OT Notes Dec. 16 Zeph. 3:14-20

Zephaniah=hidden/protected/kept safe by god

3:15 the Lord is in your midst has it returned?) Advent looks toward the incarnation, the Lord in the midst of human life itself.the judgemnets are taken away and better times, restoration is ahead
(Most consider the end of Zeph to be a later piece). Like so many apocalyptic  books, Zephaniah does not end on a downbeat note.I am fascinated how differently v.17 will quiet you or be silent or renew you in his love.3:17 is translated.in the masoretic text has be silent in love, by seeing the root as hrs,and the NIV has to quiet you in love, but the NRSV has renew you in love, by going with the Greek translation that assume hds. (In Hebrew script, the r is rounded just as in English script, but the d is written at a  ninety degree angle, and sometimes they can easily be mistaken for each other).. Zephaniah's name may have the sense of God sheltering us.  Yes, we can be  in difficult times, but it does not always have to be that way. End times vision give purpose, a goal, a compass point to our travels. When your heart gets broken, you are engulfed by the sheer weight of pain. You cannot imagine that you will feel better again. You will. One day you will be able to rejoice again, to see the rainbow and not only the rain, again. Ministry needs a future orientation, beyond the brute tyranny of the way things are but imagine the way things could or should be. Is v. could be, what if. It is good not to live in the future, but the future does give us direction and energy to work toward its shape. Bonhoeffer said "the will of God is not a system of rules established at the outset, but a living will, the grace of God that is new every morning."

I love this image of God rejoicing, even singing a song over us. think of it . I think of Wisdom rejoicing in Prov. 8   .God rejoices over you.  Is it classical or country, Mozart or Mellencamp? Does heaven sing Christmas carols? God rejoices over us when we are doing good, and for the sheer unique fact of your existence.

I sometimes, well often,  picture God as basically disappointed in me and the church in general, so I would picture God singling laments or the divine equivalent of a break up song. Does the music have words? What type of music is it?  So then, when does God sing the blues? Song lifts us beyond mere prose; the music lifts us to a different place. The translation in the next line is uncertain. The NIV has God to quiet us, like a mother soothing a hurt child, there, there, or is God quiet, silent, by no longer issuing condemnation, or even the quiet of people comfortable with each other? In the Greek translation it is renewing in God's love? How does that work? Does Advent serve to renew God's love? Maybe in our tired struggles to stay afloat instead of being overwhelmed, we get the strength we need when we no longer can do it all on our own.

I notice that many visions of the future are dystopian. The future is a projection screen for our fears, our dread, as well ashopes and dreams.In our younger daughter’s college class, one can take classes that use zombies as a theme. What to do in a zombie apocalypse is familiar in the pop culture world. So many Halloween costumes basically make death worthy of ridicule. I do wonder about the hold the living dead seem to have in popular culture. is it a projection that we suspect we are not living fully or well?

Our passage moves from the hiding impulse of shame to the public sense of being admired in the outside world. Please notice who is part of the festival parade: the lame and the outcast. We are getting a picture of membership in the messianic banquet, no?     Nogalski asks (7490 if the ending is about the end of the punishments/disasters or the mourning over them. (then see MIc.4:6-7 and p. 750).

this section marks another instance of working with Lady/Dame Zion material.