[95] The ideal of chap. i.—ii. 3, of the final security of a poor and lowly remnant of Israel, “necessarily implies that they shall no longer be threatened by hostility from without, and this condition is satisfied by the prophet’s view of the impending judgment on the ancient enemies of his nation,” _i.e._ those mentioned in ii. 4-15 (Robertson Smith, _Encyc. Brit._, art. “Zephaniah”). [96] See, however, Davidson for some linguistic reasons for taking the two sections as one. Robertson Smith, also in 1888 (_Encyc. Brit._, art. “Zephaniah”), assumed (though not without pointing out the possibility of the addition of other pieces to the genuine prophecies of Zephaniah) that “a single leading motive runs through the whole” book, and “the first two chapters would be incomplete without the third, which moreover is certainly pre-exilic (vv. 1-4) and presents specific points of contact with what precedes, as well as a general agreement in style and idea.” [97] Schwally (234) thinks that the epithet צדיק (ver. 5) was first applied to Jehovah by the Second Isaiah (xlv. 21, lxiv. 2, xlii. 21), and became frequent from his time on. In disproof Budde (3398) quotes Exod. ix. 27, Jer. xii. 1, Lam. i. 18. Schwally also points to ‎נצדו as borrowed from Aramaic. [98] Budde, p. 395; Davidson, 103. Schwally (230 ff.) seeks to prove the unity of 9 and 10 with the context, but he has apparently mistaken the meaning of ver. 8 (231). That surely does not mean that the nations are gathered in order to punish the godlessness of the Jews, but that they may themselves be punished. [99] See Davidson, 103. CHAPTER III _THE PROPHET AND THE REFORMERS_ ZEPHANIAH i.—ii. 3 Towards the year 625, when King Josiah had passed out of his minority,[100] and was making his first efforts at religious reform, prophecy, long slumbering, awoke again in Israel.