Relations between Assyria and Judah went back more than one hundred years prior to the time of Zephaniah. Isaiah had predicted the victory of Assyria over the eastern Mediterranean region. By Zephaniah’s time, the Aramean and Israelite kingdoms had been subjugated, and their populations exiled. Sennacherib had invaded Judah (701 BC), and Hezekiah had been forced to pay tribute. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh spent time in Babylon as a part of a reform program to ensure his loyalties to Assyria (2 Chron. 33:11). Josiah had to decide where his loyalties lay. He could avoid political problems by pleasing Assyria, which had been the dominant power for over a century. Due to the length of Assyria’s rule, the extent of its military power, and its proximity to Jerusalem, Assyrian influence on Israel’s …