[216] Who seems to have owed the hint to a quotation by Delitzsch on Psalm ix. from G. Frohnmeyer to the effect that there were traces of “alphabetic” verses in chap, i., at least in vv. 3-7. See Bickell’s _Beiträge zur Semit. Metrik_, Separatabdruck, Wien, 1894.
[218] Cf. Ezra ii. 42; Neh. vii. 45; 2 Sam. xvii. 27.
[219] Ver. 1 is title; 2 begins with א; then ב is found in בסופה, 3_b_; ג in גוער, ver. 4; ד is wanting—Bickell proposes to substitute a New-Hebrew word דצק, Gunkel דאב, for אמלל, ver. 4_b_; ה in הרים, 5_a_; ו in ותשא, 5_b_; ז by removing לפני of ver. 6_a_ to the end of the clause (and reading it there לפניו), and so leaving זעמו as the first word; ח in חמתו in 6_b_; ט in טוב, 7_a_; י by eliding ו from וידע, 7_b_; כ in כלה, 8; ל is wanting, though Gunkel seeks to supply it by taking 9_c_, beginning לא, with 9_b_, before 9_a_; מ begins 9_a_.
[221] As thus: 9_a_, 11_b_, 12 (but unintelligible), 10, 13, 14, ii. 1, 3.
[223] Cornill, in the 2nd ed. of his _Einleitung_, has accepted Gunkel’s and Bickell’s main contentions.
[225] The description of the fall of No-Amon precludes the older view almost universally held before the discovery of Assurbanipal’s destruction of Thebes, viz. that Nahum prophesied in the days of Hezekiah or in the earlier years of Manasseh (Lightfoot, Pusey, Nägelsbach, etc.).
[226] So Schrader, Volck in Herz. _Real. Enc._, and others.
[227] It is favoured by Winckler, _A.T. Untersuch._, pp. 127 f.
[229] This in answer to Jeremias in Delitzsch’s and Haupt’s _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, III. 96.
[231] Hitzig’s other reason, that the besiegers of Niniveh are described by Nahum in ii. 3 ff. as single, which was true of the siege in 625 _c._, but not of that of 607—6, when the Chaldeans joined the Medes, is disposed of by the proof on p. 22 above, that even in 607—6 the Medes carried on the siege alone.
[233] In commenting on chap. i. 9; p. 156 of _Kleine Propheten_.
[234] The phrase which is so often appealed to by both sides, i. 9, _Jehovah maketh a complete end, not twice shall trouble arise_, is really inconclusive. Hitzig maintains that if Nahum had written this after the first and before the second siege of Niniveh he would have had to say, “not thrice _shall trouble arise_.” This is not conclusive: the prophet is looking only at the future and thinking of it—_not twice_ again _shall trouble arise_; and if there were really two sieges of Niniveh, would the words _not twice_ have been suffered to remain, if they had been a confident prediction _before_ the first siege? Besides, the meaning of the phrase is not certain; it may be only a general statement corresponding to what seems a general statement in the first clause of the verse. Kuenen and others refer the _trouble_ not to that which is about to afflict Assyria, but to the long slavery and slaughter which Judah has suffered at Assyria’s hands. Davidson leaves it ambiguous.