Zephaniah: A Commentary (review)

With his commentary on Zephaniah in the Hermeneia series, Marvin Sweeney adds a further work to his previous comprehensive œuvre on the Prophets. Within the last few years, a number of commentaries on the book of Zephaniah have been published, differing considerably from one another both in methodology and in content.

In the beginning (pp. 1–41), Sweeney offers a comprehensive summary of the different ancient text versions (the masoretic version; the LXX; the Scrolls from the Judean Desert [Nahal Hever Greek HevXIIGr; the Murabba'at Scroll]; Targum, Peshitta, and several Old Latin Versions). The LXX version (and related manuscripts) shows only minor deviations as regards content from the Masoretic text (in my view, Sweeney overestimates the slight modification in the LXX version in Zep 2:1–4, especially when compared e.g. to the textual variants to be found in Isa 6:9f.). The Murabba'at Scroll (Mur 888), too, represents an almost identical text and, thereby, provides evidence of the pre-masoretic textual tradition. In addition, Sweeney presents for each textual witness a comprehensive outline on its socio-historical setting, its textual features, and its viewpoint. More than in other commentaries on the book of Zephaniah, the ancient text versions are not only discussed with regard to their relationship to the Masoretic Text and the reconstruction of the "original" Hebrew text, but taken seriously with reference to the history of the interpretation of the book of Zephaniah.

The exact historical setting of the Zephaniah book is controversial. Although Sweeney does not use a synchronous approach, he nevertheless rejects the assumption of an extensive (post-exilic) redactional work, and presumes only Zep 1:3aβ, 1:4bβ, and 3:20 as later glosses on the rest of the book which he ascribes to the "historical prophet Zephaniah" (p. 14). Since Zep 1:8 (against the court in Jerusalem) mentions only officials and the princes (not the king), Sweeney, like others before him, assumes that Zephaniah prophesied mainly during the first years of Josiah's reign. Zephaniah's words against idolatry such as astral worship (1:4–5) and aping foreign customs could, therefore, be dated before the cultic reform in 622. In his supposition of the socio-historical setting of the book of Zephaniah, Sweeney holds what might be called a "maximalist view" (similar to that of N. Lohfink, "Zephaniah and the Church of the Poor," ThD 32 [1985]: 113–118). Sweeney's position does not lie in the mainstream of Old Testament studies, which in recent years have assessed the editorial re-working and later redactional strata increasingly later, thereby assuming a systematic and comprehensive post-exilic revision not only of single oracles but of the whole book. In any case, however, Sweeney admits that the arrangement of the book within the canon of the Dodekapopheton (in the masoretic version as well as in the LXX) following Habakkuk and preceding Haggai illustrates that the book should be read and understood primarily against the background of the Babylonian destruction and (at least) the exilic circumstances in the early sixth century.

Like the dating of single parts of the book, Sweeney's discussion of its inner structure, too, is controversial. Besides the superscription (1:1) Sweeney presents a two-part-structure (1:2–18; 2:1–3:20), which in turn is subdivided into another two parts (I. 1:2–6; 1:7–18; II. 2:1–4;2:5–3:20), the announcement of the Day of YHWH and the Parenesis ("Seek YHWH and avoid the punishment on the Day of YHWH," p. 10). Sweeney emphasizes that even the oracles of punishment as well as the Woe-sequences of the book (2:5–15; 3:1–20) indicate that the prophet's persuasive task encompasses the whole book.

Within the commentary itself, a comprehensive form-critical treatise of the whole section as well as a verse-for-verse interpretation follows the translation with a detailed textual criticism. More than his predecessors, Sweeney reads the book consistently against a cultic background, as if he wants to...