ZEPH'ANI'AH .cyphanyah or hanyriliti, Yahweh hides or defends). The prophet whose work is contained in the ninth book of the Ninor Prophets. Nothing is known of him personally except that he was the de scendant in the fourth generation of Ilezekiah, and, since this name is not common, it has been supposed by some. without distinct historical warrant, that this Hezekiah was the King of Judah. Zephaniah is said to have prophesied in the reign of Josiah, King of Judah (v.h3D-dO3 n.c.). From the allusions to political events and social conditions in the hook it appears that the prophet's activity must have fallen before the Reformation in .Tosiah's eighteenth year. (See JosiAn.) The book may he divided into three parts: (a) Chapter i.. containing an announce ment of a general destruction of the world. which, however, is directed more particularly against the idolaters and apostates in Jerusalem and Judah. (h) In the second part (ii. 7) the prophet urges to repentance as the only means of escaping the threatened (loom, which will bring destruction also to the Philistines, to Noah, Ammon, Ethiopia, and even to Assyria.
Turning again to Jerusalem he dwells upon the evils found therein, especially the corruption of her judges and great men. (c) The third part (iii. 8-20) is of a conciliatory character. The purified 'remnant' will dwell in safety in their own land, and a. blissful future is in store for both land and people after the reproach now resting upon them shall have been removed. The authenticity of the hook has been questioned, and it at least shows traces of editing long subsequent to the period with which it deals. The languago is foreihle and picturesque, and the contrast be tween the sombre tone of the first two chapters and the buoyant one of the last is striking evi dence of the writer's mastery of style. Consult, besides the works mentioned in the article Alison PROPHETS: Strauss, latieinia Zephaniir (Berlin, 1843) ; Seliwally, in Zeitschrift fiir alttestament liche Misscosehaft (1390) ; Budde, "Die Biicher Habakkuk und Sephanja," in Studien und Kritiken (1393) ; Davidson, "Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah," in the Cambridge Bible for and Colleges (Cambridge, 1896).