IV. Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah in the Book of the Twelve

est defensible literary unit within which to study Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah nor the largest within which we need to study these writings. If the individual writings originated largely independent of a larger literary context,44 the context of the Book of the Twelve may be best discussed when offering further reflections than in the actual exegesis.

IV. NAHUM, HABAKKUK, AND ZEPHANIAH IN THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE

The question of the place of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah within the Book of the Twelve relates to the issue of the redaction and literary unity of the Book of the Twelve (see above). The three books are usually seen as belonging closely together; they are in the same sequence in all manuscripts. In his two-volume work on the origin of the Book of the Twelve, Nogalski proposed that (an earlier form of) Zephaniah originally formed a “Deuteronomistic corpus” with versions of Hosea, Amos, and Micah.45 But he argues that in the formation of a “Book of the Nine,” a predecessor to the Book of the Twelve, three sub-groupings were formed, the middle one comprising Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. What do these three books have in common that marks them as a group? If we consider literary style, subject matter, and manner of narration, there is nothing to distinguish these three as a group from other prophetic books in the Twelve and beyond. In House’s view, Micah summarizes the first half of the Book of the Twelve before Nahum announces the “crisis,” which is brought to a climax and turning point in Habakkuk. Zephaniah embodies both the climax and the “falling action” prior to the resolution offered in the last three prophetic writings.46 He suggests that Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah focus on the punishment, while the previous six prophetic volumes focused on sin and the final three will focus on restoration. House recognizes that most prophetic collections

44. I believe this to be the case for Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Joel and Malachi—and maybe Obadiah and Jonah—are the most likely candidates for having been composed with the larger collection in mind. 45. James D. Nogalski, Literary Precursors to the Book of the Twelve, BZAW 217 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993); Redactional Processes in the Book of the Twelve, BZAW 218 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993). Nogalski was followed by Aaron Schart, “Redactional Models: Comparisons, Contrasts, Agreements, Disagreements,” in SBL Seminar Papers 1998, Part Two (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1998), 893–908. Nogalski’s PhD student Nicholas R. Werse recently offered a careful modification in Reconsidering the Book of the Four: The Shaping of Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah as an Early Prophetic Collection, BZAW 517 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019). 46. House, Unity, 139–51.

contain all three elements, so how much one of these elements is in the foreground is a matter of degree. In his view, Zephaniah “completes the bottom of the U-shaped [storyline of the Book of the Twelve] and begins the journey upwards.”47 To my mind, the broad brush with which House paints fails to do justice to the individual writings. In a sense there is a “journey upwards” with YHWH’s answer in Hab 2 and the prophet’s response in Hab 3, while the bulk of Zephaniah could very much represent the bottom of the U-shape. The end of Zephaniah takes us vigorously on “the journey upwards” but so does, for example, the end of Amos.48

This leaves me with what was essentially the position advocated by Delitzsch:49 the traditional arrangement of the collection is broadly in the order of chronological setting so that the prophets of the Assyrian period (including Nahum) precede the material that relates to the Babylonian period (Habakkuk, but especially Zephaniah) and the books of the Persian period prophets (Haggai, Malachi). But chronological considerations have sometimes been discarded in favor of thematic considerations and keyword connections. Within the MT sequence, Hosea opens the Book of the Twelve as the largest of the Minor Prophets, followed by Joel, which (a) opens with a lament over the destruction of the crop, continuing, by way of reversal, the nature theme with which Hosea ended; (b) includes a call to repentance in 2:12 that is reminiscent of Hos 14:1(2); and (c) more or less closes with the depiction of YHWH roaring from Zion in 3:16 (4:16), with which Amos begins (1:2). The phrase about inheriting the remnant of Edom in Amos 9:12 may well have encouraged the positioning of Obadiah straight after Amos, and Jonah is indeed in some sense “an envoy sent among the nations” (Obad. 1). Jonah, Micah, and Nahum share the use of Exod 34:6–7 (see also Joel 2:13).50

47. House, Unity, 151. 48. Grace Ko (“The Ordering of the Twelve as Israel’s Historiography,” in Prophets, Prophecy and Ancient Israelite Historiography, ed. Mark J. Boda and Lissa M. Wray Beal [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013], 315–32) seeks to revive House’s proposal with particular attention to Habakkuk’s location “at the lowest point of the U” (326), but she fails to explain how the U-shape would have been compromised if the positions of Habakkuk and Zephaniah had been reversed. 49. Delitzsch, “Wann weissagte Obadja?” 50. See Ruth Scoralick, Gottes Güte und Gottes Zorn: Die Gottesprädikationen in Exodus 34,6f und ihre intertextuellen Beziehungen zum Zwölfprophetenbuch, HBS 33 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2002) for the view that this is a key text holding the Book of the Twelve together. Jan P. Bosman (“The Paradoxical Presence of Exodus 34:6–7 in the Book of the Twelve,” Scriptura 87 [2004]: 233–43) stresses the very diverse use made of the text. Martin Roth (Israel und die Völker im Zwölfprophetenbuch: Eine Untersuchung zu den Büchern Joel, Jona, Micha und Nahum, FRLANT 210 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005], 150–52, 247–48, 253–57) is explicit in rejecting the view that the various uses of Exod 34:6–7 belong to the same literary layer, as is Ehud Ben Zvi (“Remembering Twelve Prophetic

Micah separates Nahum from Jonah (not so in much of the Greek tradition, in which Nahum follows straight from Jonah). The reason may have been a desire to bring the two allusions to the Exod 34:6–7 tradition in Micah (toward the end of the book) and Nahum (at the beginning of the book) closer together. But this has the effect of creating a greater gap between the allusions in Jonah and those in Micah and Nahum. The sequence Micah-Jonah-Nahum would have been no less effective for bringing allusions to Exod 34 into closer proximity. It appears to me, therefore, that the juxtaposition of Nahum and Habakkuk created by the order Micah-Nahum is the more important reason. Here chronological and thematic considerations coalesce. Nahum concerns the end of the Assyrian empire and Habakkuk the rise of the Babylonian one not only by way of being set in that period but also by actually addressing the significance of these empires. Zephaniah is the only minor prophet explicitly set in the (preexilic) Babylonian period.51 No exilic prophet is among the Minor Prophets. The exilic period, as far as explicit setting is concerned anyway, is the domain of the Major Prophets and their editors.

Thus, the main reason for grouping Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah together in the Book of the Twelve and for discussing them in one commentary is their setting at the point of changing empires, which had a huge impact on the life of the nation of Judah. The thematic links between these books are explained by their historical context. A few scholars have argued that Nahum and Habakkuk form a literary unit, arranged in a palistrophe:52

A Hymn reflecting a theophany Nah 1 B Threatening speech against Nineveh Nah 2–3 X The problem of theodicy Hab 1 (or Hab 1:1–2:5) B′ Threatening speech against evildoers Hab 2 (or Hab 2:6–20) A′ Hymn reflecting a theophany Hab 3

Characters from the Past,” in di Pede and Scaiola, Book of the Twelve, 6–36), who raises methodological questions about the steps that lead scholars like Wöhrle to conclude that all passages citing Exod 34:6–7 are later additions (9–12). 51. In fact, I suspect that the core of Zephaniah is older than the core of Habakkuk. Habakkuk, while it includes a prophecy of the rise of the Babylonians, focuses on their destructive impact. Zephaniah takes a chronological step back, announcing a disaster yet to come, but its final thrust is the restoration after the destruction, and this makes its position after Habakkuk defensible in terms of the grand chronological movement implied in the collection. 52. See Rainer Kessler, “Nahum-Habakuk als Zweiprophetenschrift: Eine Skizze,” in “Wort JHWHs, das geschah . . .” (Hos 1,1): Studien zum Zwölfprophetenbuch, ed. Erich Zenger, HBS 35 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2002), 149–58. Cf. Duane A. Christensen, “The Book of Nahum: A History of Interpretation,” in Watts and House, Forming Prophetic Literature, 187–94, 193.