Dominic Rudman, «A Note on Zephaniah», Vol. 80 (1999) 109-112

The phrase Cr)h yhl) lk t) hzr...hwhy in Zeph 2,11 has long been a source of confusion for commentators and various attempts have been made to explain the term hzr: does YHWH "shrink" the gods by reducing their domains, or can we understand this term as derived from an Aramaic root and translate, "YHWH...will rule..."? An alternative suggestion, long-discarded, takes a more literal line and understands YHWH to "famish" the gods through the withdrawal of burnt offerings made by their worshippers. While this reading is working along the right lines, this passage appears in fact to refer to the Babylonian ritual of providing cult images with formal meals-a practice which will end with the conversion of the nations.

elaborate ritual of these meals, comparable to those of the king, is amply described by Oppenheim: specific cuts of meat and aesthetically arranged fruit were served on golden platters to the image and a linen curtain drawn around it while it "ate" the meal. Then water would be brought for the image to wash its hands and the curtain drawn once more¹⁸. The similarity between the "life" of a cult image and that of a king is underlined further by the fact that they were even taken out to hunt on occasion¹⁹!

        If one considers the conversion of the nations to the worship of Yahweh in the light of these practices, it is clear that the claim that Yahweh will "famish" the gods in Zeph 2,11 probably refers to the withdrawal of the daily meals allocated to the cult images. As Faur notes, "the idol ate the food offered to him, drawing from it the energy needed for his sustenance and the execution of his numerous activities"²⁰.The text in Zeph 2,11 would therefore play ironically on the idea of the withdrawal of this food resulting in the gods becoming "famished" and powerless (just as idol fabrication texts in Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah play on the inability of the Babylonian craftsmen to create a living image)²¹. If commentators such as Kapelrud and Keller are correct in their argument that the text in question is postexilic, it may even have been the specifically Babylonian ceremonies cited above which called to mind the metaphor — although there is no evidence that similar practices did not go on in Palestine before the Babylonian exile.