[99] See Davidson, 103.
[100] Josiah, born c. 648, succeeded c. 639, was about eighteen in 630, and then appears to have begun his reforms.
[101] See above, pp. [40] f., n. [85].
[102] Jer. i. 5.
[103] See G. B. Gray, Hebrew Proper Names.
[104] Josiah.
[105] It is not usual in the O.T. to carry a man’s genealogy beyond his grandfather, except for some special purpose, or in order to include some ancestor of note. Also the name Hezekiah is very rare apart from the king. The number of names compounded with Jah or Jehovah is another proof that the line is a royal one. The omission of the phrase king of Judah after Hezekiah’s name proves nothing; it may have been of purpose because the phrase has to occur immediately again.
[106] It was not till 652 that a league was made between the Palestine princes and Psamtik I. against Assyria. This certainly would have been the most natural year for a child to be named Kushi. But that would set the birth of Zephaniah as late as 632, and his prophecy towards the end of Josiah’s reign, which we have seen to be improbable on other grounds.
[107] Jer. xxi. 1, xxix. 25, 29, xxxvii. 3, lii. 24 ff.; 2 Kings xxv. 18. The analogous Phœnician name צפנבעל, Saphan-ba’al = “Baal protects or hides,” is found in No. 207 of the Phœnician inscriptions in the Corpus Inscr. Semiticarum.
[108] Chap. i. 15. With the above paragraph cf. Robertson Smith, Encyc. Brit., art. “Zephaniah.”