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Zephaniah 1:2-3 states:
2 “I will utterly sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. 3 “I will sweep away man and beast;
I will sweep away the birds of the heavens
and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked.
I will cut off mankind
from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.
I have seen references to this as evidence for the use of hyperbole in the OT. More specifically, I am reading The Lost World of the Flood, and the authors make the case that this passage is evidence in support of their assertion that The Flood account in Genesis, despite its clearly universal language, would have been understood as hyperbolic by the author and their audience. Their assertion seems to be that this passage in Zephaniah uses universal language directed exclusively at the coming destruction of Jerusalem, rather than an universal opening that is eschatological in nature, and subsequently followed by specific prophecy focused on Jerusalem.
We contend that employing universalistic rhetoric to portray the
impact and significance of the flood as a cosmic cataclysm does not
mean that the ancient Israelites or the author considered the physical
scope or geographical range to be universal. Other uses of
universalistic language used rhetorically as hyperbole can be
identified in Lamentations 2:22 (where the lament over the Babylonian
destruction of Jerusalem indicates that there were no survivors, when
we are well aware from the rest of the Old Testament that some were
taken into exile and others remained in the land) and a similar
discussion of the day of the Lord coming on Jerusalem in Zephaniah 1,
which indicates that the destruction would be complete and universal.Longman III, Tremper; Walton, John H.. The Lost World of the Flood: 5
(The Lost World Series) (p. 36). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition
Commentaries seem to vary widely on whether this opening is referring hyperbolically to the coming destruction of Jerusalem, or prophetically to separate, future universal judgement before the rest of the chapter focuses in on Jerusalem.