We Need No More Of This! Reflections on Zephaniah 1

I am the first one to admit that the Bible has more than its share of appalling and dangerous ideas. In that, I concur with my distant colleagues, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, the so-called new atheists. They are quite right to say that the old traditions can be dangerous; they are quite wrong to say that nothing in the old tradition can be beautiful, life giving, and wonderful. With that caveat, let me urge you never to read or expound Zephaniah 1:12-18.This text contains a theology that is all too contemporary with hardheaded and fanatical fundamentalist-conservatives, but it is a theology that needs to be resisted in the strongest possible terms. In grotesque language, this little-known prophet suggests that YHWH is fed up with Israel. Well, there is nothing new or unexpected here, for out of the mouths of the prophets have come similar language; Israel has sinned and God is enraged. However, earlier prophets, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah have pegged those sins as indifference and antipathy toward the poor, the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, in short the marginalized of society. God’s fury is directed again and again against those who are greedy and unconcerned with any but themselves.

That is not Zephaniah’s concern. He names the sin of Israel in 1:12: “At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people, those who thicken on dregs (?), those who say to themselves, ‘YHWH will not do good nor harm.’” In short, Zephaniah is most concerned with any who question the actions of YHWH in the world, who are in effect atheists, or who tend to worship some other gods (see Zeph. 1:4-6). For this prophet, anyone who dares raise any questions about the work of God are cruisin’ for a divine bruisin’. Nonsense!

Does this prophet know nothing of the book of Job, whose major character spends his time doing nothing but questioning loudly and vociferously the actions of God in the world? Far from being bashed in the head for it, Job receives a divine visit along with a wonderful divine revelation that tells him he has argued on the wrong assumptions about God and is given a new way of seeing God. If Zephaniah were responding to Job, he apparently would say that God is having none of that tripe, no questions of God are welcome at all. Zephaniah could well be another friend of Job. Zeph.1:14-18 provides a lurid and disgusting portrait of what YHWH will do to those who dare question. There will be “wrath and distress and anguish and ruin and devastation and darkness and gloom” (Zeph.1:15). The people will “be blinded,” “their blood poured out like dust,” “their flesh like dung” (Zeph.1:17). Now there is a tasty series of metaphors designed to cause any questioners to quail in their boots!

But that is not enough for this furious deity. “In the fire of YHWH’s passion, the whole earth will be consumed, for a full, a terrible end, God will make of all the inhabitants of the earth” (Zeph.1:18)! Goodness gracious! Because a few Judeans ask questions of YHWH, every single person on earth will be destroyed? Does Zephaniah warn of a second universal flood, devoid of the saving boat of Noah? Later, the prophet calls all in Jerusalem to account: “prophets, faithless people, priests, officials, judges,” but “YHWH does no wrong, for YHWH in the city is righteous” (Zeph.3:3-5). When destruction befalls a city, it is YHWH who is the destroyer, YHWH who is responding to those who do not bend the knee, who will not admit that YHWH does all, and they can do nothing right.

This is Pat Robertson or John Hagee who find the hand of a furious God in every human or natural event, whether it be flood, tornado, mass shooting, or any who raise questions against them. God will come in fury. Hurricanes are the result of human questioning, human activity, human behaviors that do not toe a social line that was set in the pre-scientific 18th century. We need take seriously no more these mountebanks of another era, these Zephaniahs of the 21st century. The God of the universe does not punish those who question, or those who refuse to act in ways that our great-grandparents acted. God simply does not reward and punish human behavior in some sort of divine tit for tat. We must give up these childish notions, for their embrace leads to terrible inequities in life; the poor are poor because God has cursed them; nations are strong because God has blessed them; your child dies because you were not faithful enough; your husband left you because you did not do what God demanded you do. And on and on.

Such foolishness is only to be rejected now and forever. We need no more simple-minded words from Zephaniah who would shut us up, keep us in our cribs, and deny us the full use of our brains. We are called to love our God with heart (will and intelligence), selves, mind, and strength. Zephaniah and his minions would keep us infants before God. Enough of such things! We need no more of such talk!