FURTHER NOTE ON CHAP. I.—II. 4.
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Smith, George Adam and Nicoll, W. Robertson (William Robertson), Sir
Since this chapter was in print Nowack’s Die Kleinen Propheten in the “Handkommentar z. A. T.” has been published. He recognises emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans,
chap. i. 5–11, is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and the other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits that it follows on, with a natural connection, to
chap. ii. 4, to which Budde proposes to attach it. Nevertheless, for other reasons, which he does not state, he regards Budde’s proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed passage to be by another hand than Habakkuk’s, and intruded into the latter’s argument. Habakkuk’s argument he assigns to after 605; perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against would therefore be the Chaldean.—Driver in the 6th ed. of his Introduction (1897) deems Budde’s argument “too ingenious,” and holds by the older and most numerously supported argument (above, pp. 116 ff.).—On a review of the case in the light of these two discussions, the present writer holds to his opinion that Budde’s rearrangement, which he has adopted, offers the fewest difficulties.