CHAPTER XIV

STUDIES IN ZEPHANIAH, HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, AND

MALACHI

Zephaniah. All that is known of the prophet Zephaniah is given in the introduction to his prophecy. There his descent is recorded for four generations. In his genealogical line he mentions Hezekiah, who is supposed by some scholars to be the king of that name; in that case, Zephaniah was a prince as well as prophet. He prophesies "in the days of Josiah, King of Judah”; and the moral conditions he describes, evidently existed before the reformation effected in the eighteenth year of that sovereign1 (621 B.C.). The date of Zephaniah's prophecy may therefore be approximately fixed at 630 b.c.

This brief book of prophecy may be divided into three parts: (1) the menace of judgment (chapter 1); (2) the admonition to reformation (chapters 2-3: 7); and (3) the promise of future glory (chapter 3: 8-20). In this arrangement we recognize the characteristic spirit of Hebrew prophecy. Contemporary with Jeremiah, Zephaniah points out substantially the same corrupt condition of individual and social life. He charges Judah with idolatry, injustice, oppression, hardened impiety, and pagan customs, which

1 See 2 Kings 23.

2 "The prophets, being public teachers, occupy themselves with the life of the people. And the standard which they apply is just, as a rule, the covenant relation, i.e. the Decalogue. Hence Israel's sin is usually of two kinds: either forsaking of Jehovah, God of Israel, or social wrong-doing of the members of the covenant people to one another. But what gives its meaning to all they say is their vivid religious conception of Jehovah as a person in immediate relation to the people." - DAVIDSON, "Theology of the Old Testament," p. 213.

he foresees will end in judgment and disaster. As a whole the prophecy of Zephaniah presents a picture of judgment and desolation, which is lighted up only by the triumphant pæan at its close. "No hotter book," says George Adam Smith, "lies in all the Old Testament. Neither dew nor grass nor tree nor any blossom lives in it, but it is everywhere fire, smoke, darkness, drifting chaff, ruins, nettles, saltpits, and owls and ravens looking down from the windows of desolate palaces." 1

A Picture of Judgment. — The prophecy opens abruptly with dire threatenings. The day of the Lord, which is presented as an occasion of inexorable judgment, is pronounced near at hand. The scenes of desolation, which the prophet describes, seem to be drawn from the widespread destruction wrought by the Scythians, who about this time, as Herodotus tells us, "became masters of all Asia." 2 Here is a part of the prophet's gloomy picture :"The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, Even the voice of the day of the Lord:

The mighty man shall cry there bitterly.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress,

A day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness,

A day of the trumpet and alarm

Against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.

And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, Because they have sinned against the Lord.”8

Admonition to Repentance. The whole of chapter 2 and the opening of chapter 3 contain an earnest admonition to repentance and reformation. The conditional character of prophecy is recognized; and it is yet possi

1 George Adam Smith, "Book of the Twelve Prophets," Vol. II., p. 48.

2 Herodotus, Bk. I., ch. 104.

8 Zeph. 1: 14-17.

ble, the prophet declares, to escape the threatened destruction by a humble and righteous spirit:

"Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth,

Which have wrought His judgment; seek righteousness, seek meek

It

ness:

be may ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger. The destruction of the Philistines, of Moab, Ammon, Ethiopia, and even Nineveh, is in succession foretold. Their destruction is represented as a vain warning to Judah:

"I have cut off the nations: their towns are desolate;

I made their streets waste, that none passeth by:

Their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man,

That there is none inhabitant.

I said, Surely thou wilt fear Me, thou wilt receive instruction;

So their dwelling should not be cut off, however I punished them:
But they rose early and corrupted all their doings."2

At the beginning of the third chapter we find an enumeration of the iniquities of which Jerusalem was guilty, and from which the city was admonished to turn :

"She trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God.

Her princes within her are roaring lions;

Her judges are evening wolves;

They leave nothing till the morrow.

Her prophets are light and treacherous persons:

Her priests have polluted the sanctuary,

They have done violence to the law."8

Future Glory. But the prophet does not let his address end in the desolations of divine judgment. A pious remnant of Judah, who "shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies," is to be saved. "They shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid." Therefore,

1 Zeph. 2:3.

2 Zeph. 3:6,7.

8 Zeph. 3:2-4.

"Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel;

Be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.
The Lord hath taken away thy judgments,

He hath cast out thine enemy :

The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee:

Thou shalt not see evil any more.

In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not;

And to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, He will save,
He will rejoice over thee with joy;

He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing."

Post-exilic Prophecy. - The three remaining prophetsHaggai, Zechariah, and Malachi — all belong to the postexilic period. The destruction of the Hebrew monarchy and the long sojourn of the Jews in captivity had profoundly altered their thought and life. With the disappearance of their political state, the Jews thought more of an ecclesiastical state. Their thoughts turned from present humiliation to future glory. The priesthood acquired a new prominence in Jewish life, and the outward ceremonies of worship received a new emphasis.2

This revolution in the social and religious life of the Jews is reflected, to a greater or less degree, in the writings of the post-exilic prophets. There is no longer the deep ethical spirit that belonged to Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, and that made these men heroic in the service of righteousness. In place of an irrepressible indignation over individual and social wrongs, there is anxious concern

1 Zeph. 3: 14-17.

2" In the place of the monarchy rose the hierarchy. The old military and royal aristocracy also vanished, and instead appeared a priestly nobility, with the high priest at its head. Israel became literally 'a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The radical change in the external organization of the Jewish race was but an index of the deeper fact that its energies had been turned into entirely different channels. Ritual and religion, not politics, commanded the attention of its leaders." KENT, "History of the Jewish People," Vol. III., p. 94.

for the outward forms of religion. In this post-exilic period was laid the foundation of the Pharisaic formalism that aroused the moral indignation of Christ.

Haggai. The short prophecy of Haggai deals with the rebuilding of the temple under Zerubbabel. It consists of a summary of four discourses which the prophet delivered at brief intervals. It is partly in prose and partly in poetry; but nowhere does it reach a very high literary excellence. Still it is possible to undervalue it; and, as Cornill remarks, "in its very simplicity and modesty, as the utterance of a heart deeply moved by a striking situation, it has something uncommonly attractive, and even pathetic." As we are able to determine from the definite statements of time in the prophecy, the several discourses were delivered between September and December in the year 520 B.C.

1

The occasion of the first discourse shows us the pious spirit of the prophet, who appears to have been an old man. It was now sixteen years since the Jewish exiles had returned from Babylon; and though many of them possessed wealth, and lived in luxurious houses, the temple remained unbuilt. The prophet reproaches the people for their neglect, and at the same time interprets a failure of crops as a mark of Jehovah's displeasure:

"Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in ceiled houses, ·

And this house lie waste?

Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
Ye have sown much and bring in little;

Ye eat, but ye have not enough;

Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink;

Ye clothe you, but there is none warm;

And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put into a bag with holes."

1 Cornill, "Einleitung in das Alte Testament," p. 198.