Zephaniah 2

It’s unclear who the Cheroth, also known as the Cherethites, represented. Some say it’s a nickname for the Philistines. Some add that it refers to the people of Crete, which may have been the original home of the Philistines before they migrated to Canaan, in what are now Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories. In about the 1200s BC, the Philistines, a fierce fighting people, settled in the area with migrating invaders known as Sea Peoples. They apparently came from islands or coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea, possibly neighboring Crete.

Cush, also known as Nubia and Ethiopia, was a region along the Nile River south of Egypt, in what is now Sudan. The Nubian Desert lay just beyond the few miles of fertile land alongside the river. But most people lived on that narrow stretch of fertile land beside the river, then as now.

Nineveh in what is now Mosul, Iraq, was capital of the Assyrian Empire. Babylonians from what is now southern Iraq conquered the Assyrians.

“I Am” is the name of God. That’s what God told Moses when Moses asked for his name in Exodus 3. In the original Hebrew language, Exodus 3:14, God said “Hāyâ (I AM) ᵃšer (WHO) Hāyâ (I AM). Some translations render it “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE,” or “I AM THE ONE WHO ALWAYS IS.” Some scholars say this isn’t really God’s name. They say it’s a description of his name. His name is “I AM,” YAHWEH (YAH way) in Hebrew. God’s cryptic description of his name hints that who he is and what he is like will become obvious when people start seeing what God does. In the story of Moses, God would soon step into their lives in such dramatic ways that generations to come would commemorate them in sacred events such as the Passover sedar meal, which celebrates God freeing the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 12). Here in Zephaniah, God seems to say the Assyrians are too proud of themselves, and that they think of themselves as godlike and all-powerful. God seems to hint that he’ll soon introduce them to southerners: Babylon.