The prophet Zephaniah lived during the reign of King Josiah of Judah, that is, in the second half of the seventh century B.C. What can we, who live more than two-and-a-half millennia later, possibly learn from such a remote personage?
As it happens, we can learn some things indispensable to our understanding of modern Israel as it confronts those who claim that its land belongs to men and women who, in calling themselves ‘Palestinians,’ lay claim to the ancient lineage of the Philistines, rulers of Philistia, one of ancient Israel’s oldest rivals. Even more, Zephaniah teaches about the character of Israel, the people of the Covenant with God, the foundation of Israel’s own claim to the land the Philistines disputed.
“Zephaniah” may mean “the LORD hides” or “the LORD protects.” At the outset of the prophecy, the LORD seems anything but a protector—of His people, or of any people. “I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD,” abruptly, mercilessly. “I will cut man from off the land.” Adam or ‘man’ depends upon the adamah, the land. Cut off from the land, he must die. The LORD intends to wipe all human claimants from the land, even the people He had chosen for it. The LORD speaks of an event more devastating than the Flood, which lasted forty days and forty nights; this sounds like a final judgment and destruction of Judah, whose inhabitants have attempted to worship both God and Moloch in what theologians now call religious ‘syncretism.’ In this they resemble those today who contend that all religions teach essentially the same truths, a contention often animated by the hope that such an amalgamation will put an end to the devastating wars that have wracked humanity for millennia.
Much more than Judah will disappear: “Man and beast,” “the fowls of heaven,” even “the fishes of the sea” will be “consumed” by the LORD, who prepares to sacrifice every living thing on earth in His indignation at the refusal of man, the prince of that earth, to follow His rule, his regime or way of life. God founded His regime not only by revealing His Covenant with the Israelites. He also founded another, lesser regime by revealing the seven Noahide Commandments for all human beings, laws he laid down the previous time He had undone much of His creation with the Flood. Both those who have “turned back from the LORD”—apostates—and “those who have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for Him” in the first place will all perish. What many now call, and praise as, ‘diversity’ of regimes or ways of life will perish, all but one condemned in what the prophet ominously calls “the day of the LORD’s sacrifice,” His “day of wrath.” Neither human political authority, nor mercantile wealth, nor claims of priestly authority will hold out against the real Ruler and Creator of land, sea, and air.
Addressing his fellow Judah-ites, Zephaniah calls them a “nation,” a gôy, no better than the other nations or gôyim because they have broken with the Covenant or ‘constitution’ of God’s regime, living according to the ways of foreigners, going to the rooftops to worship the stars, putting God’s creation ahead of its Creator. Their treason drops them back to the status of the other nations derived from the scattering of mankind at the time God destroyed the Tower of Babel. Like them, they remain under the authority of the Noahide Commandments, but like the other nations they violate those, too.
As always, however, the LORD supplements His justice with His graciousness. “Seek you the LORD, all the meek of the earth”—among all nations—”which have wrought His judgment; seek righteousness, seek humility; it may be you shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.” To seek God instead of the invented idols of the Canaanites, to seek righteousness or justice and humility, means that human beings still have freedom, freedom to repent and to consent to the LORD’s rule, His ‘lordship,’ His innate character as the ruler of His creation. At the same time, “it may be that you shall be hid,” protected; God too maintains His ruler’s freedom to decide and to act. “Zephaniah” indeed does mean both “the LORD hides” and “the LORD protects,” ‘hiding’ His final decision even as He reveals His contingent decision to punish those who refuse His rule of justice and mercy, while protecting those who freely, justly, and humbly consent to that rule.
God then turns to the surrounding nations, first of all the Philistines, “the nation of Cherethites” living in “the land of Canaan” or Philistia. “Cherethites” appears to link the Philistines to the island of Crete, and indeed scholars have long identified them as one of the “Sea Peoples” who repeatedly attacked Egypt beginning in the 12th century B. C. The Egyptians repelled them, finally deflecting them to the coastal plain between what is modern Tel Aviv and Gaza. Founding the Pentapolis—the five cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza—the Philistines remained true to their character as peoples of the sea, participating in the rich trade of the Mediterranean world described in the magisterial scholarly work of Fernand Braudel.
In contrast, the Israelites centered their lives not on the sea but on the land, the land given to them by God after their long enslavement in Egypt, a gift dependent upon their consent to God’s Covenant. Fundamentally different regimes or ways of life will likely clash. This must occur, given the symbolic character of ‘sea’ and ‘land’ throughout the Bible. The sea represents primeval chaos, out of which God gave form to the heavens and the earth. Land is one of the things formed, the stable foundation for a settled way of life. One can be loyal to the land, but the ever-changing sea is a fickle mistress.
Sure enough, the seafaring traders of Philistia fought war after war with the shepherds of the Promised Land, finally defeated by King David in the 10th century B. C. Regrouping after the split between Judah and Israel, they lost their independence to the Assyrians three centuries later, and found themselves under the rule, successively, of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, even as the Judah-ites did. But unlike the Jews, the Philistines disappeared as a distinct people by the late fifth century. Attempts to appropriate their identify by latter-day Arabs living in what Europeans finally named ‘Palestine’ partake of the fanciful tales state-building rulers tell the people they intend to unite and rule about their origins, at times allying or warring with other states and nations similarly organized). But meanwhile the remnant of the Jews, faithful finally to the Covenant, to the constitutional law of God’s regime, continued to live on the stable land promised them by God.
The LORD leaves no room for doubt. “O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy you, that there shall be no inhabitant.” What is more, “the sea coast shall be dwelling and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks.” Shepherds, wedded to the land by their way of life, will replace traders who reside in the ports by the sea. “The coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening; for the LORD their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.”
There is more. The LORD will destroy “all the gods of the earth,” all the idols or ‘gods’ fashioned by human hands from the earth and the products of the earth God created. “And men shall worship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen.” Neither the real diversity of arts, worships, and moralities, nor the false unity of syncretism, will prevail against the rule of the LORD, under His regime, His way of life and His laws and institutions. What began as His direct rule over His distinct people will become His rule over all peoples. “For then I will turn to the people a pure language, that they may call upon the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one consent.” Thus God will reverse the curse He spoke as He destroyed the Tower of Babel, whereby He induced ‘nations’ to form.
The LORD will then live “in the midst of you.” If fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, rejoicing will be its consummation. “He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing.” Fear God when he remains ‘outside’ of your land, but rejoice as he rejoices when He is with you, animating you as you walk willingly and indeed joyfully according to His way.
When is the “day of the LORD,” the “day of wrath”? Zephaniah describes the eradication of the Philistines from the land. He prophecies the eradication of the Moabites, Ammonites, the Ethiopians, the Assyrians (with her great anti-Jerusalem capital, Nineveh. This has proved a work not of a ‘day’ in human terms but of centuries. At the same time, all threatened actions of the Day of Wrath have yet to be completed—unregenerate man, the beasts of the land, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea all remain. The only logical conclusion within the terms laid down by the Bible is that the day of the LORD is not yet over. God’s time is not our time. As suggested by the seven ‘days’ of Creation, a day to God may be an eon to us. We have been living in the Day of Wrath since the days of Zephaniah. The systematic ruin of all the nations has ground along until this day, the day I write these words and the day you read them. The past century saw two worldwide wars, and arguably even greater wars burn today—at sea, in the air, in outer space, and even in ‘cyberspace.’ Nonetheless, God’s remnant lives among us. And human beings still retain the freedom to choose His way.
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