[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. [217] _Z.A.T.W._, 1893, pp. 223 ff. [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_. [220] See below in the translation. [221] As thus: 9_a_, 11_b_, 12 (but unintelligible), 10, 13, 14, ii. 1, 3. [222] See above on Zephaniah, pp. 49 ff. [223] Cornill, in the 2nd ed. of his _Einleitung_, has accepted Gunkel’s and Bickell’s main contentions. [224] iii. 8-10. [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. [228] Above, pp. 15 f.; 19, 22 ff. [229] This in answer to Jeremias in Delitzsch’s and Haupt’s _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, III. 96. [230] I. 103. [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. [232] Page 17. [233] In commenting on chap. i. 9; p. 156 of _Kleine Propheten_.