Zephaniah
A. Judgment upon all nations, especially upon Judah:
1. The word of the Lord came to the prophet
2. The whole world to be punished for ignoring the moral law of the
universe.
3. The judgement will fall especially upon Jerusalem and Judah
4. The judgment is described
5. The day of judgment is near and its devastation will be great
B. A plea for repentance:
1. All the people of earth are to consider their ways
2. Punishment on many nations, beginning with the Philistines
3. Moab and Ammon also to be punished
4. Jehovah will demonstrate once again his power over idols
5. Ethiopians and Assyrians to be destroyed
6. If God punishes heathens for their immorality, his covenant people will
surely not escape
7. God's righteous judgments on heathen nations should cause Judah to
reconsider and repent
C. Promise of future blessings for Israel and the whole world
1. Israel to be restored
2. Israel to be purified
3. Israel to be comforted and blessed
Zephaniah the prophet, the opening verse of the book Zephaniah is given a genealogy stretching back four generations. Starting with the son of Cushi. Cushi could be a personal name, but also means Ethiopian . This raises the question as to whether an editor thought that someone who may have come from foreign, perhaps immigrant stock needed a longer pedigree to justify his true Jewishness. Zephaniah is also the great-grandson of Hezekiah; giving rise to speculation as to whether this was King Hezekiah.
So Zephaniah and Josiah, king of Judah could have been contemporaries. Zephaniah prophesized during the time of Josiah, sometime between 640-609 B.C.E..
Zephaniah has received minimal critical attention. Even those who write about Zephaniah have little regard for its uniqueness. Note the words of Frank Eakin, who says 'Thus we recognize that there was little that was new in the message of Zephaniah. Primarily he built upon the prophetic mentality developed before his time' .
Zephaniah opens his prophecy with an announcement of doom. It begins with broad panorama ( all living beings ) then moves to a much narrow focus ( Judah and Jerusalem ) to those who engage in idolatry and syncretistic religious practices Zephaniah speaks specifically of three types of idolatrous worship which have three loci: Baal worship, conducted in the temple; astral worship, practiced on the rooftops; and the ritual dedicated to the Molekh, performed in the valley of Ben Hinnom.
LaHaye, Tim, and Ed Hindson. The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy. Eugene, OR.: Harvest House Publishers, 2004.
ZEDEKIAH (m) "justice of the Lord" (Hebrew). The name of several characters in the Bible.
In the The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, fukú and zafa are forces depicted as interconnected opposites of each other: fukú is represented as the evils of colonization, and zafa is depicted as the counterspell to fukú. When fukú is first introduced in the book, it is not mentioned without zafa. Throughout the book, fukú is depicted as a faceless man, and zafa is depicted as a golden mongoose. Zafa predates fukú, and continues keeping the de León family safe from harm, whether the family is endangered by the Trujillo regime or not. While at first the novel seems to show them as interconnected forces, the details provided throughout the novel allude to the idea that zafa (good) is more powerful than fukú (evil).
Theologian Vern S. Poythress wrote, “Theological systems, whether dispensationalist, covenantal, Calvinist, Arminian, or even modernist, have a profound influence on the way we approach a given [biblical] text.” There is no portion of scripture that is more influenced by the theological system of dispensationalist than that of biblical prophecy, particularly in the area of God’s redemptive plan from for humanity. The purpose of this essay is to establish that an appropriate understanding of biblical eschatology can best be achieved through a dispensational theological perspective.
The story of David and Goliath is a tale still told in modern day. I assume it
The book of 1 Samuel, a part of the Old Testament, sparks the dawn of the United Kingdom of Israel by telling of its first king, Saul. Samuel is one of the first talked about pre-literary prophets in the bible perhaps because he anointed the first king of the United Kingdom. He is a prophet by definition because he possessed the ability to converse with the almighty Yahweh. Samuel and Saul are key players to the rise of the kingdom but Saul runs into trouble and disobeys God, which leads him to his own inevitable demise.
About 742 BCE the most known prophet, Isaiah comes on the scene. Now this far out guy walks the streets naked for three years telling the King not to ally with the Assyrians. He also speaks of how Jerusalem will be saved from the Assyrians. The Assyrians don’t invade Jerusalem but the Northern Kingdom is destroyed just as Amos predicted fifty years earlier.
Ezekiel meaning the strength of God, is one of the four greater prophets in the Old Testament. Ezekiel was the son of a priest named Buzi. Not much is known about Ezekiel’s childhood; much more is know after the age of twenty-five. Ezekiel was taken captive in the captivity of Jehoiachin, about eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem. He was one of the many members of a community of Jewish people who settled on the banks of the Chebar, a river of Babylon. Ezekiel began prophesying in 595 B.C, and finished prophesying in 573 B.C. Ezekiel prophesied for a period that lasted about twenty-two years. Ezekiel was a married man but little else is known about his family life, he also had a house in his place of exile. His wife died a sudden death during the siege of Jerusalem. He lived among the top of his companions in exile, and their elders consulted with him on all matters.
Zeus, most likely the most renowned god of all gods, the mighty god of lightning has taken part in some of the most widely known myths of all times. Zeus has taken part in many Greek and Roman myths alike, either as Zeus or as his Roman counterpart of Jupiter. Unlike most gods in mythology though, Zeus is the main character in almost all of the myths he is mentioned in. Whether the myth is about his epic clash against the Titans, his fight against the Giants or even about his extramarital affairs, Zeus always seems to come out of these conflicts unaffected and triumphant. When examining Zeus’ character though, it is important to note that Zeus is a god that exhibits human characteristics throughout most of his myths. Growth is one of the many human attributes that Zeus portrays in many of his myths.
It is believed that the book of Habakkuk was written to Judah around the year 606 B.C., as Nineveh no longer exists, so it has to have been written some time after Nahum. There is nothing known about this prophet outside of this book, and it is believed that Habakkuk wrote the book himself, but it is uncertain. His name means "embraced" or could even be the name of an Assyrian flower. Also known as the prophet of the watchtower, he was one of the last prophets to write before the Babylonian captivity. Habakkuk was not written to prophecy to Judah or Israel about their destruction, but was written as if to God, with Habakkuk asking Him questions.
The book of Zephaniah contains messages of divine judgment against Judah and Jerusalem, as well as against other nations. It addresses a rare concentration of references to central issues in the history of ancient Israel. Idolatry, violence, and deception abound in Judah when Zephaniah began prophesying. Zephaniah's prophesying made it clear that Yahweh would execute vengeance upon unrepentant wrongdoers. His adverse judgments would be visited not only upon Judah and Jerusalem, but also upon other peoples: the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Ethiopians, and Assyrians. Significantly, Zephaniah, the prophet, never stands at the center of the book of Zephaniah; the word of Yahweh is at the center of the book. Zephaniah is mentioned only insofar as he is necessary for the interpretation of the text.
The story started when Judah left his brothers and stayed with a man of Adullam named
I have read the book ‘Face’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, a Jamaican author and poet. He grew up in east London where he decided the book should be set. His previous experiences from being a victim of racial discrimination and prejudice and being a teenage rebel, involved in theft and drug crimes gave him a stimulus to write the book. The author himself having been discriminated upon found himself using previous burn victims like Simon Weston, who was badly burnt in the Falklands war, to help his book seem more realistic. This story is about Martin. He's the leader of the Gang of Three, and the classroom joker. He lives in the East End of London. You have to be careful what you say and who you say it to on the streets of Martin's neighborhood - not that Martin is particularly racist.