A Feast to Forget

Be silent before the Lord God!  For the day of the Lord is near, because the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests.  “Then it will come about on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I will punish the princes, the king’s sons, and all who clothe themselves with foreign garments.”   Zephaniah 1:7-8  NASB

Sacrifice – Robert Alter makes an important comment about this verse.  “The Hebrew means both ‘slaughter’ and ‘feast,’ and Zephaniah intends the former while playing on the latter as he goes on to represent God inviting guests to the slaughter-feast.”[1]  That’s not exactly what we understand with the translation “sacrifice,” is it?  The NASB choice of “sacrifice” makes this sound as if a holy festival is occurring.  There is no attempt to represent Zephaniah’s play on words.  But Alter is right.  The Hebrew זָבַח (zābaḥ) means both “sacrifice” and “slaughter.”  While it is usually associated with the killing of animals for cultic reasons, it’s fairly clear once we understand the wordplay that God intends the “sacrifice” to be the invited guests.  They are going to attend their own slaughter.  The use of the verb pāqad (to punish) should have tipped us off.  This is a feast you want to avoid.

Of course, we can console ourselves that God’s “slaughter-feast” is for His enemies, those pagan kings and their sons who arrogantly dismiss the true God.  But our consolation is short-lived.  There’s another group on Zephaniah’s list.  “And I will reach out my hand against Judah and against all who dwell in Jerusalem” (1:4).  Judah is going to be swept away in God’s judgment.  Why?  Because they embraced and adopted the same attitudes and actions as those defiant pagan kings.  Ethnicity doesn’t protect them.  We might add, “Neither will adoption.”

As a rule, we don’t spend much time reading the minor prophets.  We concentrate on the great Messianic themes of Isaiah, the eschatological mysteries of Ezekiel and the laments of Jeremiah.  We think all those other guys just had messages from God for Judah and Israel before the captivity.  They’re just historical anecdotes to us.  But that’s a mistake.  The central issue of all the prophets is Torah-less living.  Whether it’s cultic rituals or social justice, God holds all His people accountable.  The words of those minor prophets can easily be applied to our time, especially to the syncretism in our religious practices.  Reading them should scare the Christian population to death.  Doctrinal immunity doesn’t help.  It’s a nice excuse to say that the “Law” was set aside by the cross, but it just isn’t true.  Anyone who really looks would conclude that Moses is just as pertinent today, maybe even more so.  I’m not sure how all this will end, but not well, I’m afraid.

Topical Index:  slaughter, feast, sacrifice, zābaḥ, Zephaniah 1:7-8

[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 2 Prophets, p. 1342, fn. to verse 7