In reviewing the history of the book's composition, it is important to observe that crucial canonical shaping occurred both in the early and later periods of the book's growth.In ch.1 early prophetic oracles have been selected, ordered, and condensed to form a compendium of teaching on the topic of the 'day of Yahweh'. Not only has the chapter retained a dominant theocentric perspective by its use of the first person of the divine speech, but it offers the basic theological starting point from which to understand the movement of the entire book.Once the message focuses on the eschatological intervention of God on his day of reckoning, it belongs to the logic of prophetic theology to include within this event both the judgment against Israel and the nations.Moreover, if one beings with a theology of God in terms of his eschatological work, the move to include the oracles of promise as an essential part of the selfsame event follows easily.The effect of the canonical process has been to restructure the prophetic material within a theological understanding of the nature of God and his work.For this reason Martin Bucer (In Sophoniam enarrationes, 1554) has rightly designated the book as a 'compendium' of prophetic teaching.