Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/1206

 threatens what still remains of Baal with His outstretched arm of punishment. For however correct the remark (of Delitzsch) may be, that in the form in which the prophecy lies before us it contains no trace of any intention to promote the work taken in hand by the king, and that the state of the nation as reflected therein is not a progressive one in process of reformation, but appears rather to be a finished one and ripe for judgment; the latter only applies to the mass of the nation, who were incorrigible, and therefore ripe for judgment, and does not preclude the existence of a better kernel, to which the prophet could still preach repentance, and cry, “Seek ye the Lord, seek humility; perhaps ye may be hidden in the day of Jehovah” (Zep 2:3). But the nation was in this state not only after the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, but also before it; and the efforts of the pious king to exterminate idolatry, and to raise and revive the worship of Jehovah, could effect no further alteration in this, than that individuals out of the corrupt mass were converted, and were saved from destruction. The measure of the sin, which was inevitable followed by the destruction of the kingdom of Judah, had been already filled by Manasseh, and Josiah's reformation could only effect a postponement, and not avert the threatened judgment (compare 2Ki 12:10-16 with 2Ki 23:26-27). 2. The Book of Zephaniah does not contain two or three prophetic addresses, but the quintessence of the oral proclamations of the prophet condensed into one lengthened prophecy, commencing with the threat of judgment (ch. 1), proceeding to an exhortation to repentance (ch. 2-3:8), and concluding with a promise of the salvation which would flourish for the remnant of Israel after the termination of the judgment (Zep 3:9-20). This is arranged in three sections. The first section consists of the first chapter; the second reaches from Zep 2:1 to Zep 3:8; and the third comprises Zep 3:9-20. This division is indicated by both the contents and the form of the announcement: by the contents, since the first two parts threaten the judgment and assign the reason, whilst the third follows with the promise; by the form, inasmuch as the thought in Zep 1:18, “All the earth shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy,” is repeated as a refrain in Zep 3:8, and the hōi in Zep 2:5