I haven't given up on this eccentric project I set myself. It's just that many of the remaining books are dauntingly long (the Chronicles, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah) or, like Zephania, obscure (and likely for good reason). I think I have around a dozen to go, which means, if the psalmist is right about the years of man being three score and ten, that I need to tackle two per year if I am to brag about having read and commented on every biblical book in my interview with St. Peter six or seven years hence.
Today, Zephania; in six months, Haggai! Maybe "eccentric" isn't the word.
For me, the Pauline phrase "through a glass, darkly" describes the experience of wading through the three chapters of Zephania. I can make out that God is mad:
"I will utterly sweep away everything
from the face of the earth," says the Lord.
"I will sweep away man and beast;
I will sweep away the birds of the air
and the fish of the sea.
I will overthrow the wicked;
I will cut off mankind
from the face of the earth," says the Lord.
But what is it this time? The commentators concur: it's "religious syncretism" that, according to Zephania, has set him off. The worship of God's chosen, in other words, has been sullied by the incorporation of elements from the religious practices of non-chosen peoples. This explains the references, in the passage following the above, to Canaanite ("Baal"), Ammonite ("Milcom"), and Assyrian ("host of the heavens") religions. To the non-specialist, general reader . . . almost perfectly impenetrable.
Since I haven't much to say about Zephania, let me just point out that the God of the Bible must sometimes confound the theologians. For example, it seems that God's anger does not fit well with his supposed omniscience. Was he surprised that his people would incorporate aspects of Canaanite religion into their worship—or, for that matter, that his directive concerning the tree of knowledge would be ignored? Also, he's hard to please on the details of the worship of him. Amos, Zephania's fellow among the twelve "minor prophets," had inveighed:
I hate, I despise your feasts
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings,
I will not accept them,
and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
There is no suggestion here that the worship practices have been adulterated by foreign influence. The various offerings presumably meet specifications. The problem now is that "good worship" results in complacent piety, the enemy of justice and righteousness, which he chiefly desires. This idea is not altogether absent from Zephania:
Come together and hold assembly, O shameless nation,
before you are driven away like the drifting chaff,
before there comes upon you
the fierce anger of the Lord,
before there comes upon you
the day of the wrath of the Lord.
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
who do his commands;
seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you can be hidden on the day of the wrath of the Lord.
As to the conclusion to the above passage, a commentator directs us to a different parallel passage in Amos:
Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
The strong overall impression one receives is of consuming anger. I hate! I despise! I will sweep you from the face of the earth! The animals, too! And he's not easily appeased. You can be hidden on the day of wrath, perhaps. It may be that the Lord will be gracious. This anger is so obtrusive as almost to obliterate the consistent teaching of Israel's prophets, not ever memorably expressed in Zephania, where it nevertheless is generally still in line with the distillation of, for example, Micah:
He has showed you, O man, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
To give the anger its due, place the emphasis on "showed." God's human, non-omniscient emotion is of exasperation.
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