Themes
The book of Zephaniah consists of three chapters in the Hebrew Masoretic Text. In English versions, the book is also divided into three chapters. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible supplies headings for the book as follows:
| Verse reference | Heading |
|---|---|
| 1:1 | (Superscription) |
| 1:2-13 | The Coming Judgment on Judah |
| 1:14-18 | The Great Day of the Lord |
| 2:1-15 | Judgment on Israel's Enemies |
| 3:1-7 | The Wickedness of Jerusalem |
| 3:8-13 | Punishment and Conversion of the Nations |
| 3:14-20 | Song of Joy |
It is important to note that there are a number of different sub-divisions in use for the text with no clear consensus.
Despite its relatively short length, the book of Zephaniah incorporates a number of common prophetic themes. Zephaniah includes one of the most vivid descriptions in the prophetic literature of God’s wrath. Yet, it is also unequivocal in its proclamation of a restoration for those who survive the ‘Great Day of the Lord'.
The book of Zephaniah incorporates a good deal of phrases and terminology which are found in other books of the Bible. This suggests that the author of Zephaniah was familiar with and drew upon earlier Israelite religious tradition and also that later biblical writers regarded the book of Zephaniah as an authoritative (or at least respectable) work in the prophetic corpus.
The book of Zephaniah draws upon several themes from the book of Book of Genesis and reverses them. The opening verses of the book of Zephaniah are reminiscent both of the creation and of Noah’s flood. Chapter 1:2-3 declare that “I will sweep away everything / from the face of the earth says the Lord. / I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air / and the fish of the sea.” The order of the creatures to be destroyed in Zephaniah is the opposite of the order in which they are created in Genesis 1:20-27. It is also worth noting that in both Noah’s flood and Zephaniah’s Day of the Lord, a ‘remnant’ survives God’s wrath.
It is also not surprising that the book of Zephaniah bears marked similarities to the book of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history. Similarities might be expected to each of these works because the Deuteronomistic history covers an overlapping period of time and because the issues which are dealt with in the book of Zephaniah go straight to the heart of the covenant which is reaffirmed in the book of Deuteronomy before Israel enters into the Promised Land of Canaan. The first 3-4 of the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words, Decalogue) contained in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:1-22 directly concern Israel’s relationship with Yahweh. It is this integral component of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel which is threatened by the practices to which the author of the book of Zephaniah refers in 1:4-6. In this manner, Zephaniah invokes one of the most common themes, not only in prophetic literature, but in the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Zephaniah also draws upon the emerging idea that Yahweh is quite different from the regional or tribal gods of the surrounding nations. Rather, Yahweh is beginning to be understood as the only God and the God who rules over all nations. It was an apparently unique belief in the ancient Middle East that a god could send a foreign nation to execute that god’s judgment (as the Israelites believed Yahweh did with Babylon). In the book of Zephaniah, all nations are portrayed as being subject to Yahweh’s divine judgment.
The book of Zephaniah also interacts with the prophetic tradition – both borrowing from and contributing to the corpus in terms of language and images.
Read more about this topic: Book Of Zephaniah
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)