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The prophet Zephaniah used extreme language to convey simple subjects. Zephaniah described the Day of Yahweh as both near at hand and terrifying in action. Most prophets incorporated a Day of Yahweh motif, but Zephaniah was the only prophet wholly devoted to the imagery of the day. By “Day of Yahweh,” the prophets meant an event or series of events, not a 24-hour calendar day.
Superscription
Zephaniah’s introduction includes an extended genealogy: “the word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi son of Gedaliah son of Amariah son of Hezekiah” (1:1). No other prophet traced his genealogy back four generations. Sometimes they followed the custom of adding the name of their father to their own name, but Zephaniah went back much further. Why did Zephaniah break the normal convention? Why did he put so much effort into genealogy?
One theory is that he wanted to highlight his royal credentials. His lineage stopped at Hezekiah. Was his great-great-grandfather King Hezekiah (716-686 BCE), the king of Judah, who was known for being “good and right and faithful before the Lord his God” (2 Chron. 31:20)? Hezekiah was a common Judean name, and the genealogy did not give Hezekiah the title “king.” However, Zephaniah was speaking to an audience who was, perhaps, already familiar with his family tree. His great-great-grandfather was so famous that he did not require a title.
The other theory about the prophet’s genealogy focuses on Zephaniah’s father’s name, “Cushi.” Cushi may have been a reference to his father’s Cushite nationality. Cush is the area of modern Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. In the eighth century BCE, the Kingdom of Cush (or Kush) gained power and even took rule of Egypt. If Zephaniah had a Cushite father, he may have felt the need to defend his Judahite heritage preceding his foreign father.
King Josiah and the prophet
Zephaniah also wrote in his introduction that he ministered during the reign of Josiah (1:1). Josiah ruled for 31 years (640-609 BCE) so Zephaniah’s prophecies could have taken shape at any point in those three decades. Zephaniah scholars try to pin down Zephaniah’s dating, mostly to understand whether he was prophesying before or after Josiah’s reforms.
Josiah had inherited the throne at the age of eight, after the disastrous reign of King Manasseh. When Josiah was still a boy, he “began to seek the God of his ancestor David” (2 Chron. 34:2). In the eighth year of his reign, at the age of 16, he purged the nation of its idols, pagan high places, and sacred poles (2 Chron. 34:3). In his eighteenth year of reign, he restored and purified the neglected Jerusalem temple (2 Chron. 34:8; 2 Kings 22:3).
Little in the text allows us to determine if Zephaniah ministered before, during, or after Josiah’s reforms. However, one clue that suggests a pre-reform date is that Zephaniah has plenty of harsh words for Judah’s leaders. If he had ministered after the reforms, the assumption would be that at least the civil and religious leaders had stopped worshipping other gods publicly. One possibility is that Zephaniah helped to prompt Josiah’s reforms. If he also was of royal birth and lived in the palace with Josiah, he may have had an early influence on the boy king’s life.
Universal judgment
The book of Zephaniah begins with a proclamation of universal judgment announcing the coming day of the Lord. The whole earth bore responsibility for the impending punishment, and not just humanity—even the animals, birds, and fish were under judgment (1:3). Yahweh’s disappointment in his creation was extensive. Zephaniah’s poetic style uses repetition to imitate fright. Three times, Yahweh warned that the Day of Yahweh would “sweep away” all creation, suggesting the Day of Yahweh would match the severity of Noah’s flood.
Zephaniah repeats the word “day,” or yom in Hebrew, six times in the passage. Some scholars believe Zephaniah’s six days were a nod to the six days of creation in Genesis 1. The Day of Yahweh in Zephaniah’s account was a complete inversion of creation’s order. Like Adam and Eve, humanity’s rebellion had caused the downfall of creation.
Zephaniah closed the circle of scrutiny around Judah, and then he tightened his focus around Jerusalem. Yahweh warned, “I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (1:4). The covenant people were held to a higher standard by God, despite all nations being guilty of wickedness, because it was to them that he had given his laws and had revealed his truths. While other nations only sensed God through nature, Judah had a self-revealing relationship with the creator of the cosmos.
Syncretism
Yahweh’s warning continued, “I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests” (1:4). If Zephaniah was ministering in the first half of Josiah’s reign, before the king’s reforms in 622 BCE, Baal worship was flourishing. The kings before Josiah—Manasseh and Amon—had tolerated paganism in the land. If Zephaniah ministered after Josiah’s reforms, the warning reveals that Josiah’s great purging of idols and altars did not eradicate the problem of unfaithfulness. Perhaps Josiah’s reforms got rid of public pagan worship, but it continued privately. The reforms may have driven Baal worship and pagan rituals underground or out to the peripheries.
During Manasseh’s reign, the people had not forgotten Yahweh, nor had they completely abandoned their own rituals and worship of their national God. Instead, they blended Yahweh worship with local Canaanite and Assyrian rituals. This blending of Yahweh worship and pagan ritual is called syncretism, and Yahweh despised it.
In ancient sites throughout Israel, archaeologists have found many Iron Age remains (statuary, altars, and high places) that demonstrate the problem of syncretism. The people had worshiped Yahweh as their national god, but they also worshiped the local deities, such as the Canaanite goddess Asherah and the Assyrian god Assur.
Most of the pagan worship in Judah and Israel was due to a lack of faith in the power of Yahweh. All ancients were reliant on the provision of rain and harvest. They tried to cover their bases by praying to multiple gods, not knowing who had more authority. People worshiped Baal for his supposed ability to improve land productivity and fertility. The bonus was that Baal, like all the local deities, placed no moral responsibility on the people; he had no law code. In Josiah’s day, many Judeans had relegated Yahweh to the position of divine warrior-protector since he had miraculously protected Jerusalem from the Assyrian attack during Hezekiah’s reign.
Zephaniah mocked all forms of syncretism. He accused people of burning incense on their rooftops to worship the “host of the heavens” (1:5). During Manasseh’s reign, the astral cult was not only tolerated, but encouraged. It had become so pervasive that Josiah had to remove altars from the roof of Yahweh’s temple (2 Kings 23:12)! Jeremiah, Zephaniah’s contemporary, also condemned the leaders for burning incense to “all the starry hosts” (Jer. 19:3). Zephaniah was disgusted with everyone “who bow[ed] down on the roofs to the host of heavens” (1:5). The action of “bowing down” represented just how far they had strayed, showing reverence and dedication toward false gods. We know from Hosea the measure of God’s grief when his people abandoned him with their whole hearts and chased other gods.
Some people in Judah swore by both the Lord and Molech, an act of syncretism (1:5). All pagan worship was an offense to God, but the Molech cult was abhorrent. In Leviticus, God had forbidden the Israelites to worship Molech (Lev. 18:21). However, Manasseh allowed Molech worship in the Valley of Bin Hinnom. Right outside Jerusalem’s walls, people were sacrificing their sons and daughters in fire. Yahweh described the practice as something so terrible it never even entered his mind (Jer. 7:31).
Zephaniah also denounced superstitious pagan practices. For example, Yahweh said that on the Day of Judgment he would punish all those “who avoid stepping on the threshold” (1:9). He meant even those who were merely superstitious were disobeying God. In the ancient Near East, people had believed that spirits dwelled on the threshold of a temple. But superstition had no place in the lives of God’s people. He was their provider, protector, and creator. Adopting alien traditions, such as stepping over a threshold, evidenced the rejection of their own God-given customs and laws.
Zephaniah’s prophetic critiques did not target the common people of Judah. Instead, he condemned the rich, royal, and powerful for their lack of faith (1:8-9). However, while Zephaniah called out the royal household as part of the guilty, he omitted the king. Josiah was not among the accused, as he was either too young or too righteous at this time.
Zephaniah reproached the “officials and the king’s sons” for wearing “foreign clothes” (1:8). This condemnation is unique to the book of Zephaniah. He was perhaps referring to the wearing of pagan priestly vestments (2 Kings 10:22). More likely, “foreign clothes” represented one of the many ways the Jews were trying to imitate the customs of the empires. By copying their neighbors, they were rejecting the customs of their “old ways.” Judaism, in ancient and modern times, is a faith that is outwardly recognizable in its measure of observance. To be Torah-observant is to set yourself apart in what you eat, wear, and the calendar you keep.
God promised to root out the merchants who got rich off the poor. They were focusing more on the gathering of luxury goods than on obeying God. Yahweh warned, “all the traders have perished; all who weigh out silver are cut off” (1:11). They were putting their trust in their riches, but “neither their silver nor their gold will save them” (1:18).
Silence
As the calm before the storm, Zephaniah called for a reverent silence in Yahweh’s presence: “Be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is at hand!” (1:7). Zephaniah graphically described the terrifying day of Yahweh through sights and sounds. On the Day of Yahweh, the skies would grow dark, and all would hear God’s shout and the blast of the shofar (1:11-18). Zephaniah said, “the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the warrior cries aloud there” (1:14).
Normally, Judean worshipers at the temple presented their sacrifices to Yahweh. Instead, on the day of the Lord, Yahweh would sacrifice them. He described the accused as animals on the altar: “their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like dung” (1:17). What a chilling reminder that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).
Reading Zephaniah, it is easy to separate myself from the Baal worshipers, Molech worshipers, sun worshipers, and even the superstitious. Because idol worship is not one of the categories of my own spiritual struggle, it is easy to feel innocent and unworthy of God’s judgment. However, the prophet added a caveat that struck me with conviction. Among the accused idol worshipers were also the believers who were guilty of complacency: “those who say in their hearts, ‘the Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm’” (1:12).
Complacency among God’s people led to other nations’ disregard of Yahweh. Instead of representing Yahweh as a kingdom of priests and a light to the nations, many Judeans were imitating the nations in their attire and worship. Others outwardly followed Yahweh but inwardly were lukewarm, with no real understanding of what it meant to seek after God. I am guilty of assimilating with the shallow elements of my culture and of pushing God to the margins of my daily life. I also tend to focus on trivial things instead of kingdom things. Therefore, I feel compelled to internalize the message of the prophets. Reading the prophets is like holding up a mirror to recognize the defects in my spiritual life that would otherwise be easy to ignore.