06_AN_Whitekettle_273_281_273_281 10/07/15 12:42 Pagina 281 HOW THE SHEEP OF JUDAH BECAME FISH 281 matters. These are all complex issues and well beyond the scope of this brief study. What will be said is this. Given the more natural reading of the wayyiqṭol verb in 1,14 as a reference to an actual past event, and the lack of any indication in 1,14 or 1,12-17 that Habakkuk was having a vi- sion of the future or simply imagining it, a post-586 date for 1,14 seems more likely than a pre-586 date. And given the anguished and vivid de- scription of the deportation and celebrations in 1,15-17, it seems likely that 1,14 was first written/spoken soon after 586 when the cataclysm was still fresh in Habakkuk’s mind. Calvin College Richard WHITEKETTLE Grand Rapids, MI 49546 U.S.A. SUMMARY In Hab 1,14, Habakkuk complained that God had made the human targets of Babylonian aggression to be like leaderless aquatic animals. Aquatic ani- mals 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 gover- nance system of their own. He was complaining, therefore, about the cata- clysm 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.