An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 183: Doom, Gloom and Birdwatching (Zephaniah 1-3)

Zephaniah 1-3
Doom, Gloom and Birdwatching.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Zephaniah 1
“The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.”

Zephaniah’s book begins with a warning from God that He will “utterly consume all things from off the land” which includes man and beast, “fowls of the air” and “fishes of the sea”. The destruction will reach Jerusalem and affect princes in “strange apparel”, merchants, drunks and those who don’t believe on God.

You probably realise by now that I’m a little bored of these Prophecies of Doom, but this one does have some nice, if grim, poetics to it. “That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness”. I mean, that doesn’t leave you in much doubt, does it?

Zephaniah 2

“Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD'S anger.”

Zephaniah suggests meekness as a refuge from God’s anger, and the rest of this chapter is a series of threats to various enemy nations – Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines and so on that God will destroy them. Also that “the cormorant and the bittern” will live in the ruins, which suggests some kind of flooding to me. I don’t have much else to say on this one.

Zephaniah 3
“For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.”

Zephaniah follows up destruction with salvation, promising that the “remnant” who will survive will have their transgressions taken away and will fear no more. The quoted verse popped out at me as it suggests a return to the pre-Babel language, and reminded me of the Pentecostal concept of speaking in tongues. The rest is pretty much as we’ve seen before, although I quite like that the likes of Zephaniah and some of the other minor prophets manage to fit in the whole punishment/salvation arc in three chapters, compared to the sixty or so of the major prophets. It has to be said that there’s merit in brevity.

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