The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2: Commonly Called the MinorSmith, George Adam
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2: Commonly Called the Minor
Smith, George Adam
Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries
Since this chapter was in print Nowack’s _Die Kleinen Propheten_
in the “Handkommentar z. A. T.” has been published. He recognises
emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans, chap.
i. 5-11, is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and the
other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits that it follows on,
with a natural connection, to chap. ii. 4, to which Budde proposes to
attach it. Nevertheless, for other reasons, which he does not state,
he regards Budde’s proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed
passage to be by another hand than Habakkuk’s, and intruded into
the latter’s argument. Habakkuk’s argument he assigns to after 605;
perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against would therefore be the
Chaldean.—Driver in the 6th ed. of his _Introduction_ (1897) deems
Budde’s argument “too ingenious,” and holds by the older and most
numerously supported argument (above, pp. 116 ff.).—On a review of
the case in the light of these two discussions, the present writer
holds to his opinion that Budde’s rearrangement, which he has adopted,
offers the fewest difficulties.
FOOTNOTES:
[313] Except one or two critics who place it in Manasseh’s reign. See
below.
[314] See next note.
[315] So Pusey. Delitzsch in his commentary on Habakkuk, 1843,
preferred Josiah’s reign, but in his _O. T. Hist. of Redemption_, 1881,
p. 226, Manasseh’s. Volck (in Herzog, _Real Encyc._,² art. “Habakkuk,”
1879), assuming that Habakkuk is quoted both by Zephaniah (see above,
p. 39, n.) and Jeremiah, places him before these. Sinker (_The Psalm
of Habakkuk_: see below, p. 127, n. 2) deems “the prophecy, taken as a
whole,” to bring “before us the threat of the Chaldean invasion, the
horrors that follow in its train,” etc., with a vision of the day “when
the Chaldean host itself, its work done, falls beneath a mightier foe.”
He fixes the date either in the concluding years of Manasseh’s reign,
or the opening years of that of Josiah (Preface, 1-4).
[316] Pages 53, 49. Kirkpatrick (Smith’s _Dict. of the Bible_,² art.
“Habakkuk,” 1893) puts it not later than the sixth year of Jehoiakim.
[317] _Einl. in das A. T._
[318] _Beiträge zur Jesaiakritik_, 1890, pp. 197 f.
[319] See Further Note on p. 128.
[320] _Studien u. Kritiken_ for 1893.
[321] Cf. the opening of § 30 in the first edition of his _Einleitung_
with that of § 34 in the third and fourth editions.
[322] Budde’s explanation of this is, that to the later editors of the
book, long after the Babylonian destruction of Jews, it was incredible
that the Chaldean should be represented as the deliverer of Israel, and
so the account of him was placed where, while his call to punish Israel
for her sins was not emphasised, he should be pictured as destined to
doom; and so the prophecy originally referring to the Assyrian was read
of him. “This is possible,” says Davidson, “if it be true criticism is
not without its romance.”
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