported by the projihet's allusions to an appioachin" foe, whom he does not name, but who is with much probability identified by most moderns with the Scythians, whose incursions are referred to bj' Herodotus (i. 102 d'.), and who prob.ably passed along the Philistine seaboard, c. 626 B.C. [This exjiliiii.'ition is in e\ery way preferable to that of Sctnvally, who supjioses the toe to be Egypt (see A. B. Davidson, p.

',18, for a conclusive refutation of Schwally)]. '1 hese Scj'thian hordes appear also to have been the subject of Jer 4"-6*' in its original form, and to have suggested the imagery of Ezk 38"''. In the year 626 Josiah would be 21 years of age, and Zephaniah jiossibly a little older. The latter and Jeremiah probably began their prophetic activity in one and the .same yea'' (02(i).

The i)resent position of the book, both in MT and LXX, between 3abal>kuk and Ilaggai proves nothing, for the arrangement of the Twelve is in other instances (e.g. JOEL and Obadiah) demon- strably unchronological. The proper nlace of our book is between Nahum and I.Tabal>kuV. 2. AVhile ch.

1, with the ]iossible exception of a few expressions which may have found their waj' from the margin into the text, is universally attributed to Zephaniah, and dated by the great majority of scholars within the first half of Josiah's reign, tliere are considerable differences of ojiinion as to the unity and the date of the rest of the book. Kuenen (} 78.

6-8) accepted the genuineness of all but S^-", which, on account, chief ;, of differences both in tone anfl situa- tion from the rest of the prophecy, he was inclined to make pOBt-exilic (c. 6.'(1 B.C.) He d"(endeil 21* " against Stade((;r/ i. 044 n. 8), who denied to Ztphuniah also the whole of ch. 8. — WellhauBen (followed pretty dosely by Nowack) is suspicious of 22.3, he rejects vv.8-11, and treats ch. 3 as a later supplement, added in two stages, vv.i-7 and vv.

8-20, upon the analogv ol Mic 111 and vv.7 -20. _ Budde (lollowod by Co'nill, Kinltit. 5 ZU, .1 [contrast his more consc-native position in, { 31. 3]) would admit 2'* 81-6-7-s-fl {in this order] n 13 as In harmony with ^ephaniah's sltUAtlon and a suitable sequel to ch. 1 ; hi 976 ZEPHAXIAH, BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH, BOOK OF rejects the whole of 2+18 mainly because Israel appears in these verses as the victim instead of aa the perpetrator of wrong (the conception in ch.

1); 3"- lo are excluaed as breaking the con- nexion between v. 8 and vMt while vv.l- 20 are declared to be a later lyrical epilogue to w.^i 13. — Schwally allows to Zephaniah notbintr outside ch, 1 except 2^3 IB and possibly 21-, holding 2^12 to be exilic and ch. 3 post-exilic. He concedes, however, that 31-7 may be' ^ephaniaji's. — O. A. Snuth accepts the whole of ch. 2 except vv,8-io (the oracle against Moab and Ammon, which is suspicious for reasons noted below) and v.

u which breaks the connexion between vj and v. 12, in 31-13 he considers w.9. 10 to be 'obviously an intrusion/ while v. 8 should possibly precede V.6, as IJudde proposes. He has no doubt about attributing w. 14-20 to the end of the Exile or the period after the Iteturn.

— Driver remarks that 2" seems to be out of place, and that S'^^o is somewhat doubtful, although even here, the picture being of course an imaginative one, the question remains whether it is sufficiently clear that it was beyond the power of ?ephaniah'8 imagination to construct it' (LOTe 342 1., where the author adds a reference to his discussion on Mic T^-O). — Davidson con- siders it quite possible that 2--ls has in various places been expanded, but defends the genuineness of ch.

2 as a whole. He allows that 3^0 should possibly be omitted, but otherwise vv.1-13 appear to him to be genuine, although they might suggest that the passage was later than ch. 1. Towards vv.1+20 he" holds the same attitude as Kuenen, recognizing in them quite a different situation from that of the rest of the book. — Konig would apparently accept the whole book as genuine, with the exceinion of that part of the title which refers the prophecy to the days of .Josiah. As to ch.

2, there will be little question that Schwally, in arguing again.st the genuineness of vv. '3^ built too much upon the occurrence of uj) and ni:v in v.' (cf. the criticisms of Bacher, Budde, and Davidson). Yet there is force in the remark of Nowack, that while the tvord uy occurs in the older literature (Nu 12' [E], Am 8*, Is 11^), the notion has not yet assumed there that ethico- religious stamp which it bears in Zeph 2', and for which we must look for parallels to the later Psalms.

No doubt, as an argument this is ' rather precarious' (Davidson, p. 101); but an instinctive feeling may be stronger than logic, and we confess that, like Wellh. and Nowack, we ' cannot rejiress a doubt' of the genuineness at least of v.', which with its ' Seek ye the LORD, ye meek of the earth,' ' seek righteousness, seek meekness,' has a decidedly late ring to our ears. The objections taken to 2*"" in general are singularly pointless (see Davidson or G. A. Smith), but vv.'""

can hardly be defended. The oracle against Moab and Ammon (vv.*''") denounces these peoples for an attitude towards Judah which seems out of place in Josiah's reign ; their territories were not on the line of the Scythian invasion of Egypt via Philistia [but see, as bearing on this argument, Davidson, p. 99] ; and, further, the verses are not, like those that precede and that follow, in the kinah measure. This last ciicuni- stance tells very strongly against their originality. Then v."

, if it belongs to Zephaniah at all, is certainly out of place. The omission of these four verses gives a good connexion between v.' and v.'^. It may be held with some confidence that 3""*" emanates from the period of the Return. Its entire dill'erence of tone from ch. 1 and from the opening verses of ch. 3 is unmistakable. The language reminds us of Deutero, Isaiah, and the escliatology of Ezekiel. Like Am 9u-i» and Mic 7'"-", the verses were proliably introduced into Hieir present pl.

ace to relieve a sombre back- ground, this having been only imperfectly accom- plished in the instance before us bj- vv."'" In all probability vv.'- '", v.liich interrupt the connexion and spoil the antithesis between v." and v.", should also be assigned to the same or a similarly late hand. There does not appear to be any adequate ground of suspicion against the rest of ch. 3, making due allowance, of course, for textual corruptions (see next section). iv.

LiTEKAitY Characteristics, Condition of Text, etc. — The style of Zephaniah is, upon the whole, cleai' and forcible ; several of bis figures are striking (e.g. 1" 'I will search Jerusalem with lanterns,' ih. ' the men that arc thickened upon their lees,' v." ' they shall walk like blind men'). Powerful and awe-inspiring is his description of the day of the Lord in 1'=-', whose opening words in the Vulg. Dies ira;, dies ilia, commence also the well-known hymn of Thomas of Celano.

We have a passage of exquisite beauty in S"'"*. It is true, as David.son jioints out, that, as compared with Nahum's description of the destruction of Nineveh, Zcplianiah's prophecy of the same event is some- what general and lacks the power of the other prophet's impassioned oratory ; but this diti'erence may be due partly to the fact that the picture in tlie one case is painted from the imagination, and in the other is the work of one who had beheld the kind of scenes he depicts.

To a considerable extent Zephaniah borrows from his predecessors, esp. from Isaiah and Amos (cf. I'-'with Hos 4'; the description of the day of the Lord with Is 2"'", Am 2»-" 5^; l'^" with Am 5"; l"*" with Is 10= 28, ; &•-'» with Am 1^-2'). There are traces in Zephaniah of the phenomena that characterize late Hebrew. It is partly, in- deed, on account of some of these marks that Wellh. doubts the genuineness of 3'"' (note n^xu and n:v in v.', niiin in sense of f elds in v.'

, ^v ips in sense of command in v.') For further instances see G. A. Smith, iL 37 n. 1, who also gives on the preceding page a list of rare grammatical forms and phrases found in this book. Of hapax legoniena may be noted S'o: in 1", ni} and nn3(?) in 2'*, ptCD and -i-idd in 2^, nnx (?) in 2''', k";? ( = rnr:) in 3', C"!j (Qal) in 3^ nn;i: (if correct ; see Ges.-Kautzsch, § i24c) in 3^ ns: in 3'', Tnj; (difl'erent from Ezk 8") and i-53(?) in 3'". See also 2'', v."" \\\ (Aram.)

The text of Zephaniah is, unfortunately, in several places in rather a corrupt condition, and contains some suspicious words : in some cases, however, it can be corrected with the help of the LXX, and in others Wellli. and others have made plausible emendations {e.g. in 1»- >"■ 2'- »■ «• ''; » 3'- »}, though naturally uncertainties still remain. For particulars we must refer to G. A. Smith, Twelve Prophets (ii. 35-37, 56-74), or, more fully, to Nowack's Commentary. V. Religious Value.

— The abiding value of the Book of Zephaniah rests mainly upon three founda- tions : (a) the profoundly earnest moral tone of the prophet, with his deep sense of the sin of injustice and oppression, and inflexible demand for puiity of heart and conduct ; (6) his doctrine of the disciplin- ary value of suffering. God's judgments are meant to humble and chasten Israel, and when she haa learned this lesson she trusts in God alone (3'- "'"). In w.'

- '», a later addition to the book, the same principle is applied to the heathen. Their lips are purified (isn here in the same sense as in 1 S 10') by suffering, so that they become lit to call U])on the name of the Lord, (c) The wide outlook of the prophet's philosophy of history, his doctrine of Divine Providence.

The apparently irresponsible Scytliians come upon the scene at the moment God needs their presence ; the various nations are overtaken by the Divine judgment, in order that God's purpose may be accomplished of blessing not only the Jewish people but the whole world.

A imiversalism akin to that expressed in Jn 4"'' has sometimes been attributed to Zephaniah upon the ground of 2" ('men shall worship him, every one from his place ') 3»- "> ; but in the first-named passage the words we have italicised are of uncer- tain meaning (but see Davidson), and all three passages lie under strong suspicion of belonging to a later age than that of Zephaniah. It may be added that the Book of Zephaniah ia • This verse gave rise to the medifflval pictures of St.

2eph anioh carrying a lantern in his left hand. ZEPHATH ZERETH-SHAHAR 977 »ne of those from which the figure of the Messianic king is entirely absent. The standpoint of the prophet was indeed such as almost necessarily to preclude the appearance of any such conception. LiTBRATURB.— Driver, LOT» (1897). np 340-843; Wildoboer, LM d. J/y. (lS9o) pp. 189-103; the KinUituivjen of CornUlS (5 35. 3). Ed. Konig (1S93), pp. 352-351 ; Strack » (ISUS). p. \l»(. : Uaudissiri (1901), pp. 550-555.

Commentaries ; F. A. Strauss, Vaticinia Zejih. ecrm. Ulustr. 1843; Hiuig, Steiner in A'<(/. tirij. lldb. (isal); H. Ewald (1S0T-6S). Propheti, En(; tr. iii. 14-20 ; E. B. Puscy, The ilinur rrii}ihel$; von Orclli in StraokZorkkr's A';;/. Kom.; L. Reinke (Horn. Cath.X Ver Frojih. Zeph. 1808; W. Schiili, Com. ilher d. I'ruph. Zeph. 1892 ; Wellhausen, Die kleinen I'roplttlen (1893), pp. 2»-3l, 147-155; A. B. Daviilaon, 'Naliuni, llabaltliuk, and Zeplianiah ' in Camb.

Bible, 1S96 (a most valualile work); No- wack. "Die kleinon Pronheten ' in JIdkom. z. A.T. (1S97) pp. 874-298; J. T. Beck, Erklarumj der ITopheten Hahum u. Zephanja, 1899 (a curious work, with an interest of its own, but without anv scienliflc value). Misu-ellan'cous : F. W. Farrar, 'The Minor Prophets' in .Wen «l/(A<- iJiW« series (1890), pp. 153-158; Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the J'roultete (\«)2). pp. 253-203 ; W. K. Smith, art. ' Zenhaniah ' in Encyc. Brit."

; Buhl on Zeph 21'" 3'7i'- in ZATH' (1SS5), p 18311. ; Schwallv. 'Das Bvich Zcphanja,' ib. (1890) p. 105(1. ; Bacher on Zeph 23, ih. (1801) pp. 1851., 2C0ff.; Buddc, SK (1893), p. 303 If.; Itachmann, ' Zur Textkrilik dcs Propheten Zephanja,' ii. (1894), p. 641 fl. J. A. SELBIE.