Introduction

1. The Prophet and his Message. Zephaniah, like his young contemporary, Jeremiah, was one of the first to break the long silence of more than half-a-century which followed the death of the great Isaiah. During the reactionary reign of Manasseh the Canaanitish Baal cults and the Assyrian star-worship and the other heathen institutions, to which the prophet alludes in his opening words, had been tolerated without rebuke in Jerusalem and Judah (2 Kings 21:3-6). King and people had repudiated the teachings of the earlier prophets and reverted to the old heathenism, or else adopted the religion and customs of their Assyrian conquerors, although they still, as a nation, continued to worship the Jehovah of their popular belief.

At last, however, the Assyrian empire, which for centuries had stood as the embodiment of heathen might, began to show unmistakable signs of weakness and disintegration. The more thoughtful in Judah also commenced to weary of the crimes and excesses which followed in the train of popular idolatry. Probably a small group of disciples had never ceased to cherish in secret the noble ideals and principles of the earlier prophets, and to work for their ultimate acceptance by the nation. When Isaiah recognised that his teachings were rejected by the princes and people, he had turned with confidence to his disciples and expressed the hope that they would treasure up his doctrine (Isaiah 8:16). This expectation was fully realised, and the eternal principle illustrated that truth, clearly and courageously proclaimed, can never be permanently put down, but will in time surely become a powerful factor in the life of mankind.