Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Robert Vining <rvining AT log.on.ca>]

"This is the message that the Lord gave to Zephaniah...The Lord said, "I
am going to destroy everything on earth, all human beings and animals,
birds, and  fish....I will destroy  all mankind, and NO SURVIVORS will
be left. I, the Lord, have spoken.  On the day when the Lord shows His
fury....the whole earth will be destroyed by the fire of His anger. He
will put an end-a sudden end-to everyone who lives on earth" Zeph.
1:1,2,18.

No Survivors!  Wouldn't that be a twist for another TV show sequel!
Also, it seems to be a twist on the biblically favored remnant motif.
God set Noah and his family afloat before His universal annihilation of
all mankind.  God extracted "righteous" Lot and his family from wicked
Sodom and Gomorrah before incinerating the inhabitants as well as the
entire Plain, and the vegetation of the ground.

Questions re: the Zephaniah citation above:  This seems like the
ultimate Apocalypse. But, is it?  Did Z  get carried away with
hyperbole? Or, did he have such a vision of the end times?  Is this a
mundane, near-history; or an eschatological scenario? If Z  had such a
vision, or revelation from God, shall we believe it , or rationalize it?


Are a number of voices/traditions combined in the Book of Z? The
absolutist, radical announcement of God's wrath eventuating in the
total, cosmic destruction of the whole of creation is modified, even
contradicted, throughout the Book of Z,  where, we note,  a number of
times,  the more familiar remnant idea. Is this yet another  example
where the author(s)/editor(s) has/have let contrasting traditions rest
in close proximity to each other, as in other parts of the Bible?

Robert Vining, Owen Sound, Ontario         rvining AT log.on.ca