[395] See above, pp. 125 f. Nowack (1897) agrees that Cornill’s and others’ conclusion that vv. 9-20 are not Habakkuk’s is too sweeping. He takes the first, second and fourth of the taunt-songs as authentic, but assigns the third (vv. 12-14) and the fifth (18-20) to another hand. He deems the refrain, 8_b_ and 17_b_, to be a gloss, and puts 19 before 18. Driver, _Introd._, 6th ed., holds to the authenticity of all the verses.
[396] The text reads, _For also wine is treacherous_, under which we might be tempted to suspect some such original as, _As wine is treacherous, so_ (next line) _the proud fellow_, etc. (or, as Davidson suggests, _Like wine is the treacherous dealer_), were it not that the word _wine_ appears neither in the Greek nor in the Syrian version. Wellhausen suggests that היין, _wine_, is a corruption of הוי, with which the verse, like vv. 6_b_, 9, 12, 15, 19, may have originally begun, but according to 6_a_ the taunt-songs, opening with הוי, start first in 6_b_. Bredenkamp proposes וְאֶפֶס כְּאַיִן.
[397] The text is ינוה, a verb not elsewhere found in the Old Testament, and conjectured by our translators to mean _keepeth at home_, because the noun allied to it means _homestead_ or _resting-place_. The Syriac gives _is not satisfied_, and Wellhausen proposes to read ירוה with that sense. See Davidson’s note on the verse.
[398] A.V. _thick clay_, which is reached by breaking up the word עבטיט, _pledge_ or _debt_, into עב, _thick cloud_, and טיט, _clay_.
[399] Literally _thy biters_, נשכיך, but נשך, _biting_, is _interest_ or _usury_, and the Hiphil of נשך is _to exact interest_.
[401] These words occur again in ver. 17. Wellhausen thinks they suit neither here nor there. But they suit all the taunt-songs, and some suppose that they formed the refrain to each of these.
[404] The grammatical construction is obscure, if the text be correct. There is no mistaking the meaning.
[405]Heb. כפיס, not elsewhere found in the O.T., is in Rabbinic Hebrew both _cross-beam_ and _lath_.
[410] After Wellhausen’s suggestion to read מסף חמתו instead of the text מספח חמתך, _adding_, or _mixing_, _thy wrath_.
[412] Read הרעל (cf. Nahum ii. 4; Zech. xii. 2). The text is הערל, not found elsewhere, which has been conjectured to mean _uncover the foreskin_. And there is some ground for this, as parallel to _his nakedness_ in the previous clause. Wellhausen also removes the first clause to the end of the verse: _Drink also thou and reel; there comes to thee the cup in Jehovah’s right hand, and thou wilt glut thyself with shame instead of honour._