I. The Nature of Prophetic Books

Introduction to Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah

I. THE NATURE OF PROPHETIC BOOKS

The question of the nature of prophetic books is still contested. Roberts claims that “if one were looking for a modern analogy to the ancient prophetic book, a collection of relatively short sermons by a particular minister would be a good analogy. When reading such a modern collection, one cannot assume that the sermons will be arranged in a particular, logical order.” Consequently, “sometimes . . . too much attention to the book as a whole may lead to misinterpretation of a particular sermon.”1 Yet my previous research led me to conclude that at least the book of Ezekiel had been carefully arranged to communicate a message.2 Because many prophetic books are plausibly thought to go back to the oral ministry of a prophet, the genre of anthology is a distinct option, but the possibility that there is a coherent rationale behind the arrangement of a prophetic book and that the book itself functions as a piece of communication cannot be excluded. The question needs to be asked for each book afresh. There is, in my view, no one genre “prophetic book”—not in the narrow sense anyway.

In the light of ancient Near Eastern evidence, it is probable that many prophecies were written down soon after being uttered. Collections of prophetic oracles are found elsewhere, but there is nothing known to us that is comparable to prophetic books of the kind we have in the Bible.3 Therefore,

1. J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 9. 2. See Thomas Renz, The Rhetorical Function of the Book of Ezekiel, VTSup 76 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 3. According to William R. Osborne’s review in JETS 2 (2013): 252–55, R. Russell Mack

based on the observation that in the ancient world oracles were transcribed with a concern for accuracy and then transmitted unchanged from one generation to another, we cannot conclude that within ancient Israel and Judah prophetic words could not have been recast to speak into new contexts. Even the larger prophetic books in the Bible reflect a literary shape suggesting a process that involved more than anthologizing individual oracles. The prophetic books seem to be the product of careful theological reflection.

As indicated in the preface to this commentary, I am skeptical about a number of redaction-critical proposals made in relation to Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. But this does not mean that I rule out a process of redaction on principle. Bearing in mind that much of biblical literature is anonymous, there is no reason to believe that every word within a book associated with a particular prophet must have been said or written down by that prophet. Nonetheless, it seems to me a fair assumption that the people who collected prophecies and arranged them in rhetorically shaped books were respectful of the original prophecies and that any redactional expansions sought to develop the text itself—sometimes even in an unexpected direction—rather than to merely add words that would speak to their generation.4 To put it differently, redactors were first of all close readers. A passage like Isa 16:13–14 clearly indicates its origin at a later time than the preceding verses, but there is no reason to think that later elaborations, whether by the prophet or by someone else, were always marked in this way.

The distinction between prophetic discourse speaking about God in the third person and oracles consisting of first-person divine speech has been more or less emphasized by different commentators. My own view is that the distinction is often blurred in prophetic literature, which frequently uses third-person references to God in first-person divine speech (enallage), a feature that will be discussed further in relation to Zephaniah.5 Rhetorically, we

(Neo-Assyrian Prophecy and the Hebrew Bible: Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, Perspectives on Hebrew Scripture and Its Contexts 14 [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2011]) assumes that prophecy looked alike all across the region during the seventh century. The dissimilarity between Neo-Assyrian literature and the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah leads him to conclude that the latter must be later compositions that developed earlier genres. I have no access to Mack’s work. 4. The German word Fortschreibung is often used in this context. It has no ready equivalent in English. Attempts to identify and then resolve contradictions within the text by attributing different parts of the text to different layers, as if prophetic books were proceedings of conferences, seem to me less plausible. 5. Paul R. House (Zephaniah: A Prophetic Drama, BLS 16 [Sheffield: Almond Press, 1988]) relies on a firm distinction between the speeches of Zephaniah and YHWH and yet allows that YHWH refers to himself in both the first and third person. Marvin A. Sweeney (Zephaniah: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 2003]) does not allow for enallage in divine speech. He uses quotation marks in his translation to delimit divine speech