1. Zephaniah 1:1 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is significant about the prophecy’s beginning with “the word of the LORD”?

Zephaniah 1:1 (ESV)

1 The word of the LORD that came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.

The expression word of the Lord occurs 242 times in the Old Testament, with 225 of these as a technical term for verbal revelation through the prophets.1 The word is the word of Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel. Many of the prophetic writings begin with this phrase (e.g., Jeremiah 1:2; Hosea 1:1; Joel 1:1; Jonah 1:1; Haggai 1:1; Zechariah 1:1; Malachi 1:1). Zephaniah follows the prophetic pattern. To begin by calling the prophecy the word of the Lord is to attest to the divine authority of the book’s message, one that requires its audience to hear and to follow.2