Richard Whitekettle, «How the Sheep of Judah Became Fish: Habakkuk 1,14 and the Davidic Monarchy.» biblica, Vol. 96 (2015) 273-281 page 279

Vol 96 (2015)

Richard Whitekettle, «How the Sheep of Judah Became Fish: Habakkuk 1,14 and the Davidic Monarchy.», Vol. 96 (2015) 273-281

In Hab 1,14, Habakkuk complained that God had made the human targets of Babylonian aggression to be like leaderless aquatic animals. Aquatic animals are leaderless, not because they have a leader who is absent or inept, but because they simply have no leaders. Habakkuk was complaining then that God had made the targets of Babylonian aggression to have no governance system of their own. He was complaining, therefore, about the cataclysm of 586 BCE, when the native political system in Judah - the Davidic monarchy and its administrative apparatus - ceased to exist and the people of Judah were absorbed into the Babylonian Empire.

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06_AN_Whitekettle_273_281_273_281 10/07/15 12:42 Pagina 279 HOW THE SHEEP OF JUDAH BECAME FISH 279 III. When the Complaint Was Made Having determined the situation which Habakkuk was complaining about in 1,14, there remains the matter of when he made the complaint. Regarding this, there are two possibilities. First, the most natural way to read the wayyiqṭol verb which begins the complaint (hf[tw [“you have made”]) is as a reference to a past event 11. Such a reading of the verb would mean that the complaint in 1,14 was first written/spoken after the cataclysm of 586, and that Habakkuk was complaining about what had happened in 586 from the vantage point of the situation which had ensued thereafter 12. If 1,14 was first written/spoken after 586, it is reasonable to assume that the related imagery in 1,15-17 and the whole of Habakkuk’s speech in 1,12-17 were as well. Assuming this, and focusing on the imagery-com- plex of 1,14-17, the imagery in 1,15a alludes to deportation, which is part of the event-complex of 586. The yiqṭol verbs found in 1,15a would, there- fore, be “pulled into their archaic past-time reference by discourse cohe- sion” with the wayyiqṭol past-time verb in 1,14 13. The time frame of the yiqṭol-verb celebrations in 1,15b-16 would probably also be past time, though it could be present-time if the celebrations were ongoing. And the interrogative + yiqṭol-verb combination in 1,17 was a question about the future. Thus, 1,14-17 would have the following time structure: 1,14 you have made the people leaderless 1,15a the foe brought the people up with a hook […] 1,15b-16 because of this, the foe rejoiced […] [or] because of this, the foe rejoices […] 1,17 how long will the foe destroy nations? With this post-586 time structure in mind, the coming of the Babylo- nians is described as astonishing in Hab 1,5-6, which means that God’s 11 ANDERSEN, Habakkuk, 173-174. 12 The terms trmvm and rwcm are used by Habakkuk in 2,1 to describe where he will wait to hear God’s response to his complaint. trmvm has been understood as a watchtower, guardpost, or lookout, and rwcm as a tower, guardpost, wall, rampart, siege tower, or stronghold. If these terms refer to an actual location/structure in or around Jerusalem, and if Hab 1,14 (and therefore Hab 2,1) was first written/spoken after 586, then the mention of this location/structure in 2,1 might be ironic if the location/structure had been de- stroyed by the Babylonians. The terms could, however, refer to an intact lo- cation/structure, or the language in 2,1 could be “[…] metaphoric for prophetic waiting for an oracle” (ROBERTS, Nahum, 108). 13 ANDERSEN, Habakkuk, 174.