Zephaniah
Introduction
Person of the Prophet. - Zephaniah's family is traced back in the heading to his book through four members, namely, to his great-great-grandfather Hezekiah; from which it has been justly inferred, that inasmuch as the father only is mentioned as a general rule, Hezekiah must have been a celebrated man, and that in all probability the king of that name is intended. For the only other person of such a name mentioned in the earlier history is an Ephraimite called Yehizkiyâh in 2Ch 28:12, and he can hardly be the person intended. The circumstance that Hezekiah is not described as the king of that name by the predicate hammelekh or melekh Yehūdâh, furnishes no decided argument against this assumption, but may probably be explained on the ground that the predicate “king of Judah” follows immediately afterwards in connection with Josiah's name. There is still less force in the objection, that in the genealogy of the kings only two generations occur between Hezekiah and Josiah, inasmuch as Manasseh reigned for fifty-five years, that is to say, for nearly two generations. The name Zephaniah (Tsephanyâh), i.e., he whom Jehovah hides or shelters, not “speculator et arcanorum Dei cognitor,” as Jerome explains it according to an erroneous derivation from tsâphâh instead of tsâphân, occurs again as the name of a priest (Jer 21:1; Jer 29:25, etc.), as well as of other persons (cf. Zec 6:10, Zec 6:14; 1Ch 6:21). The lxx write it Σοφονίας, Sophonias, according to their usual custom of expressing צ by σ, and the Sheva by a short vowel which is regulated by the full vowel that follows; they have also changed the a into o, as in the case of Γοδολίου for Gedalyâh in Zep 1:1. Nothing further is known concerning the prophet's life. The statement
