Chapter IV

NINIVE DELENDA

ZEPHANIAH ii. 4–15

There now come a series of oracles on foreign nations, connected with the previous prophecy by the conjunction for, and detailing the worldwide judgment which it had proclaimed. But though dated from the same period as that prophecy, circa 626, these oracles are best treated by themselves.[140]

These oracles originally formed one passage in the well-known Qinah or elegiac measure; but this has suffered sadly both by dilapidation and rebuilding. How mangled the text is may be seen especially from vv. 6 and 14, where the Greek gives us some help in restoring it. The verses (8–11) upon Moab and Ammon cannot be reduced to the metre which both precedes and follows them. Probably, therefore, they are a later addition: nor did Moab and Ammon lie upon the way of the Scythians, who are presumably the invaders pictured by the prophet.[141]

The poem begins with Philistia and the sea-coast, the very path of the Scythian raid.[142] Evidently the latter is imminent, the Philistine cities are shortly to be taken and the whole land reduced to grass. Across the emptied strip the long hope of Israel springs sea-ward; but—mark!—not yet with a vision of the isles beyond. The prophet is satisfied with reaching the edge of the Promised Land: by the sea shall they feed[143] their flocks.

There comes now an oracle upon Moab and Ammon (vv. 8–11). As already said, it is not in the elegiac measure which precedes and follows it, while other features cast a doubt upon its authenticity. Like other oracles on the same peoples, this denounces the loud-mouthed arrogance of the sons of Moab and Ammon.

I have heard[152] the reviling of Moab and the insults of the sons of Ammon, who have reviled My people and vaunted themselves upon their[153] border. Wherefore as I live, saith Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, Moab shall become as Sodom, and Ammon’s sons as Gomorrah—the possession[154] of nettles, and saltpits,[155] and a desolation for ever; the remnant of My people shall spoil them, and the rest of My nation possess them. This to them for their arrogance, because they reviled, and vaunted themselves against, the people of[156] Jehovah of Hosts. Jehovah showeth Himself terrible[157] against them, for He hath made lean[158] all gods of earth, that all the coasts of the nations may worship Him, every man from his own place.[159]

The next oracle is a very short one (ver. 12) upon Egypt, which after its long subjection to Ethiopic dynasties is called, not Miṣraim, but Kush, or Ethiopia. The verse follows on naturally to ver. 7, but is not reducible to the elegiac measure.

Also ye, O Kushites, are the slain of My sword.[160]

The elegiac measure is now renewed[161] in an oracle against Assyria, the climax and front of heathendom (vv. 13–15). It must have been written before 608: there is no reason to doubt that it is Zephaniah’s.

The essence of these oracles is their clear confidence in the fall of Niniveh. From 652, when Egypt revolted from Assyria, and, Assurbanipal notwithstanding, began to push northward, men must have felt, throughout all Western Asia, that the great empire upon the Tigris was beginning to totter. This feeling was strengthened by the Scythian invasion, and after 625 it became a moral certainty that Niniveh would fall[165]—which happened in 607—6. These are the feelings, 625 to 608, which Zephaniah’s oracles reflect. We can hardly over-estimate what they meant. Not a man was then alive who had ever known anything else than the greatness and the glory of Assyria. It was two hundred and thirty years since Israel first felt the weight of her arms.[166] It was more than a hundred since her hosts had swept through Palestine,[167] and for at least fifty her supremacy had been accepted by Judah. Now the colossus began to totter. As she had menaced, so she was menaced. The ruins with which for nigh three centuries she had strewn Western Asia—to these were to be reduced her own impregnable and ancient glory. It was the close of an epoch.