Zephaniah was a relative of King Hezekiah and most likely King Josiah. Prophesying to his relatives, he calls them to a place of repentance for the corruption in the nation. Focusing primarily on the day of the Lord, this strong book will show you the heart of God towards sin, justice and righteousness. God is faithful to his promises, and this book shows that God is coming in the fullness of justice, mercy, hope and blessing all at once.
Have you ever had something that you felt God wanted you to tell someone and you really didn’t want to do it? Maybe it was too awkward, maybe you were scared it was wrong or maybe you were close to the person you needed to prophesy over, and you really didn’t want to say it and then have to hang out with them afterwards. It’s one thing to prophesy over a complete stranger but another to prophesy over family. And in the first verse of Zephaniah, we find out that is what he is about to do.
The Book of Zephaniah is a very small yet powerful book situated in the Old Testament. The first verse acts as an introduction for the person of Zephaniah and the time these words were spoken. That is, during the reign of Josiah, King of Judah, setting the book around 640-630 BC. Apart from this first verse, all the other verses are the words of the Lord, Jehovah.
Sometimes when you are reading the prophetic books, like all the books in the Bible, you can feel culturally distanced from the text and therefore a little frustrated that you can’t understand the culture, nuances and language that it is written in.
We have journeyed through some great details already in our Dives and Deep Dive from Nathan so let’s look at a different way to study the Biblical text in this Deep Dive and look at the nations represented in Zephaniah. TYB Interactive has a map of the different locations of Zephaniah and where they are if you need one.