Oh, my goodness!
Zephaniah
2: 4-7 may present parallels with current conflicts in Israel.
Joyce Voysey
Ed. Readers will find lots of helpful ideas with which to pray about this and other conflicts at https://jsh.christianscience.com/console.
Ed. Here's a link to The Voice Bible for this selection, from the BibleGateway.com site.
Unlike the King James Version (KJV)
of the Bible, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) sets out the book of Zephaniah
in metrical form so that it looks like a poem (the whole book following the
subscription).
The phrase “the great day of the Lord”
in Zeph. 1:14 caught my attention –
The great
day of the Lord is near,
near and
hastening fast….
I wonder if those words call to
mind for our readers a hymn. I hear hymn 82 in the Christian Science hymnal: “God
is working His purpose out”. The second verse refers to hastening
time (italics added):
What can we
do to hasten the time,
The time
that shall surely be,
When the
earth shall be filled with the glory of God
As the
waters cover the sea?
Here is the whole hymn (words by
Arthur C. Ainger:
God is
working His purpose out
As year
succeeds to year,
God is
working His purpose out
And the
time is drawing near;
Nearer and
nearer draws the time,
The time
that shall surely be,
When the
earth shall be filled with the glory of God
As the
waters cover the sea.
What can we
do to work God’s work,
To prosper
and increase
The
brotherhood of all mankind,
The reign
of the Price of Peace?
What can we
do to hasten the time,
The time
that shall surely be,
When the
earth shall be filled with the glory of God
As the
waters cover the sea.
March we
forth in the strength of God
With the
banner of Christ unfurled,
That the
light of the glorious Gospel of truth
May shine
throughout the world;
Fight we
the fight with sorrow and sin,
To set the
captives free,
That the
earth may be filled with the glory of God
As the
waters cover the sea.
In his Continuity of the Bible Series in The Christian Science Journal October 1969, namely Zephaniah: The Dawn of Seventh Century Prophecy, Thomas Leishman suggests that invasion by an enemy—namely "Scythians, great hordes of wild and savage tribesmen"—"symbolized the wrath of God soon to be vented upon a nation that had openly embraced idolatry". It seems that, to Zechariah, “the great day of the Lord” had everything to do with this invasion. The KJV translates: “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly…” (Zeph. 1:14).
I see that the phrase is echoed in
other books of the Bible, and much scholarly writing can be found about it.
I would say that, as the hymn
implies, the Christian Science “day of the Lord” is one of the triumph of good
over evil. Students of Christian Science often share their inspired
interpretations of Bible passages through poetry and hymns*, surely in the way
David and other inspired writers of the Psalms have done through poetry and
songs.
On first reading, Zech. 1:2, 3 which has God “consuming all things from off the land”, is possibly alarming. But the idea came to me that all "things" will be changed from the material to the spiritual. The “day of the Lord” is come through Christian Science. All will be well!
Joyce Voysey
*Another Christian Science hymn
comes to mind: “This is the day the Lord hath made”. Are there any more that
readers can think of?
Readers of this blog may be familiar with the work of Bible
scholar Thomas L. Leishman. His thorough discourses on each and every book of
the Bible for the pages of The Christian Science Journal are remarkable, and
are now at our fingertips with the advent of that indispensable resource for
the student of the Bible, JSH-online.com.
Leishman's short article Zephaniah: The Dawn of Seventh-Century Prophecy (October
1969, The Christian Science Journal) is very helpful. (Most Christian
Science Reading Rooms will be able to help you locate this and other articles for you.)
Here we discover that the people of Judah were being drawn
away from worshipping God. What was influencing them? Leishman explains that
with "the dawning of the seventh century B.C. the influence of the pagan
empire of Assyria was becoming stronger in the affairs of the Hebrew
people."
Furthermore, their king, Manasseh, was not setting a good
example. Leishman sets out Zephaniah's three-pronged argument:
"...the prophet outlines three main points, sometimes
described as the Menace (Chap. 1), the Admonition (2:1 to 3:8), and the Promise
(3:9–20)."
The Menace: "He
envisions the approach of a terrible doom, in the course of which the Scythians
will be invited to have part in the sacrifice of the chosen people (see 1:7).
God, he assures them, "will cut off the remnant of Baal" (verse 4),
all traces of the degrading worship so typical of Manasseh's day, and has no
patience with the blank apathy and lazy inactivity of those who are inclined to
ignore God completely (verses 12–14)."
Blank apathy | Lazy inactivity | Ouch!
Readers can find for themselves the Admonition and the Promise and will be glad to read about
the "faithful and righteous remnant" who heeded the prophet's
warning and resisted the local crowd-think.
Mary Baker Eddy might have been commenting on the role of the prophets when she wrote:
"As silent night foretells the dawn and din of morn; as the dulness of to-day prophesies renewed energy for to-morrow, -- so the pagan philosophies and tribal religions of yesterday but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth century -- religion parting with its materiality." (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 4: 28).
Julie Swannell
Perhaps one of the outstanding messages of the great prophets of the Bible is that we can take nothing for granted. We must think for ourselves.
In a Christian
Science Monitor editorial titled “Anni’s letter” (print:
25/9/23), Mark Sappenfield draws our attention to a letter from Anni Ulich to
her children dated “Berlin, Fall 1977”. In it, Anni urges her
children: “Never stop thinking on your own”.
Anni Ulich has
written extensively for the Christian Science magazines. Her article “Demonstrating
her life purpose” (The Christian Science Journal October 2011)*
praises biographer Robert Peel for his books** on the life of fiercely
independent thinker Mary Baker Eddy, and points to her "clear vision about
the purpose of her life":
"When the first volume of Robert Peel’s
biographies came out, I couldn’t stop reading. I found myself again and again
in tears of joy and gratitude because I realized that Mrs. Eddy was not someone
who came down from a fairytale heaven—she was a woman, like myself, who was
always striving to keep her balance, her health, her happiness, and her peace.
To me, the outstanding thing about her was that she had a clear vision about
the purpose of her life. And that she did whatever was necessary and possible
to express, demonstrate, and live that purpose. As I understand it, this
purpose has much to do with Eddy’s conviction of being one with the Divine, and
of her radical understanding and vision of the complete goodness and love of
God.
"I was so grateful that Peel took her down
from that pedestal of personal adulation where so many of her followers had put
her."
The prophet Zephaniah*** seems to have had a clear vision of the
purpose of his life and fearlessly wrote:
“So get
yourselves together. Shape up! … Seek God, all you quietly disciplined people
who live by God’s justice. Seek God’s right ways. Seek a quiet and disciplined
life. … Gaza is scheduled for demolition …” (The Message, Zeph. 2: 1, 3, 4 (portions).
Thinkers never allow us to drift along!!
Julie Swannell
*Thank you to Joyce Voysey for finding this
article.
**Robert Peel’s trilogy: Mary Baker Eddy:
The Years of Discovery, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial, Mary
Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority
The
period of the great prophets looks something like this:
ISRAEL DIVIDED (NORTH-Israel, SOUTH-Judah) 922-721 BC
Amos
Hosea
I
Isaiah (1-39)
Micah
JUDAH STANDS ALONE 721-587 BC
Zephaniah
Jeremiah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Ezekiel
Destruction of Jerusalem
EXILE IN BABYLONIA 587-538 BC
Lamentations
II
Isaiah (40-55)
PERSIAN RULE 538-333 BC
Edict of Cyrus allows Jews to return to homeland
III
Isaiah (56-66)
Temple
rebuilt (Jerusalem)
Haggai
Zechariah
Proverbs compiled.
Malachi
Obadiah
Ezra
Psalms compiled
Nehemiah’s governorship of Jerusalem
Joel
I did some wondering about how the years were recorded before they were numbered AD (anno Domini or after the birth of Jesus*), and BC (before Christ).
A quick Google search reveals that the BC/AD system was apparently invented in 525AD by Dionysius Exiguus. The birth of Christ Jesus was represented as year 1. Dionysius reasoned that this occurred 753 years after the foundation of Rome. (The Romans generally described years based on who was consul, or by counting forward from the founding of the city of Rome—753BC in our calendar today.) He was wrong because Jesus was born under Herod the Great, who it is believed died in 4BC.
I find it interesting that with Dionysius’ method there was no Year 0. (So, in more recent times, the powers that be had it right when they pronounced 2000 to be the millennium—something fussed about at that time.)
The ancient Greeks counted years from the first Olympic Games, which correlates to 776BC.
The Jewish calendar starts from their idea of when the world was created, i.e. 3760BC. Meanwhile, the Muslim calendar begins with the Hijra, the migration of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622AD.
These days, BC is often replaced with BCE (before the common era); and CE (Common Era) can be used instead of AD.
At this point I can finally comment on Zephaniah. In the very first paragraph we have an example of how events were discussed historically— “the word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah...in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah...” My New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) gives Zephaniah’s dates as 640-609BCE.
Of course, there were oral historians in those days.
What a lot of scholarship has gone into the Bible!
Joyce Voysey
*Ed. The Latin text means “in the year of our Lord”.
