There are several Zephaniah\u2019s in the bible. One was the son of Maaseiah the second priest in the reign of Zedekiah, often mentioned in the prophecy of Jeremiah (see21:1) having been sent by the king regarding coming woes to entreat the prophet\u2019s intercession that the threatened judgment. He was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar II at Riblah (2 Kings 25:21).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another was a Kohathite ancestor of Samuel (1 Chronicles 6:36).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A third was the father of Josiah, the priest who dwelt in Jerusalem when Darius I<\/a> issued the decree that the temple should be rebuilt … (Zechariah 6:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The best known is Zephaniah the son of Cushi, and great-great grandson of king Hezekiah. This Zephaniah is the writer of this book. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah the prophet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Judean King Josiah (641\/40\u2013609 BC) (1:1), and the prophet\u2019s preaching would have advanced the king\u2019s reforms in 621 BC (2 Kings 22,23; 2 Chronicles 34,35) The prophet probably ministered in 622 or 621 BC after Josiah found the Book of the Law but before the reform movement was fully established. Zephaniah\u2019s preaching warned all Judah to repent and patiently pursue the Lord. Additionally, the book addresses other nations (2:5, 12) and speaks of global punishment (1:2\u20133, 14\u201318; 2:5\u201315) and restoration (see esp. 3:8\u201310), which suggests that the prophet was speaking warning and hope to both Judah and<\/em> her neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zephaniah\u2019s prophecy was written to comfort the faithful remnant of Judah in their time of deep distress. The nation was being warned to repent of their sinful ways and return to the Lord, or He would chasten them for their wrongdoing. Israel was encircled by many God-hating, hostile nations, corrupt people and cities of violence, which often enticed God’s people away from serving Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He seems to know Jerusalem well and this is the scene of his activity. Under the two preceding kings, Amon and Manasseh the worship of Baal and Astarte had become rife with its culture and immorality. Josiah wanted to put an end to that in the holy places and one of his main supporters was Zephaniah. Zephaniah\u2019s many references to temple worship display a strong familiarity with Israel\u2019s religious culture. His message paints the picture of a man who was at the centre of Judah\u2019s political and religious world, a man whose close proximity to those in power would have given his shocking message an even greater impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zephaniah predicted the destruction of Judah<\/a> for the evil committed by its occupants, the prophet spoke against the religious and moral corruption, when, in view of the idolatry which had penetrated even into the sanctuary, he warned that God would “destroy out of this place the remnant of Baal, and the names of the idolatrous priests” (1:4), and pleaded for a return to the simplicity of their fathers instead of the luxurious foreign clothing which was worn especially in aristocratic circles (1:8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The age of Zephaniah was also a key historical period, because the lands of Western Asia were overrun by foreigners due to the migration of the Scythians<\/a> in the last decades of the seventh century BC, and because Jerusalem was only a few decades before its downfall in 586 BC<\/a>. In light of these events, a message of impending judgment is the primary burden of Zephaniah\u2019s preaching (1:7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The name Zephaniah means \u201cYahweh hides\u201d or \u201cYahweh has hidden.\u201d Zephaniah was almost certainly born during the long, wicked reign of Manasseh, whose reign began 55 years before the start of Josiah\u2019s reign. Zephaniah was probably hidden for his own protection. It appears that Zephaniah grew up under the reign of Josiah\u2019s predecessors: Josiah\u2019s grandfather, the evil king Manasseh, and Manasseh\u2019s son, the young and evil Amon. As a young man, he would have been surrounded by the trappings of idolatry, child sacrifice, and unjust killings. However, Zephaniah grew into a man of God, able to stand before the people and proclaim God\u2019s message of judgment and hope to a people that had gone astray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Josiah was a godly, young king who brought great revival and reform to Judah, but Josiah reigned for 10 years before he led his great revival. Zephaniah was probably written in the years before the revival, and God used this prophecy to bring and to further revival. However, since Zephaniah predicts the destruction of Nineveh (which happened in 612 B.C.) we know that his prophecy belongs to the first part of the reign of King Josiah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zephaniah is the last of the pre-exilic prophets, that is the nine who prophesied before the Babylonians conquered Judah and took them into exile. The last three of the prophets were post-exilic in that they prophesied after Israel had returned from exile. He seems to sum up the previous prophets, we know as the minor prophets, but they were neither minor in message nor importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One commentator says that this book mentions the day of the Lord more than any other book in the Old Testament, showing Judah\u2019s defeat to Babylon and the eventual judgment and restoration of all humanity in the future. In this case, it refers primarily to God\u2019s impending time of judgment on the nation of Judah. Zephaniah saw in the day of the Lord the destruction of his country, his neighbours, and eventually the whole earth (Zephaniah 1:2<\/a>, 4<\/a>; 2:10<\/a>). Zephaniah wrote that the day of the Lord was near (1:14), that it would be a time of wrath (1:15), that it would come as judgment on sin (1:17), and that ultimately<\/a> it would result in the blessing of God\u2019s presence among His people (3:17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we embark on the book itself, what can we learn as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in our day? We can make a mockery of worship when we live in open, blatant sin. We can come to the Lord with a false fa\u00e7ade, looking the part, talking the talk but not walking the walk. Zephaniah seeks to to remind us how seriously God takes our life and our relationship with Him. At the end of the line, if we have failed, remember the message of Zephaniah 3\u2014God is always a God of restoration and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus alluded to Zephaniah in Matthew 13:41 and Matthew 24:29, although the Messiah is not specifically mentioned, He is the only who will fulfil the promises of chapter 3. Whilst I do not believe that there are true prophets today, people often seek them because these false prophets usually, if not always, seek to foretell good things, which will tickle our itching ears, and not bad things, which we don\u2019t want to hear. Zephaniah, however, gives fierce and grim warnings about future times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are several Zephaniah\u2019s in the bible. One was the son of Maaseiah the second priest in the reign of Zedekiah, often mentioned in the prophecy of Jeremiah (see21:1) having been sent by the king regarding coming woes to entreat the prophet\u2019s intercession that the threatened judgment. He was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar II […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zephaniah"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n