Audio of Tachick Zephaniah Presentation

Sunday School Presentation on Zeph 3
March 10, 2019, I presented on Zephaniah 3:8-20 in my Sunday school class at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

• Click here for the audio recording (the recording intro says it is Jason, but actually I am the speaker!)
• Powerpoint for Zephaniah 3:8-20 presentation
• Text hierarchy of Zephaniah 3:8-20 

Book Publication and Summary
My book was published last year and can be found at Amazon or P&R:

Christopher S. Tachick, "King of Israel" and "Do Not Fear, Daughter of Zion": The Use of Zephaniah 3 in John 12. Reformed Academic Dissertations. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2018.

Scholars commonly indicate that John 12:13-15 cite Psalm 118:25-26 and Zechariah 9:9:

"So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!' And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 'Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.'"

But Psalm 118 does not have "King of Israel," and Zechariah actually calls his audience to "rejoice" instead of "fear not." I argue that John intentionally alludes to Zephaniah 3:14-15, the only place in the OT that includes both "King of Israel" as Yahweh, and "Fear not" addressed to "daughter of Zion."

Readers and Foreword
My thesis advisor was Jason DeRouchie, Brian Tabb was a reader, and Andreas Köstenberger was my external reader. I follow the methodology laid out for New Testament use of the Old Testament in works like G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker, 2007).

Jason graciously agreed to write the foreword which can be found here.

Related posts
Book release

Judson and Bible Translation and Zephaniah

John Hans de Jong analyzed Adoniram Judson's translation of Zephaniah into Burmese, finding it had a high register but missed the target occasionally. The Bible Translator provides the following abstract of de Jong's article:

Adoniram Judson’s 1840 translation of the Bible into Burmese (Myanmar) remains the most used version amongst Protestants in Myanmar. This article examines in detail Judson’s translation of the book of Zephaniah, comparing it with the Hebrew text, in order to assess translation tendencies and identify specific areas that revision would need to address. The analysis reveals that Judson’s translation is of a high standard due to his thorough scholarship. Nevertheless, several areas emerge where improvement could be made. One is in passages where biblical scholarship has made advances in the understanding of texts since Judson’s time. The Judson Bible also has a restricted vocabulary in places where it could be expanded, and in other passages Judson gives a free translation which at times could be improved to translate the Hebrew text more clearly. Another area for improvement is consistency in translating some words and phrases.