The God Who Sings Over You, Day 9

What if God isn’t only listening to your prayers—what if He’s singing over your life? You may be more welcomed, more wanted, and more rejoiced over than you think.

Sometimes you get a clue about the book’s purpose from the first line. Dickens opens with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Tolkien begins, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Or Melville’s classic “Call me Ishmael.” Some first lines give us the key to the entire book.

In many ways, the first line in prophetic writing functions the same way. Zephaniah begins this way: “The word of the LORD that came to Zephaniah.” His name means “Yahweh protects.” Never waste an opening line. Right from the beginning, the author announces the theme. The biblical narrator tells you what this prophetic book intends to prove: Yahweh protects His people.

And what exactly is Zephaniah preparing us for?

He may not share the prominence of Psalms, Proverbs, or Isaiah, but he leaves you full and ready to ponder God’s ways. Zephaniah needs to be read with delicacy for details, like handling something ancient yet surprisingly alive. One scholar says he is “one of the most politically, socially, and religiously radical of the prophetic books of the Old Testament.”