A Perfectly Broken Acrostic in Nahum 1? 9781463234546

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A Perfectly Broken Acrostic in Nahum 1?

Analecta Gorgiana

1088 Series Editor George Anton Kiraz

Analecta Gorgiana is a collection of long essays and short monographs which are consistently cited by modern scholars but previously difficult to find because of their original appearance in obscure publications. Carefully selected by a team of scholars based on their relevance to modern scholarship, these essays can now be fully utilized by scholars and proudly owned by libraries.

A Perfectly Broken Acrostic in Nahum 1?

Thomas Renz

9

34 2012

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2012 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in 2010 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2012

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9

ISBN 978-1-4632-0135-7

ISSN 1935-6854

Reprinted from the 2010 Piscataway edition.

Printed in the United States of America

A PERFECTLY BROKEN ACROSTIC IN NAHUM 1? 1 THOMAS RENZ ST MICHAEL’S HIGHGATE, LONDON INTRODUCTION The poetic features of Nahum 1 have long been a bone of contention. Many readers detect a tendency towards an acrostic composition in the first half of the chapter, while others deny the existence of an acrostic in view of the many clear deviations from it. The following essay argues that it is possible to understand both the acrostic pattern and the deviations from it as part of a single design. I suggest that the deliberate juxtaposition of acrostic and anti-acrostic features is for rhetorical effect and conveys a message of disrupted order. Readers and listeners are expected to pick up both the poem’s acrostic features and the fact that the acrostic is incomplete and imperfect. It is possible that this rhetorical effect was created secondarily by the transformation of earlier material, if the core of the opening poem and the bulk of the remainder of the book do not have the same origin. 2 But even if the link between the poem and the remainder of Nahum were secondary, it would be worthwhile to explore the relationship between the opening stanza and the remainder of the book, as a redactor may well have sought to provide greater cohesion to the Nahum material, whether or not with a view to integrating it with other prophetic writings in a larger composition. I want to express my gratitude to Professor Robert Gordon whose invitation to read a paper to the Cambridge Old Testament Seminar in April 2008 gave the impetus for this essay and to Chris Lowe, my research assistant at Oak Hill College in 2008, who did work on an earlier version of this paper. 2 The author of the book of Nahum might have used an already existing alphabetic poem for the opening of his work or a later redactor might have reconfigured the Nahum corpus. 1

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The case for authorial unity of broken acrostic and subsequent poems may, however, be stronger than commonly acknowledged. If it is likely that Hebrew alphabetic acrostics were first composed by Judean scribes who had knowledge of Akkadian name and sentence acrostics, 3 it is noteworthy that several words and phrases in Nahum suggest that its author had knowledge of Akkadian terms and traditions, and thus may have been familiar with Akkadian writings.4 In other words, the poet who is responsible for the compositions later in Nahum is a good candidate for authorship of the acrostic. In addition, the exquisite poetry elsewhere in the book suggests a poet sophisticated enough to make use of an acrostic in surprising ways. Differences in genre and style need not point to a different author, given the particular role of the opening poem in the book. Language and theophanic motifs allow for a sufficiently early date for the poem. Indeed, van Selms claims that +3 would not have been used with YHWH (cf. Hos 2:18 [ET, 2:16]) at a later time, as in the phrase !/%Ú+3 (v 2).5 He also points out that the geographical allusions are all northern and claims that they would not have raised as much interest in Persian times. 6 While K.C. Hanson, “Alphabetic Acrostics: A Form Critical Study” (Ph.D. diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1984), 416–20. Of the five Akkadian acrostics for which dates have been suggested all but one are dated earlier than the fall of Nineveh, see B.R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (3rd ed., Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 2005); W.M. Soll, “Babylonian and Biblical Acrostics,” Bib 69 (1988), 305–23; J.F. Brug, “Biblical Acrostics and Their Relationship to Other Ancient Near Eastern Acrostics,” W.W. Hallo et al. (eds), The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature: Scripture in Context III (ANETS, 8; Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1990), 283–304. 4 K.J. Cathcart, “Treaty-Curses and the Book of Nahum,” CBQ 35 (1973), 179– 87, and Nahum in the Light of Northwest Semitic (BeO, 26; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1973); B. Becking, “A Judge in History: Notes on Nahum 3,7 and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty Paragraph 47:457,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, 1 (1995), 111–16; K. Spronk, Nahum (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1997); G.H. Johnston, “Rhetorical Allusions to Neo-Assyrian Treaty Curses,” BibSac 158 (2001), 415–36, and “Nahum’s Rhetorical Allusions to the Neo-Assyrian Lion Motif,” BibSac 158 (2001), 287–307. 5 A. van Selms, “The Alphabetic Hymn in Nahum 1,” OTWSA 12 (1969), 33– 45 (40). 6 Van Selms, “Alphabetic Hymn,” 41. Hanson seeks to counter this by claiming, wrongly in my view, that “northern geographical allusions are common to the genre of epiphany and thus may be stereotypes of the genre.” He refers to Deut 33:22 (epiphany?); Isa 63:1 (Edom!); Ps 29:6 (Lebanon, in geographical merism with Kadesh in v 8?) and 68:16 (Bashan envious of Zion but the actual epiphany is from Sinai, v 9!). Note the opposite claim in J.D. Nogalski, “The Redactional Shaping of 3

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we need not rule out the possibility of later editorial work or mistakes in the transmission of the text, we should allow for the possibility of the composition of a broken acrostic early on in the development of the Nahum tradition. The essay will proceed as follows. A brief history of research highlights the main options for interpreting the acrostic features of the opening poem and thus brings into relief my own proposal. I will substantiate my proposal in two steps. First, I will explore what an alphabetic acrostic underlying Nahum 1 might have looked like, and defend the idea that there are genuinely acrostic features in Nahum 1 in the light of recent arguments to the contrary. Second, I will offer an exposition of the interrelationship between acrostic and anti-acrostic features in the text. The concluding part of the essay will then explore how the opening poem relates to the remainder of the book of Nahum.

NAHUM’S ACROSTIC FEATURES IN THE HISTORY OF RESEARCH We do not know how early acrostic features in Nahum were noticed. Lack of evidence is no certain indicator of lack of awareness. In the manuscripts themselves acrostics were often not intentionally written as such, although Klaas Spronk argues that the paragraphing in certain Greek manuscripts (Alexandrinus, Marchalianus) suggests recognition of a line-acrostic in Nahum 1. 7 Paul W. Gaebelein observes that the Aleppo Codex put the acrostic letter at the beginning of a line in Ps 34:9–23; 119; 145 and Prov 31:10–31 but that no such systematic effort was made in the case of Psalms 9, 10, 25, 34:2–8; 37; 111; 112. 8 The same inconsistency is reflected already in the biblical manuscripts found at Qumran. 9 This suggests that we cannot conclude from the manuscript evidence whether a poem was recognized as acrostic or not. Similarly, while it is true that Kimchi’s commentary makes Nahum 1 for the Book of the Twelve,” P.R. Davies and D.J.A. Clines (eds), Among the Prophets (JSOTSup, 144; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 193–202 (200). 7 K. Spronk, “The Line-Acrostic in Nahum 1: New Evidence from Ancient Greek Manuscripts and from the Literary Analysis of the Hebrew Text,” R. de Hoop, M.C.A. Korpel, and S.E. Porter (eds), The Impact of Unit Delimitation on Exegesis (Pericope: Scripture as Written and Read in Antiquity, 7; Leiden/Boston: E.J. Brill, 2009), 228–40. 8 P.W. Gaebelein, Jr., “Psalm 34 and Other Biblical Acrostics: Evidence from the Aleppo Codex,” Maarav 5–6 (1990), 127–43. 9 G.W. Nebe offers an overview (“Alphabets,” in Encylopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls 1:18–20).

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no reference to acrostic features in Nahum,10 neither does he remark on acrostic features in his commentary on Psalms 9 and 10. 11 Rashi, also, does not invariably refer to acrostic features. While he points out the acrostics of Psalms 111 and 112 at the beginning of Psalm 111 and discusses the absence of a ʰ line in (his text of) Psalm 145, he makes no reference to acrostic features in his comments on a number of other psalms, e.g., Psalm 34 whose acrostic nature surely did not escape his notice. 12 The earliest known reference to the influence of the alphabet on the poem in Nahum 1 (vv 3–7) is found in remarks by Franz Delitzsch on Psalm 9 in the second edition of his Psalms commentary (1867). 13 He credited Lutheran pastor G. Frohnmeyer (1813–1880) with the observation. Gustav Bickell was the first to offer an ingenious reconstruction of the entire alphabet in Nah 1:2–10, finding a sequence running from  to / at the beginning of lines in vv 2–10, and the remainder of the alphabet within the line. 14 This was challenged by Hermann Gunkel who offered his own proposal for an acrostic poem extending to 2:3 (ET, 2:2). 15 These and one

10 W. Windfuhr (ed.), Rabbinische Übungstexte 1: Der Kommentar des David Qimchi zum Propheten Nahum (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1927). 11 The Longer Commentary of R. David Kimhi on the First Book of the Psalms (transl. R.G. Finch with an introduction by G.H. Box; London: SPCK, 1919). This includes exposition of Psalms 1–10, 15–17, 19, 22, 24. It is of course possible for someone to be aware of an acrostic without making reference to it. Jerome did not mention the acrostic nature of Ps 111 in his homily on that psalm but referred to it in his homily on Ps 112. See The Homilies of Saint Jerome, vol. 1: 1–59 on the Psalms (transl. M.L. Ewald; FCNT, 48; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 280–85. His homily on Psalms 9–10 (35–37) only deals with the superscription. 12 See the text of Radak’s commentary on Psalms in The Bar Ilan University Responsa. 13 F. Delitzsch, Biblischer Commentar über die Psalmen (Leipzig: Dörflin & Franke, 1867), 107. 14 G. Bickell, “Die hebräische Metrik,” ZDMG 34 (1880), 557–63, 559–60. His proposal was modified several times, not least in response to Gunkel. See finally “Beiträge zur Semitischen Metrik I: Das alphabetische Lied in Nah i 2–ii 3,” Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Classe 131/V (Wien, 1894), 1–12. 15 H. Gunkel, “Nahum 1,” ZAW 11 (1893), 223–44. Cf. the extended footnote in Gunkel’s Schöpfung und Chaos (1895), transl. K.W. Whitney, Jr. as Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 315.

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or two similar attempts to reconstruct a full alphabetical sequence have produced neither agreement nor widespread acceptance.16 Paul Haupt, who suggested that the book of Nahum was compiled in Maccabean times for a liturgical celebration of Nikanor’s day, argued that the author cited only part of an acrostic because the last seven lines (from 3 onwards) did not suit his purpose. 17 This view, that Nahum only ever reflected the earlier part of an alphabetic acrostic, established itself as the most widely held opinion on the matter. 18 The marginal annotations in BHK and BHS testify to this consensus. A comparison of BHK and BHS also reflects a shift from attempts to find an acrostic ending with 2 (Otto Proksch in the third edition of BHK) 19 to the conclusion that the acrostic does not extend beyond ) (Kurt Elliger in BHS). In the 1960s, Simon J. de Vries claimed: “Two things ought no longer be disputed: (1) Nahum 1 does indeed begin with an acrostic hymn... (2) this hymn reproduces only half the alphabet, ending with the letter ), and it does this quite freely, without rigid conformance to the usual acrostic pattern.” 20 This did not discourage others from seeking to reconstruct an earlier, purer form of the alphabetic sequence. Frequently, appeal was made to editorial activity to explain the divergences of the present text from a Cf. O. Happel, Der Psalm Nahums kritisch untersucht (Würzburg: Andreas Göbel, 1900) for 1:2–15. W.R. Arnold, designated the traditional text a “distorted fragment of an alphabetical poem” (“The Composition of Nahum 1–2:3,” ZAW 21 (1901), 225–65, 256). For this and the following see D.L. Christensen, “The Acrostic of Nahum Reconsidered,” ZAW 87 (1975), 17–30 (18). Klaas Spronk observes that “W. Nowak still attempted to restore a complete acrostic” in the first edition of his Kleine Propheten commentary (1897) but in later editions stopped the attempt at v 8 (1903) or v 10 (1922), see “Acrostics in the Book of Nahum,” ZAW 110 (1998), 209–22 (210). 17 P. Haupt, “The Book of Nahum,” JBL 26 (1907), 1–53. 18 Cf. the rejection of more ambitious proposals by J. Wellhausen, Die Kleinen Propheten übersetzt und erklärt (3rd ed.; Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1898); and see M. Löhr, “Alphabetische und alphabetisierende Lieder im AT,” ZAW 25 (1905), 173–98; P. Humbert, “Essai d’analyse de Nahoum i 2–ii 3,” ZAW 44 (1926), 226–80 (267). 19 A question mark is added to the marginal / (as well as 1, identified as the second bicolon in v 2). The second edition, for which Walter Nowak was responsible (1913), had additional question marks next to + and 2 and found the latter in -':– 2– rather than -–'K2’ . 20 S.J. de Vries, “The Acrostic of Nahum in the Jerusalem Liturgy,” VT 16 (1966), 476–81, 477–78. Cf. similar remarks by A. vaN Selms, “The Alphabetic Hym. in Nahum 1,” OTWSA 12 (1969), 33–45, 33; K. Seybold, “Vormasoretische Randnotizen in Nahum 1,” ZAW 101 (1989), 71–85, 72. 16

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neat acrostic sequence. 21 Hence, the brokenness of the acrostic remained an issue, even where its existence and deliberate incompleteness were accepted. Alongside such explorations, there have always been those who cast doubt on the very existence of acrostic features in Nahum 1. 22 In recent years, these skeptical voices have become louder. Michael H. Floyd presented the most detailed and forceful case against the existence of an acrostic in Nahum 1 and it is his case with which I will need to engage in detail later on,23 even if others have remained convinced that Nahum 1 reflects acrostic features. 24 The above survey of the history of research suggests four main options for interpreting the acrostic or pseudo-acrostic features in Nahum 1: 1. The opening poem was composed under the influence of the alphabet (e.g., Frohnmeyer, Delitzsch). 2. Nahum 1 originally represented a complete alphabetic acrostic which became lost in the process of textual transmission (e.g., Bickell, Gunkel). 3. The author or redactor responsible for what we know as Nahum 1 employed an acrostic poem without making full use of it (e.g., Jeremias, Roberts, Seybold) or composed an incomplete acrostic (e.g., Sellin, Patterson, Perlitt, Longman). In other words, there is a conscious alphabetic design rather than mere influence of the alphabet, and the deviations from the alphabetic sequence cannot be accounted for by appeal to textual corruption alone. 21 E.g., J. Jeremias, Kultprophetie und Gerichtsverkündigung in der späten Königszeit Israels (WMANT, 35; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970) 16–19; K. Seybold, Profane Prophetie: Studien zum Buch Nahum (SBS, 135; Stuttgart: KBW, 1989), 74–77; Nogalski, “Redactional Shaping.” Spronk offers a brief critique of Nogalski’s proposal (“Acrostics,” 213–14). 22 E.g., A. Haldar, Studies in the Book of Nahum (Uppsala: Lundequistska, 1947); W.A. Meier, The Book of Nahum (St Louis: Concordia, 1959); O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). 23 M.H. Floyd, “The Chimerical Acrostic of Nahum 1:2–10,” JBL 113 (1994), 421–37. Other skeptics include B. Becking, “Divine Wrath and the Conceptual Coherence of the Book of Nahum,” SJOT 9 (1995), 277–96; G. Baumann, Gottes Gewalt im Wandel: Traditionsgeschichtliche und intertextuelle Studien zu Nahum 1,2–8 (WMANT, 108; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2005); H.-J. Fabry, Nahum (HThKAT; FrEiburg: Herder, 2006). 24 E.g., Spronk, “Acrostics.”

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4. The appearance of acrostic features in Nahum 1 is entirely coincidental (e.g., Maier, Robertson, Fabry). There is no need to engage in detail with the second option. Its plausibility was rarely accepted, even in the days when a low regard for the received text of the Hebrew Bible, and a correspondingly high regard for confident reconstructions of more original forms of the text, was popular. 25 The first option may appear the safest, in that it allows for the acrostic features to be “accidental” (in the sense of being non-essential for communication) without implying the stronger, and arguably less credible, claim that the signs of an alphabetic sequence at the beginning of lines are the result of mere chance. Its Achilles heel, however, unless it moves in the direction of option three, is its lack of explanatory power. Why would a poet allow the order of the alphabet to exert an influence on a composition without the alphabetic sequence being of any real significance? It may not be fair to accuse the fourth option of lacking explanatory power, for, in the view of scholars defending this view, there is nothing here which needs an explanation. But what is the likelihood of a text approaching an acrostic as closely as our poem by accident? Floyd appeals to similar chance occurrences in English literature. These, however, do not strike me as nearly similar enough to Nahum 1, and thus fail to persuade. If other aspects of his argument can be adequately addressed, the need to appeal to chance disappears. I shall seek to defend the view that the acrostic features are deliberate below but for now a citation from G. B. Gray reminds us how close Nahum comes to representing an alphabetic acrostic. Taking the divine name at the beginning of v 3b to v 3a, 26 he comments: As the Hebrew text stands apart from any, even the slightest emendation, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th letters of the Hebrew alphabet … stand separated from one another by precisely the same constant interval which would separate them in an acrostich poem so constructed that two [half-]lines should be given to each successive letter [cf. Psalms 25, 34, 145; Prov 31.10–31]. This single fact, when duly considered, appears to me to necessitate the conclusion that we have in this passage the result of fully conscious design, and in these [half-]lines, as in those that intervene, parts of an acrostich. 27

25 The Wadi Muraba'at scroll (MurXII) contains essentially the same Hebrew text as found in medieval codices. 4QXIIg only offers vv 7–9 from Nahum 1. 26 Cf., e.g., the layout adopted in BHS. See also the first word of Ps 25.2 which is also a divine appellation. 27 G.B. Gray, “The Alphabetic Poem in Nahum,” in idem, The Form of Hebrew

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The third option embraces a number of views which share the conviction that there are both acrostic and anti-acrostic features and that both are the result of purposeful activity. Most commonly it is argued either that the poet liked the idea of following the sequence of the alphabet but did not sufficiently care for it to actually execute an alphabetic acrostic or cared about producing an alphabetic acrostic but was followed by a redactor who did not. In either case the resulting imperfection represents a lack of desire for producing an actual acrostic rather than a poetic device itself. In other words, what unites these views is the conviction that errors in the process of transmission are not the (sole) reason for the imperfection of the acrostic sequence but the fact of the brokenness of the acrostic is without purpose itself. It is this last point which I want to question. The older majority view was right to affirm that there is an acrostic and that its imperfections cannot be accounted for by textual corruption alone but it failed to allow for the possibility that the imperfection of the acrostic is to be read as part of its design.

THE OPENING POEM OF NAHUM: A BROKEN ALPHABETIC ACROSTIC It is not material to my argument whether the author, or indeed a redactor, of Nahum 1 used an actual alphabetic poem or whether such a perfectly acrostic poem only ever existed as a possibility. Regardless of the precise literary emergence of Nahum 1, there is heuristic value in comparing the received text with a more consistent alphabetic poem.28 A translation of the acrostic is offered further below. !/%Ú+3#Ú!#!'Ú-91

!#!'Ú-91#Ú#19Ú+



#'+:Ú9Ú013#

#):Ú!:3