_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.
_For Gaza forsaken shall be,
Ashḳ’lôn a desert.
Ashdod—by noon shall they rout her,
And Eḳron be torn up!_[144]
_Ah! woe, dwellers of the sea-shore,
Folk of Kerēthim.
The word of Jehovah against thee, Kĕna‘an,[145]
Land of the Philistines!_
_And I destroy thee to the last inhabitant,[146]
And Kereth shall become shepherds’ cots,[147]
And folds for flocks.
And the coast[148] for the remnant of Judah’s house;
By the sea[149] shall they feed.
In Ashḳelon’s houses at even shall they couch;
. . . . . .[150]
For Jehovah their God shall visit them,
And turn their captivity.[151]_
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.
_And may He stretch out His hand against the North,
And destroy Asshur;
And may He turn Niniveh to desolation,
Dry as the desert.
And herds shall couch in her midst.
Every beast of....[162]
Yea, pelican and bittern[163] shall roost on the capitals;
The owl shall hoot in the window,
The raven on the doorstep._
. . . . .[164]
_Such is the City, the Jubilant,
She that sitteth at ease,
She that saith in her heart, I am
And there is none else!
How hath she become desolation!
A lair of beasts.
Every one passing by her hisses,
Shakes his hand._
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[140] See above, pp. 41 ff.
[141] Some, however, think the prophet is speaking in prospect of the
Chaldean invasion of a few years later. This is not so likely, because
he pictures the overthrow of Niniveh as subsequent to the invasion
of Philistia, while the Chaldeans accomplished the latter only after
Niniveh had fallen.
[142] According to Herodotus.
[143] Ver. 7, LXX.
[144] The measure, as said above, is elegiac: alternate lines long
with a rising, and short with a falling, cadence. There is a play
upon the names, at least on the first and last—“Gazzah” or “‘Azzah
‘Azubah”—which in English we might reproduce by the use of Spenser’s
word for “dreary”: _For Gaza ghastful shall be._ “‘Eḳron te’aḳer.”
LXX. Ἀκκαρων ἐκριζωθήσεταὶ (B), ἐκριφήσεται (A). In the second line
we have a slighter assonance, ‘Ashkĕlōn lishĕmamah. In the third the
verb is יְגָרְשׁוּהָ; Bacher (_Z.A.T.W._, 1891, 185 ff.) points out
that גֵּרַשׁ is not used of cities, but of their populations or of
individual men, and suggests (from Abulwalid) יירשוה, _shall possess
her_, as “a plausible emendation.” Schwally (_ibid._, 260) prefers to
alter to יְשָׁרְשׁוּהָ, with the remark that this is not only a good
parallel to תעקר, but suits the LXX. ἐκριφήσεται.—On the expression _by
noon_ see Davidson, _N. H. and Z._, Appendix, Note 2, where he quotes a
parallel expression, in the Senjerli inscription, of Asarhaddon: that
he took Memphis by midday or in half a day (Schrader). This suits the
use of the phrase in Jer. xv. 8, where it is parallel to _suddenly_.
[145] Canaan omitted by Wellhausen, who reads עליך for עליכם. But as
the metre requires a larger number of syllables in the first line
of each couplet than in the second, Kĕna’an should probably remain.
The difficulty is the use of Canaan as synonymous with _Land of the
Philistines_. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is it expressly applied
to the coast south of Carmel, though it is so used in the Egyptian
inscriptions, and even in the Old Testament in a sense which covers
this as well as other lowlying parts of Palestine.
[146] An odd long line, either the remains of two, or perhaps we should
take the two previous lines as one, omitting Canaan.
[147] So LXX.: Hebrew text _and the sea-coast shall become dwellings,
cots_ (כְּרֹת) _of shepherds_. But the pointing and meaning of כרת are
both conjectural, and the _sea-coast_ has probably fallen by mistake
into this verse from the next. On Kereth and Kerethim as names for
Philistia and the Philistines see _Hist. Geog._, p. 171.
[148] LXX. adds _of the sea_. So Wellhausen, but unnecessarily and
improbably for phonetic reasons, as sea has to be read in the next line.
[149] So Wellhausen, reading for עַל־הַיָּם עֲליהֶם.
[150] Some words must have fallen out, for _first_ a short line is
required here by the metre, and _second_ the LXX. have some additional
words, which, however, give us no help to what the lost line was: ἀπὸ
προσώπου υἱῶν Ἰούδα.
[151] As stated above, there is no conclusive reason against the
pre-exilic date of this expression.
[152] Cf. Isa. xvi. 6.
[153] LXX. _My._
[154] Doubtful word, not occurring elsewhere.
[155] Heb. singular.
[156] LXX. omits _the people of_.
[157] LXX. _maketh Himself manifest_, נראה for נורא.
[158] ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. The passive of the verb means _to grow lean_
(Isa. xvii. 4).
[159] מקום has probably here the sense which it has in a few other
passages of the Old Testament, and in Arabic, of _sacred place_.
Many will share Schwally’s doubts (p. 192) about the authenticity of
ver. 11; nor, as Wellhausen points out, does its prediction of the
conversion of the heathen agree with ver. 12, which devotes them to
destruction. Ver. 12 follows naturally on to ver. 7.
[160] Wellhausen reads _His sword_, to agree with the next verse.
Perhaps חרבי is an abbreviation for חרב יהוה.
[161] See Budde, _Z.A.T.W._, 1882, 25.
[162] Heb. reads _a nation_, and Wellhausen translates _ein buntes
Gemisch von Volk_. LXX. _beasts of the earth_.
[163] קאת, a water-bird according to Deut. xiv. 17, Lev. xi. 18, mostly
taken as _pelican_; so R.V. A.V. _cormorant_. קִפֹּד has usually been
taken from קפד, to draw together, therefore _hedgehog_ or _porcupine_.
But the other animals mentioned here are birds, and it is birds
which would naturally roost on capitals. Therefore _bittern_ is the
better rendering (Hitzig, Cheyne). The name is onomatopœic. Cf. Eng.
butter-dump. LXX. translates _chameleons and hedgehogs_.
[164] Heb.: _a voice shall sing in the window, desolation on the
threshold, for He shall uncover the cedar-work_. LXX. καὶ θηρία φωνήσει
ἐν τοῖς διορύγμασιν αὐτῆς, κόρακες ἐν τοῖς πυλῶσιν αὐτῆς, διότι κέδρος
τὸ ἀνάστημα αὐτῆς: Wild beasts shall sound in her excavations, ravens
in her porches, because (the) cedar is her height. For קול, _voice_,
Wellhausen reads כוס, _owl_, and with the LXX. ערב, _raven_, for חרב,
_desolation_. The last two words are left untranslated above. אַרְזָה
occurs only here and is usually taken to mean cedar-work; but it
might be pointed _her_ cedar. ערה, _he_, or _one, has stripped the
cedar-work_.
[165] See above, pp. 17, 18.
[166] At the battle of Karkar, 854.
[167] Under Tiglath-Pileser in 734.