{"id":78737,"date":"2020-08-13T12:08:20","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T09:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=78737"},"modified":"2020-08-13T12:39:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T09:39:41","slug":"points-to-ponder-zephaniah-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/points-to-ponder-zephaniah-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Points to Ponder – Zephaniah 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. A family tree with deep roots<\/em>. \u201cZephaniah son of Cushi son of Gedaliah son of Amariah son of Hezekiah, during the reign of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah\u201d (verse 1). Zephaniah\u2019s lineage is presented in unusual detail. What does that mean? Is Zephaniah a descendant of King Hezekiah? Who is Cushi, and what is his origin? Commentators and scholars have suggestions.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The days of Josiah<\/em>. Josiah, during whose reign Zephaniah prophesied, was king over Judah from the year 640 BCE to 609 BCE. He was crowned at the age of 8, after rebels killed his father. In year 12, or 18 of his reign (depends if you go by the Book of Kings or by Chronicles), when he was already an adult, Josiah began to institute religious reforms in Judah, which included refurbishing the Temple, eradicating idol worship that had been very common in Judah since his grandfather, King Menashe\u2019s days, and concentrating the divine cult in the Temple in Jerusalem.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. From prophecy to action<\/em>. In the prophecy of Zephaniah, God gets rid of the pagan priests and idol worshipers. That\u2019s exactly what Josiah did in the religious reform he instituted in the year 622 BCE (details in 2 Kings 23). Was Zephaniah the spiritual inspiration for that program? Is it the prophetic perspective on the political initiative? All these possibilities and more in the commentators.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. What do the sinners think?<\/em> Verse 12 allows us a rare peek inside the heads of those \u201cWho say to themselves, \u2018The LORD will do nothing, good or bad.\u2019\u201d According to them, God simply doesn\u2019t take a stand. Perhaps this feeling is based on the interpretation they have given to the state of the kingdom in the past few decades. During the reign of the righteous King Hezekiah, servant of God, the kingdom experienced a terrible disaster, almost annihilation, in the campaigns of Sennecharib. And in the days of the evil King Menashe – there was peace and security. It seems that God simply does not care.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","image":{"ID":53645,"id":53645,"title":"general-qs-points to ponder","filename":"general-qs-points-to-ponder.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/general-qs-points-to-ponder.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/points-to-ponder-chapter-9\/general-qs-points-to-ponder\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"general-qs-points-to-ponder","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":53644,"date":"2019-04-13 21:49:41","modified":"2019-04-13 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