For those of us reading through the Bible in 2018, we are nearing completion of the Old Testament and 3/4 of our way through the Bible! Historical note . In moving from Zephaniah to Haggai you have jumped seventy years from the beginning of the exile of the Jews (and the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC) to the return of the exiles from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Hence, the last three books of the Old Testament are called the "post-exilic prophets", which is a phrase you can use at almost any social gathering and people will take notice. Mountain peaks. The theme of Zephaniah is "the day of the Lord". The day of the Lord usually refers to a period of cataclysmic judgment, and in reading the prophets one is not sure whether it is some calamity soon to come, like the fall of Jerusalem, or a great end-time, cosmic event. Students of the Bible sometimes call this the "mountain peaks of prophecy" or "telescoping" prophecy. [ See gra...