Septuagint: Zephaniah

By Scriptural Research Institute

The Book of Zephaniah is generally considered one of the older surviving books of the Hebrew Scriptures, with most scholars dating it to before the Torah was written, or at least heavily redacted in the time of King Josiah. Most scholars accept that Zephaniah was written by a prophet called Zephaniah between 630 and 612 BC, however, very little is known about him. His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2nd-century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still polytheistic, worshiping the Canaanite gods, as well as statues of Iaw (Masoretic Yahweh), the God the Jews and Samaritans would later worship.

Based on the contents of Zephaniah’s writing, the work must have been composed before the Fall of Nineveh, in 612 BC, and almost certainly before Josiah’s reforms, which began in 622 BC, shortly after the Chaldean revolt of 626 BC. The Chaldean revolt against the Assyrians captured Babylon in its first year and coronated Nabopolassar as King of Babylon. King Josiah switched allegiances quickly from Assyria to Babylon, and four years later began his religious reforms, banning the worship of all gods other than Yahweh, several of which Zephaniah mentioned as being worshiped in Jerusalem in his writing, confirming that he was writing before 622 BC.

Zephaniah mentioned several gods in his book which were explicitly mentioned in 4th Kingdoms (Masoretic Kings), during King Josiah’s religious reforms. The open verses denounce the worship of Ba‘al, which is treated as a proper name, and therefore is a reference to Hadad, the Canaanite storm-god, commonly called Ba‘al. He then denounced those who those worshiped the army of Shamayim, which, based on the Book of Jonah, appears to have been the Canaanite (and Hebrew) name of the Assyrian god Asshur, who by the 7th-century BC had become known as Ansar, which translates as the ‘Whole Sky.’ Shamayim was the name of the Canaanite god of the ‘skies,’ and the god Jonah identified as the god of his Assyrian owner when he went to prophesy in Nineveh. As all of the geographic references in the Book of Jonah locate his life in Assyrian-occupied Samaria, and later the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, it is likely he was a Samaritan slave shortly after the Assyrians had occupied Samaria, as it is recorded that they reduced the entire population to slavery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989852521

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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

SEPTUAGINT: ZEPHANIAH

Digital edition. January 30, 2021

Copyright © 2021 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1-989852-52-1

The Septuagint was translated into Greek at the Library of Alexandria between 250 and 132 BC.

This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020 and 2021, primarily from the Codex Vaticanus, although the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus were also used for reference. Additionally, the Leningrad Codex of the Masoretic Texts, and the Dead Sea Scrolls MurXII and 8HevXIIgr were used for comparative analysis.

The image used for the cover is ‘The Chaldees Destroy the Brazen Sea’ by James Tissot, sketched between 1896 and 1902.

Note: The notes for this book include multiple ancient scripts. For your device to properly render them, it will require a Unicode font capable of displaying Cuneiform, Greek, Hebrew, and Phoenician.

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In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures for the Library of Alexandria, which resulted in the creation of the Septuagint. The original version, published circa 250 BC, only included the Torah, or in Greek terms, the Pentateuch. The Torah is the five books traditionally credited to Moses, circa 1500 BC: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. According to Jewish tradition, the original Torah was lost when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon and was later rewritten by Ezra the Scribe from memory during the Second Temple period. The life of Ezra the Scribe is estimated to have been between 480 and 440 BC, which is around the time that scholars generally believe the current form of the Torah was written.

Some scholars debate whether the Prophets Section was in the version published in 132 BC, and suggest it may have not been added until the early 1st-century BC, however, the twelve ‘minor’ prophets, as Christians call them, appear to have been translated into Greek circa 190 BC, after circulating as a collection in the Canaanite (Paleo-Hebrew) script since the late-Persian era, before 332 BC. The general consensus is that the twelve books were written, or redacted into their current form during the Persian era, between 538 and 332 BC, although some scholars believe Jonah was written later in the early Greek era as it contains no prophecies, and reads more like a Greek adventure poem. The twelve books are set during the decline of the old Samaritan and Judean Kingdoms, parallel to the