[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.”