The Jews absurdly reckon that here, as in other su- perscriptions, the persons recorded as a prophet's ances- tors were themselves endowed with the prophetic spirit. The so-called Epiphanius {De Vitis Prophet, ch. xix) asserts that Zephaniah was of the tribe of Simeon, of the hill Sarabatha, aTTo upovg 'EapajSaSfd. The exist- ence of the prophet is kno\v'n only from his oracles, and these have no biographical sketches; so that our knowledge of this man of God comprises only the fact and the results of his inspiration. It may be safely in- ferred, however, that he labored with Josiah in the pious work of re-establishing the worship of Jehovah in the land.
II. Bate. — It is recorded (ch. i) that the word of the Lord came to him "in the days of Josiah tlie son of Amon, king of Judah."' We have reason for supposing that he flourished during the earlier portion of Josiah's reign. In the second chapter (ver. 13-15) he foretells the doom of Nineveh, and the fall of that ancient city happened about the eighteenth year of Josiah. In the C(jmmencement of his oracles, also, he denounces various forms of idolatry, and specially the remnant of Baal. The reformation of Josiah began in the twelfth and was completed in the eighteenth year of his reign. So thorough was his extirpation of the idolatrous rites and hierarchj' which defiled liis kingdom that he burned down the groves, dismissed the priesthood, threw down the altars, and made dust of the images of Baalim. Zephaniah must have prophesied prior to this religious revolution, while some remains of Baal were yet secret- ed in the land, or between the twelfth and eighteenth years of the royal reformer. So Hitzig (Die 12 kieinen Prophet.) and Movers {Chroiiil; p. 234) ])lace him ; while Eichhorn, Bertholdt, and Jiiger incline to give him a somewhat later date. At all events, he flourished be- tween the years B.C. 042 and 611; and the portion of his prophecy which refers to the destruction of the Assyrian empire must have been delivered prior to the year B.C. 625, the year in which Nineveh fell (Hender- son, Oh the Minor Prophets, p. 326). The publication of these oracles was therefore contemporary with a por- tion of those of Jeremiah, for the word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth vear of the reicii of Josiah.
ZEPHANIAH, BOOK OF 1083 ZEPIIANIAII, BOOK OF
Indeed, the Jewish tradition is, that Zephaniah had for his colleagues Jeremiah and the prophetess Huklah, the former tixing his sphere of labor in the thonmglifares and market-places, the latter exercising hor honorable vocation in the college in Jerusalem (Carpzov, Introd. p. 415). Kcister (Die Propheten, iii) endeavors to prove that Zephaniah was posterior to Ilabakkuk. His ar- guments from similarity of diction are very trivial, and the more so when we reflect that all circumstances com- bine in inducing us to tix the period of Ilabakkuk (q. v.) in the reign of Jehoiakim, immediately before the Clial- djEan invasion. In the present book Nineveh is repre- sented as in a state of peace and prosperity, while tiie notices of Jerusalem touch upon the same tendencies to idolatry and crime which are condemned by the con- temporary Jeremiah. It is not impossible, moreover, that the prophecj"^ was delivered about the time when the Scythians overran the empires of Western Asia, extending their devastations to Palestine. The king's children, who are spoken of in ch. i, 8 as addicted to ftreign habits, could not have been sons of Josiah, who was but eight years old at his acccssion^but were prob- ably his brothers or near relatives. The remnant of Baal (ch. i, 4) implies that some partial reformation had previously taken place, while the notices of opeu idola- try are incompatible with the state of Judah after the discovery of the Book of the Law.
III. Contents. — In ch. i the utter desolation of Judaja is predicted as a judgment for idolatry, and neglect of the Lord, the luxury of the princes, and the violence and deceit of their dependents (ver. 3-9). The pros- perity, security, and insolence of the people are contrasted with the horrors of the day of wrath ; the assaults upon the fenced cities and high towers, and the slaughter of the people (ver. 10-18). Ch. ii is a call to repentance (ver. 1-3), with prediction of tlie ruin of the cities of the Philistiues, and the restoration of the house of Ju- dah after the visitation (ver. 4-7). Other enemies of Judah, Moab, Ammon, are threatened with perpetual destruction, Ethiopia with a great slaughter, and Nine- veh, the capital of Assyria, with desolation (ver. 8-15). In ch. iii the prophet addresses Jerusalem, which he reproves sharply for vice and disobedience, the cruelty of the princes and the treachery of the priests, and for their general disregard of warnings and visitations (ver. 1-7). He then concludes with a series of promises, the destruction of the enemies of God's people, the restora- tion of exiles, the extirpation of the proud and violeufr, and the permanent peace and blessedness of the poor and afflicted remnant who shall trust in tlic name of the Lord. These exhortations to rejoicing and exertion are mingled with intimations of a comiilete manifestation of God's righteousness and love in the restoration of his people (ver. 8-20).