the ninth in order of the minor prophets, both in the Hebrew and Greek copies of the Scriptures. The name seems to have been a common one among the Jews. Contrary to usual custom, the pedigree of the prophet is traced back for four generations—"the son of Cushii, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah." We have reason for supposing that he flourished during the earlier portion of Josiah's reign. At all events, he flourished between the years 642 B.C. and 611 B.C.; and the portion of his prophecy which refers to the destruction of the Assyrian empire must have been delivered prior to the year 625 B.C., the year in which Nineveh fell.

The Book of Zephaniah consists of only three chapters. In the first the sins of the nation are severely reprimanded, and a day of fearful retribution is menaced. The circuit of reference is wider in the second chapter, and the ungodly and persecuting states in the neighbourhood of Judaea are also doomed; but in the third section, while the prophet inveighs bitterly against Jerusalem and her magnates, he concludes with the cheering prospect of her ultimate settlement and blissful theocratic enjoyment. It has been disputed what the enemies are with whose desolating inroads he threatens Judah. The ordinary and most probable opinion however is, that the foes whose period of invasion was "a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities and against the high towers" (ch. i. 16), were the Chaldeans.

The language of Zephaniah is pure; it has not the classic ease and elegance of the earlier compositions, but it wants the degenerate feebleness and Aramaic corruption of the succeeding era. His style has not the sustained majesty of Zephyrus Tanah, or the sublime and original energy of Joel: it has no prominent feature of distinction; yet its delineations are graphic, and many of its touches are bold and striking.