{"id":78829,"date":"2020-08-13T16:34:12","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T13:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=78829"},"modified":"2020-08-13T16:34:12","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T13:34:12","slug":"the-feelings-of-prophecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-feelings-of-prophecy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Feelings of Prophecy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"78829","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":49926,"related_cahpter":"546","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A particularly eloquent and tangible description of dread, devastation and loss\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The book of Zephaniah opens with a stark portrait of destruction. It is initially directed at everything \u201con the face of the earth\u201d (v.2), but as the chapter progresses it becomes specifically targeted at the sinful Judahites inhabiting Jerusalem. In the first half of this chapter, destruction is described repeatedly through two roots: \u05d0.\u05e1.\u05e4., <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">asaf<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, meaning gather or remove, and \u05db.\u05e8.\u05ea, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">karat<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, meaning cut off. The emphasis of these two physical roots reinforces the nature of the destruction, the severing of the connection between human beings and their land and homes. The sins may be of a spiritual nature, but the punishment will be physical. The prophet is reminding us that our actions (and inactions) have consequences in the real world.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The prophet further enhances the physicality of his message through detailed descriptions of the city of Jerusalem itself. The contemporary reader would have been able to picture themselves standing at the Fish Gate or in the Mishneh (v.10), walking through the Machtesh (v.11), imagining the howls and cries of anguish that the prophet foretells echoing in the city around them. We are meant not only to feel the physicality of the prophet\u2019s message, but to be able to put ourselves literally in the place where the punishment will fall, to look around us at the market stalls and houses and alleys of our home and think, \u201cit\u2019s going to happen <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">right here<\/span><\/em><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of this is building up to <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">when<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> this destruction is going to take place. Zephaniah doesn\u2019t give us a calendar date, but he does spend the latter half of this chapter describing the \u201cGreat Day of the Lord\u201d (v.14). This Day will be truly terrible, described with such words as <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>evrah,<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">extreme rage or fury, and <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">shoah u\u2019meshoah<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, words whose root means devastation, ravaging (and is the word used in modern Hebrew for the Holocaust). In verse 15 alone, where these two roots appear, there are no less than <\/span><b>nine<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> descriptive words for this Day, all of them dark and disturbing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many of the prophecies of Tanakh are prophecies of destruction and punishment, but few are as eloquently and expressively described as this one. The prophet doesn\u2019t give us much in the way of specifics, but his dark words and frightening speech leave us with a feeling of dread, and feeling like we can place our own persons into the picture he\u2019s painted. While the prophets are often there to tell us what to think or do or see in front of us, sometimes their most important work is helping us <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">feel<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":78830,"id":78830,"title":"zeph1-dream","filename":"zeph1-dream.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/zeph1-dream.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-feelings-of-prophecy\/zeph1-dream\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"zeph1-dream","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":78829,"date":"2020-08-13 13:32:30","modified":"2022-03-30 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