CHAPTER II

_THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH_

The Book of Zephaniah is one of the most difficult in the prophetic canon. The title is very generally accepted; the period from which chap. i. dates is recognised by practically all critics to be the reign of Josiah, or at least the last third of the seventh century. But after that doubts start, and we find present nearly every other problem of introduction.

To begin with, the text is very damaged. In some passages we may be quite sure that we have not the true text;[71] in others we cannot be sure that we have it,[72] and there are several glosses.[73] The bulk of the second chapter was written in the Qinah, or elegiac measure, but as it now stands the rhythm is very much broken. It is difficult to say whether this is due to the dilapidation of the original text or to wilful insertion of glosses and other later passages. The Greek version of Zephaniah possesses the same general features as that of other difficult prophets. Occasionally it enables us to correct the text; but by the time it was made the text must already have contained the same corruptions which we encounter, and the translators were ignorant besides of the meaning of some phrases which to us are plain.[74]

The difficulties of textual criticism as well as of translation are aggravated by the large number of words, grammatical forms and phrases which either happen very seldom in the Old Testament,[75] or nowhere else in it at all.[76] Of the rare words and phrases, a very few (as will be seen from the appended notes) are found in earlier writings. Indeed all that are found are from the authentic prophecies of Isaiah, with whose style and doctrine Zephaniah’s own exhibit most affinity. All the other rarities of vocabulary and grammar are shared only by _later_ writers; and as a whole the language of Zephaniah exhibits symptoms which separate it by many years from the language of the prophets of the eighth century, and range it with that of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Second Isaiah and still later literature. It may be useful to the student to collect in a note the most striking of these symptoms of the comparative lateness of Zephaniah’s dialect.[77]

We now come to the question of date, and we take, to begin with, the First Chapter. It was said above that critics agree as to the general period—between 639, when Josiah began to reign, and 600. But this period was divided into three very different sections, and each of these has received considerable support from modern criticism. The great majority of critics place the chapter in the early years of Josiah, before the enforcement of Deuteronomy and the great Reform in 621.[78] Others have argued for the later years of Josiah, 621—608, on the ground that the chapter implies that the great Reform has already taken place, and otherwise shows knowledge of Deuteronomy;[79] while some prefer the days of reaction under Jehoiakim, 608 ff.,[80] and assume that the phrase in the title, _in the days of Josiah_, is a late and erroneous inference from i. 4.

The evidence for the argument consists of the title and the condition of Judah reflected in the body of the chapter. The latter is a definite piece of oratory. Under the alarm of an immediate and general war, Zephaniah proclaims a vast destruction upon the earth. Judah must fall beneath it: the worshippers of Baal, of the host of heaven and of Milcom, the apostates from Jehovah, the princes and house of the king, the imitators of foreign fashions, and the forceful and fraudulent, shall be cut off in a great slaughter. Those who have grown sceptical and indifferent to Jehovah shall be unsettled by invasion and war. This shall be the Day of Jehovah, near and immediate, a day of battle and disaster on the whole land.

The conditions reflected are thus twofold—the idolatrous and sceptical state of the people, and an impending invasion. But these suit, more or less exactly, each of the three sections of our period. For Jeremiah distinctly states that he had to attack idolatry in Judah for twenty-three years, 627 to 604;[81] he inveighs against the falseness and impurity of the people alike before the great Reform, and after it while Josiah was still alive, and still more fiercely under Jehoiakim. And, while before 621 the great Scythian invasion was sweeping upon Palestine from the north, after 621, and especially after 604, the Babylonians from the same quarter were visibly threatening the land. But when looked at more closely, the chapter shows several features which suit the second section of our period less than they do the other two. The worship of the host of heaven, probably introduced under Manasseh, was put down by Josiah in 621; it revived under Jehoiakim,[82] but during the latter years of Josiah it cannot possibly have been so public as Zephaniah describes.[83]

Other reasons which have been given for those years are inconclusive[84]—the chapter, for instance, makes no indubitable reference to Deuteronomy or the Covenant of 621—and on the whole we may leave the end of Josiah’s reign out of account. Turning to the third section, Jehoiakim’s reign, we find one feature of the prophecy which suits it admirably. The temper described in ver. 12—_men who are settled on their lees, who say in their heart, Jehovah doeth neither good nor evil_—is the kind of temper likely to have been produced among the less earnest adherents of Jehovah by the failure of the great Reform in 621 to effect either the purity or the prosperity of the nation. But this is more than counterbalanced by the significant exception of the king from the condemnation which ver. 8 passes on the _princes and the sons of the king_. Such an exception could not have been made when Jehoiakim was on the throne; it points almost conclusively to the reign of the good Josiah. And with this agrees the title of the chapter—_in the days of Josiah_.[85] We are, therefore, driven back to the years of Josiah before 621. In these we find no discrepancy either with the chapter itself, or with its title. The southward march of the Scythians,[86] between 630 and 625, accounts for Zephaniah’s alarm of a general war, including the invasion of Judah; the idolatrous practices which he describes may well have been those surviving from the days of Manasseh,[87] and not yet reached by the drastic measures of 621; the temper of scepticism and hopelessness condemned by ver. 12 was possible among those adherents of Jehovah who had hoped greater things from the overthrow of Amon than the slow and small reforms of the first fifteen years of Josiah’s reign. Nor is a date before 621 made at all difficult by the genealogy of Zephaniah in the title. If, as is probable,[88] the Hezekiah given as his great-great-grandfather be Hezekiah the king, and if he died about 695, and Manasseh, his successor, who was then twelve, was his eldest son, then by 630 Zephaniah cannot have been much more than twenty years of age, and not more than twenty-five by the time the Scythian invasion had passed away.[89] It is therefore by no means impossible to suppose that he prophesied before 625; and besides, the data of the genealogy in the title are too precarious to make them valid, as against an inference from the contents of the chapter itself.

The date, therefore, of the first chapter of Zephaniah may be given as about 625 B.C., and probably rather before than after that year, as the tide of Scythian invasion has apparently not yet ebbed.

The other two chapters have within recent years been almost wholly denied to Zephaniah. Kuenen doubted chap. iii. 9-20. Stade makes all chap. iii. post-exilic, and suspects ii. 1-3, 11. A very thorough examination of them has led Schwally[90] to assign to exilic or post-exilic times the whole of the little sections comprising them, with the possible exception of chap. iii. 1-7, which “may be” Zephaniah’s. His essay has been subjected to a searching and generally hostile criticism by a number of leading scholars;[91] and he has admitted the inconclusiveness of some of his reasons.[92]

Chap. ii. 1-4 is assigned by Schwally to a date later than Zephaniah’s, principally because of the term _meekness_ (ver. 3), which is a favourite one with post-exilic writers. He has been sufficiently answered;[93] and the close connection of vv. 1-3 with chap. i. has been clearly proved.[94] Chap. ii. 4-15 is the passage in elegiac measure but broken, an argument for the theory that insertions have been made in it. The subject is a series of foreign nations—Philistia (5-7), Moab and Ammon (8-10), Egypt (11) and Assyria (13-15). The passage has given rise to many doubts; every one must admit the difficulty of coming to a conclusion as to its authenticity. On the one hand, the destruction just predicted is so universal that, as Professor Davidson says, we should expect Zephaniah to mention other nations than Judah.[95] The concluding oracle on Niniveh must have been published before 608, and even Schwally admits that it may be Zephaniah’s own. But if this be so, then we may infer that the first of the oracles on Philistia is also Zephaniah’s, for both it and the oracle on Assyria are in the elegiac measure, a fact which makes it probable that the whole passage, however broken and intruded upon, was originally a unity. Nor is there anything in the oracle on Philistia incompatible with Zephaniah’s date. Philistia lay on the path of the Scythian invasion; the phrase in ver. 7, _shall turn their captivity_, is not necessarily exilic. As Cornill, too, points out, the expression in ver. 13, _He will stretch out His hand to the north_, implies that the prophecy has already looked in other directions. There remains the passage between the oracles on Philistia and Assyria. This is not in the elegiac measure. Its subject is Moab and Ammon, who were not on the line of the Scythian invasion, and Wellhausen further objects to it, because the attitude to Israel of the two peoples whom it describes is that which is attributed to them only just before the Exile and surprises us in Josiah’s reign. Dr. Davidson meets this objection by pointing out that, just as in Deuteronomy, so here, Moab and Ammon are denounced, while Edom, which in Deuteronomy is spoken of with kindness, is here not denounced at all. A stronger objection to the passage is that ver. 11 predicts the conversion of the nations, while ver. 12 makes them the prey of Jehovah’s sword, and in this ver. 12 follows on naturally to ver. 7. On this ground as well as on the absence of the elegiac measure the oracle on Moab and Ammon is strongly to be suspected.

On the whole, then, the most probable conclusion is that chap. ii. 4-15 was originally an authentic oracle of Zephaniah’s in the elegiac metre, uttered at the same date as chap. i.—ii. 3, the period of the Scythian invasion, though from a different standpoint; and that it has suffered considerable dilapidation (witness especially vv. 6 and 14), and probably one great intrusion, vv. 8-10.

There remains the Third Chapter. The authenticity has been denied by Schwally, who transfers the whole till after the Exile. But the chapter is not a unity.[96]

In the first place, it falls into two sections, vv. 1-13 and 14-20. There is no reason to take away the bulk of the first section from Zephaniah. As Schwally admits, the argument here is parallel to that of chap. i.—ii. 3. It could hardly have been applied to Jerusalem during or after the Exile, but suits her conditions before her fall. Schwally’s linguistic objections to a pre-exilic date have been answered by Budde.[97] He holds ver. 6 to be out of place and puts it after ver. 8, and this may be. But as it stands it appeals to the impenitent Jews of ver. 5 with the picture of the judgment God has already completed upon the nations, and contrasts with ver. 7, in which God says that He trusts Israel will repent. Vv. 9 and 10 are, we shall see, obviously an intrusion, as Budde maintains and Davidson admits to be possible.[98]

We reach more certainty when we come to the second section of the chapter, vv. 14-20. Since Kuenen it has been recognised by the majority of critics that we have here a prophecy from the end of the Exile or after the Return. The temper has changed. Instead of the austere and sombre outlook of chap. i.—ii. 3 and chap. iii. 1-13, in which the sinful Israel is to be saved indeed, but only as by fire, we have a triumphant prophecy of her recovery from all affliction (nothing is said of her sin) and of her glory among the nations of the world. To put it otherwise, while the genuine prophecies of Zephaniah almost grudgingly allow a door of escape to a few righteous and humble Israelites from a judgment which is to fall alike on Israel and the Gentiles, chap. iii. 14-20 predicts Israel’s deliverance from her Gentile oppressors, her return from captivity and the establishment of her renown over the earth. The language, too, has many resemblances to that of Second Isaiah.[99] Obviously therefore we have here, added to the severe prophecies of Zephaniah, such a more hopeful, peaceful epilogue as we saw was added, during the Exile or immediately after it, to the despairing prophecies of Amos.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] i. 3_b_, 5_b_; ii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 last word, 14_b_; iii. 18, 19_a_, 20.

[72] i. 14_b_; ii. 1, 3; iii. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17.

[73] i. 3_b_, 5_b_; ii. 2, 6; iii. 5 (?).

[74] For details see translation below.

[75] i. 3, מַכְשֵׁלוֹת, only in Isa. iii. 6; 15, משואה, only in Job xxx. 3, xxxviii. 27—cf. Psalms lxxiii. 18, lxxiv. 3; ii. 8, גדפים, Isa. xliii. 28—cf. li. 7; 9, חרול, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; 15, עליזה, Isa. xxii. 2, xxiii. 7, xxxii. 13—cf. xiii. 3, xxiv. 8; iii. 1, נגאלה, see next note but one; 3, זאבי ערב, Hab. i. 8; 11, עליזי גאותך, Isa. xiii. 3; 18, נוגי, Lam. i. 4, נוגות.

[76] i. 11, המכתש as the name of a part of Jerusalem, otherwise only Jer. xv. 19; נטילי כסף‎; 12, קפא in pt. Qal, and otherwise only Exod. xv. 8, Zech. xiv. 6, Job x. 10; 14, מַהֵר (adj.), but the pointing may be wrong—cf. Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Isa. viii. 1, 3; צרח in Qal, elsewhere only once in Hi. Isa. xlii. 13; 17, לחום in sense of flesh, cf. Job xx. 23; 18, נבהלה if a noun (?); ii. 1, קשש in Qal and Hithpo, elsewhere only in Polel; 9, מכרה ,ממשק; ‎11, רזה, to make lean, otherwise only in Isa. xvii. 4, to be lean; 14, ‪ ארזה‬ (?); iii. 1, ‪ מראה‬, pt. of ‪ יונה ;מרה‬, pt. Qal, in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16, it may be a noun; 4, אנשי בגדות;‎ 6, נצדו; ‎9, שכם אחד; ‎10, עתרי בת־פוצי (?); ‎15, פנה ‎in sense to _turn away_; 18, ממך היו‬ (?).

[77] i. 8, etc., פקד על, followed by person, but not by thing—cf. Jer. ix. 24, xxiii. 34, etc., Job xxxvi. 23, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Ezek. i. 2; 13, משׁסה, only in Hab. ii. 7, Isa. xlii., Jer. xxx. 16, 2 Kings xxi. 14; 17, הֵצֵר, Hi. of צרר, only in 1 Kings viii. 37, and Deut., 2 Chron., Jer., Neh.; ii. 3, ענוה;‎ 8, גדופים, Isa. xliii. 28, li. 7 (fem. pl.); 9, חרול, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; iii. 1, נגאלה, Ni, pt. = impure, Isa. lix. 3, Lam. iv. 14; יונה, a pt. in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16; 3, זאבי ערב, Hab. i. 8—cf. Jer. v. 6, זאב ערבות;‎ 9, ברור, Isa. xlix. 2, ברר, Ezek. xx. 38, 1 Chron. vii. 40, ix. 22, xvi. 41, Neh. v. 18, Job xxxiii. 3, Eccles. iii. 18, ix. 1; 11, עליזי גאוה, Isa. xiii. 3; 18, נוּגֵי, Lam. i. 4 has נוּגות.

[78] So Hitzig, Ewald, Pusey, Kuenen, Robertson Smith (_Encyc. Brit._), Driver, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick, Budde, von Orelli, Cornill, Schwally, Davidson.

[79] So Delitzsch, Kleinert, and Schulz (_Commentar über den Proph. Zeph._, 1892, p. 7, quoted by König).

[80] So König.

[81] Jer. xxv.

[82] Jer. vii. 18.

[83] i. 3.

[84] Kleinert in his Commentary in Lange’s _Bibelwerk_, and Delitzsch in his article in Herzog’s _Real-Encyclopädie_², both offer a number of inconclusive arguments. These are drawn from the position of Zephaniah after Habakkuk, but, as we have seen, the order of the Twelve is not always chronological; from the supposition that Zephaniah i. 7, _Silence before the Lord Jehovah_, quotes Habakkuk ii. 20, _Keep silence before Him, all the earth_, but the phrase common to both is too general to be decisive, and if borrowed by one or other may just as well have been Zephaniah’s originally as Habakkuk’s; from the phrase _remnant of Baal_ (i. 4), as if this were appropriate only after the Reform of 621, but it was quite as appropriate after the beginnings of reform six years earlier; from the condemnation of _the sons of the king_ (i. 8), whom Delitzsch takes as Josiah’s sons, who before the great Reform were too young to be condemned, while later their characters did develop badly and judgment fell upon all of them, but _sons of the king_, even if that be the correct reading (LXX. _house of the king_), does not necessarily mean the reigning monarch’s children; and from the assertion that Deuteronomy is quoted in the first chapter of Zephaniah, and “so quoted as to show that the prophet needs only to put the people in mind of it as something supposed to be known,” but the verses cited in support of this (viz. 13, 15, 17: cf. Deut. xxviii. 30 and 29) are too general in their character to prove the assertion. See translation below.

[85] König has to deny the authenticity of this in order to make his case for the reign of Jehoiakim. But nearly all critics take the phrase as genuine.

[86] See above, p. 15. For inconclusive reasons Schwally, _Z.A.T.W._, 1890, pp. 215—217, prefers the Egyptians under Psamtik. See in answer Davidson, p. 98.

[87] Not much stress can be laid upon the phrase _I will cut off the remnant of Baal_, ver. 4, for, if the reading be correct, it may only mean the destruction of Baal-worship, and not the uprooting of what has been left over.

[88] See below, p. 47, n. 105.

[89] If 695 be the date of the accession of Manasseh, being then twelve, Amariah, Zephaniah’s great-grandfather, cannot have been more than ten, that is, born in 705. His son Gedaliah was probably not born before 689, his son Kushi probably not before 672, and his son Zephaniah probably not before 650.

[90] _Z.A.T.W._, 1890, Heft 1.

[91] Bacher, _Z.A.T.W._, 1891, 186; Cornill, _Einleitung_, 1891; Budde, _Theol. Stud. u. Krit._, 1893, 393 ff.; Davidson, _Nah., Hab. and Zeph._, 100 ff.

[92] _Z.A.T.W._, 1891, Heft 2.

[93] By especially Bacher, Cornill and Budde as above.

[94] See Budde and Davidson.

[95] The ideal of chap. i.—ii. 3, of the final security of a poor and lowly remnant of Israel, “necessarily implies that they shall no longer be threatened by hostility from without, and this condition is satisfied by the prophet’s view of the impending judgment on the ancient enemies of his nation,” _i.e._ those mentioned in ii. 4-15 (Robertson Smith, _Encyc. Brit._, art. “Zephaniah”).

[96] See, however, Davidson for some linguistic reasons for taking the two sections as one. Robertson Smith, also in 1888 (_Encyc. Brit._, art. “Zephaniah”), assumed (though not without pointing out the possibility of the addition of other pieces to the genuine prophecies of Zephaniah) that “a single leading motive runs through the whole” book, and “the first two chapters would be incomplete without the third, which moreover is certainly pre-exilic (vv. 1-4) and presents specific points of contact with what precedes, as well as a general agreement in style and idea.”

[97] Schwally (234) thinks that the epithet צדיק (ver. 5) was first applied to Jehovah by the Second Isaiah (xlv. 21, lxiv. 2, xlii. 21), and became frequent from his time on. In disproof Budde (3398) quotes Exod. ix. 27, Jer. xii. 1, Lam. i. 18. Schwally also points to ‎נצדו as borrowed from Aramaic.

[98] Budde, p. 395; Davidson, 103. Schwally (230 ff.) seeks to prove the unity of 9 and 10 with the context, but he has apparently mistaken the meaning of ver. 8 (231). That surely does not mean that the nations are gathered in order to punish the godlessness of the Jews, but that they may themselves be punished.

[99] See Davidson, 103.

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