[399] Literally _thy biters_, נשכיך, but נשך, _biting_, is _interest_ or _usury_, and the Hiphil of נשך is _to exact interest_. [400] LXX. sing., Heb. pl. [401] These words occur again in ver. 17. Wellhausen thinks they suit neither here nor there. But they suit all the taunt-songs, and some suppose that they formed the refrain to each of these. [402] Dynasty or people? [403] So LXX.; Heb. _cutting off_. [404] The grammatical construction is obscure, if the text be correct. There is no mistaking the meaning. [405]Heb. כפיס, not elsewhere found in the O.T., is in Rabbinic Hebrew both _cross-beam_ and _lath_. [406] Micah iii. 10. [407] Jer. xxii. 13. [408] Literally _fire_. [409] Jer. li. 58: which original? [410] After Wellhausen’s suggestion to read מסף חמתו instead of the text מספח חמתך, _adding_, or _mixing_, _thy wrath_. [411] So LXX. Q.; Heb. _their_. [412] Read הרעל (cf. Nahum ii. 4; Zech. xii. 2). The text is הערל, not found elsewhere, which has been conjectured to mean _uncover the foreskin_. And there is some ground for this, as parallel to _his nakedness_ in the previous clause. Wellhausen also removes the first clause to the end of the verse: _Drink also thou and reel; there comes to thee the cup in Jehovah’s right hand, and thou wilt glut thyself with shame instead of honour._ [413] So R.V. for קיקלון, which A.V. has taken as two words—קי for which cf. Jer. xxv. 27, where however the text is probably corrupt, and קלון. With this confusion cf. above, ver. 6, עבטיט. [414] Read with LXX. יחתך for יחיתן of the text. [415] See above, ver. 8. [416]‎ תָּפוּשׂ‎? CHAPTER XII “_IN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS_” HABAKKUK iii. We have seen the impossibility of deciding the age of the ode which is attributed to Habakkuk in the third chapter of his book.[417] But this is only one of the many problems raised by that brilliant poem. Much of its text is corrupt, and the meaning of many single words is uncertain. As in most Hebrew poems of description, the tenses of the verbs puzzle us; we cannot always determine whether the poet is singing of that which is past or present or future, and this difficulty is increased by his subject, a revelation of God in nature for the deliverance of Israel. Is this the deliverance from Egypt, with the terrible tempests which accompanied it? Or have the features of the Exodus been borrowed to describe some other deliverance, or to sum up the constant manifestation of Jehovah for His people’s help?