ALPHABETIC POEM IN NAHUM 263
to assign the prophecy to the year 608 rather
than circa 660 or 623.
The present discussion contains, I am well
aware, comparatively little that will be new to
those who are acquainted with the German
discussions to which I have referred, and to
which I have throughout been greatly indebted,
although I hope that my suggestion, based as
it is on the evidence of the LXX, that the verb
of the daleth stanza is lld, may find acceptance.^1
But I shall have achieved my purpose if I have
succeeded in proving that it must henceforth be
accepted as a fixed point for the criticism and
interpretation of Nahum that the position of
certain initial letters in the first chapter is not
fortuitous, but the result of a fully conscious
design ; and, therefore, that this chapter contains
at least considerable parts of an acrostich poem.
1 [Among those who have accepted 55~ are Driver, Duhm (Zeitschr,
fur die AT. .Wissenschaft, 1911p. 101), and Powis Smith ("International
Critical Commentary"). It is not obvious that those who still prefer one
of the alternative emendations (bxd or vxkd) have fully considered the
evidence of the versions as given above.]