ALPHABETIC POEM IN NAHUM 255
must be admitted that all these versions read
llmx with initial aleph at the beginning of the
former of the two lines,1 where the acrostich re-
quires a word beginning with daleth. This is a fact
which ought to be frankly faced and duly con-
sidered in deciding to what extent Nahum i. 1-
ii. 2 preserves an acrostich poem. But it must be
noted further that the verbs used by the LXX
and Syriac versions in the second line of the same
parallel (1. 12 in the above translation) never
occur elsewhere as translations of llmx, although
in each of these versions several equivalents of
llmx are found one of which might have been
in two parallel lines. [Such repetitions as occur in the Hebrew text
here do, however, appear to me now to be in themselves open to some
suspicion, though not of course to be certainly due to textual corruption.
Some may be original; others, like the repetition of llmx here, are
due to the accidental repetition of the term in the first line of a distich
driving out the parallel, but different, term in the second line. Other
more or less certain examples of such accidents may be found in Isa. xi.
5, xvi. 7, xxvi. 7, and are pointed out in the notes on those passages
in the " International Critical Commentary." See further, below,
pp. 295 f.]
1 In each case the words, used by the versions in this place, occur
elsewhere as translations of llmx: thus o]ligou?n in Joel i. 10, 12; XXXX
in the Pesch. of Isaiah xxiv. 4, 7, Jeremiah xv. 9, Hosea iv. 3; ydc
(in the Targums as printed in Walton's Polyglot) in Isaiah xix. 8,
xxiv. 4, Jeremiah xv. 9 (cf. 1 Sam. ii. 5; and the Pesch. use of XXXXX in
1 Sam. ii. 5, Jer. xiv. 2, Lam. ii. 8); infirmatus (or infirmus) est in the
Vulgate of 1 Samuel ii. 5, Isaiah xxiv. 4 (bis), 7, Jeremiah xv. 9, Hosea
iv. 3, Psalm vi. 3.
2 In addition to the words mentioned in the last note but two, the
LXX uses a]sqenh<j (or verb) Psalm vi. 3, Lamentations ii. 8, 1 Samuel
ii. 5; penqei?n Isaiah xvi. 8, xix. 8, xxiv. 4, 7, xxxiii. 9 (?); kenou?sqai
Jeremiah xiv. 2, xv. 9; mikru<nesqai Hosea iv. 3; and the Syriac uses
XXXXX, 1 Samuel ii. 5, Jeremiah xiv. 2, Lamentations ii. 8 (cf. also the
usage of ydc in the Targ.—see preceding note); XXXXX Psalm vi. 3
and (Ethpeel of verb) Isaiah xix. 8; XXXXX, Joel i. 10, 12, Isaiah xvi. 8.