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ZEPHANIAH ZEPHANIAH
Zephaniah, as it were, ready made. There is no mental
conflict before he can pass through the anticipation of
devastating judgment to the assurance of the victory of
divine love ; and the sharp transitions that characterise
the book are not, as with Hosea, due to sudden revulsion
of feeling, but only mark the passage to some new topic
in the circle of received prophetic truth.
The finest thing in the book-in spite of certain
obscurities, which m,ay be partly due to corruptions of
the text-is the closing passage ; but the description of
the day of Yahwk, the dies ire dies iila of 115, which
furnishes the text of the most striking of medizval
hymns, has perhaps taken firmer hold of the religious
inmgination. Least satisfactory is the treatment of the
judpent on heathen nations, and of their subsequent
conversion to Ynhd (38.10). In the scheme of Isaiah
it is made clear that the fall of the power that shatters
the nations cannot fail to be recognised as Yahwk's
work, for Assyria falls Sefuore YerusaZem as soon as it
seeks to go beyond the limits of the divine commission,
and thus the doctrine ' With us is God' is openly
vindicated before the nations. Zephaniah, on the other
hand, assumes that the convulsions of history are
Yahwe's work, and specially designed for the instruction
and amendment of Israel (36J), and neglects to show
how this conviction, which he himself derives from
Isaiah, is to be brought home by the coming judgment
to the heart of heathen nations. Their own gods,
indeed, will prove helpless (211) ; but that is not
enough to turn their eyes toward Yahwk. Here, therefore,
there is in his eschatology a sensible lacuna, from
which Isaiah's construction is free, and a commencement
of the tendency to look at things from a merely
Israelite standpoint, which is so notable a feature of
the later Apocalyptic.
W. R. S.
It has seemed best to the present writer to leave the
preceding interesting and suggestive article substantially
as it stood in 1888 ; and to append in a supplenient
such additions as seem to be now required.
The integrity of the prophecy has been much more
seriously questioned than it was in 1888.
Kuenen ($ 78, 5-8) in 1889, whilst defending
6. %Cent 21-3 11 against Stade, allowed-on account,
criticism. chiefly, of the great contrast between the denunciation
of 121 31-7 and the promises of
3 14-20 -that 3 14-20 was a supplement, dating rohably
from shortly after the restoration in B.C. 536. &hwally
(ZA TW, 1890, 218 8, 238 240) ascribes to Zephaniah only
12 13-rj, and possibly 2 1-4 (doubting this passage on account
of 13y and 713y 2 3) ; 25-13 he treats as exilic (chiefly on
account of the ' remnant ' 2 7 9), and 3 as post-exilic : the 'single
leading motive' appealed to above by Robertson Smith, he
considers to be evidence only of unity of redaction, not of
unity of author. Wellhausen (1892, (311698) is suspkious of
2 3, and rejects 27a,c, 8-11 ; he treats 3 as an append~x, added
subsequently in two slages first 3 1-7 (cp Mic. 7 1-6), and then
3 8-20 (cp Mic. 7 7-z0:+-3 i-20 being separated from 3 1-7, on
account of the sudden change of tone and subject, consolations
and promises following immediately upon censure and rebuke,
and the heathen not the Jews, being threatened with punishment.
Budde (St. Ki. 1893, pp. 3933) would admit 2 1-3 3 1-5 7 86
[in this order] xi-13 as in harmony with the pre-exilic period,
and a suitable sequel to 1 ; 2 4-1 j he rejects, as inconsistent with
1 (Israel no longer, as in 1, the perpetrator of wrong, but the
victim of wrong, which is now [a. 9 end] to be avenged) ; 3 gf:
is excluded as breaking the connection betwen 38 and 3 Ir .
and 3 rq-zo is alater lyrical epilogue to 3 11-r3. Cornill(Eid.,d
1896, F, 35,3)agrees with Budde. Davidson(r896) defends(998)
2 as a whole admitting only that 2 4-15 may in parts have been
expanded (the Kina-rhythm seems intended to predominate in
these verses ; but in some places, especially 2 5 7, it can be
restored only by considerable textual alterations and 78-11 do
not conform to it at all) ; in 3 he feels doubtful dnly about 3 IO
(which is textually obscure and uncertain) and about the 'ex-
tremely beautiful passage' 3 14-20, which seems to him to spring
from a time when the judgments have already fallen upon
Israel (u. IS), and by its jubilant tone contrasts strangely
with the dark picture 3f guilt 3 1.3 7 and even with the more
sombre hopeiof 3 11-I:,. Nowack(Id97) inlagrees closely with
Wellhausen, only rejecting 2 15 as well as 2 T a,c 8-11 ; in 3, how-
ever, he rejects only (like Budde) 39f: in addition to 3 14-20.
G. A. Smith (1898) accepts (242-45) the whole of 2 except 28-11 ;
in 3 he regards 3 9f: as 'obviously a later insertion,' and 3 14-20
as clearly an epilogue