ALPHABETIC POEM IN NAHUM 249
presented by the Hebrew text and the versions
of the first nine verses of chapter i. Any one
who is unconvinced by these will remain un-
convinced by the much less conspicuous and
significant phenomena of the following verses.
The influence of the two laws of the acrostich-
alphabetical succession of initial letters and
equal lengths of the several verses or sections—
can best be made clear to those unfamiliar with
Hebrew by a translation arranged in parallel
lines. Variations from the Hebrew consonantal
text are printed in italics. The initial letters
are printed on the left hand together with a
numeral indicating the position of the letter in
the Hebrew alphabet; and these are inserted
in brackets when they are only gained by re-
arrangement of the order of words or lines. For
convenience of reference in the subsequent dis-
cussion, the number of the lines of the trans-
lation are placed on the right hand. [The verse
numbers are indicated by superior figures in
the text.]
- x 2 A God jealous and avenging is Yahweh,
Yahweh taketh vengeance and is full of wrath;^1
1 [There can be no question that the dominant rhythm of this poem
is 3 : 3; but the first distich is 4 : 4. The occurrence of 4 : 4 in a
poem mainly consisting of 3 : 3 is not impossible ; nevertheless this
distich was probably not 4 : 4 in its original form. For, (1) except by
unnaturally dividing it, so that it should be rendered, God is jealous,
and Yahweh is avenging, the first line does not fall into two equal
divisions as is commonly the case in 4 : 4 rhythm (see pp. 168 f.); (2) the
use of the same term avenging in both lines is improbable; (3) the Greek
version appears to rest on a text that had only six words (i.e. 3 : 3