That the form as well as the spirit of the Book of Nahum is poetical is proved by the familiar marks of poetic measure—the unusual syntax, the frequent absence of the article and particles, the presence of elliptic forms and archaic and sonorous ones. In the two chapters on the siege of Niniveh the lines are short and quick, in harmony with the dashing action they echo.
As we have seen, the text of chap. i. is very uncertain. The subject of the other two chapters involves the use of a number of technical and some foreign terms, of the meaning of most of which we are ignorant.[235] There are apparently some glosses; here and there the text is obviously disordered. We get the usual help, and find the usual faults, in the Septuagint; they will be noticed in the course of the translation.
[199] In the English version, but in the Hebrew chap. ii. vv. 1 and 3; for the Hebrew text divides chap. i. from chap. ii. differently from the English, which follows the Greek. The Hebrew begins chap. ii. with what in the English and Greek is the fifteenth verse of chap. i.: _Behold, upon the mountains_, etc.
[200] In the English text, but in the Hebrew with the omission of vv. 1 and 3: see previous note.
[201] Other meanings have been suggested, but are impossible.
[202] So it lies on Billerbeck’s map in Delitzsch and Haupt’s _Beiträge zur Assyr._, III. Smith’s _Bible Dictionary_ puts it at only 2 m. N. of Mosul.
[203] Layard, _Niniveh and its Remains_, I. 233, 3rd ed., 1849.
[204] Bohn’s _Early Travels in Palestine_, p. 102.
[205] Just as they show Jonah’s tomb at Niniveh itself.
[207] Just as in Micah’s case Jerome calls his birthplace Moresheth by the adjective Morasthi, so with equal carelessness he calls Elḳosh by the adjective with the article Ha-elḳoshi, the Elḳoshite. Jerome’s words are: “Quum Elcese usque hodie in Galilea viculus sit, parvus quidem et vix ruinis veterum ædificiorum indicans vestigia, sed tamen notus Judæis et mihi quoque a circumducente monstratus” (in _Prol. ad Prophetiam Nachumi_). In the _Onomasticon_ Jerome gives the name as Elcese, Eusebius as Ἐλκεσέ, but without defining the position.
[208] This Elkese has been identified, though not conclusively, with the modern El Kauze near Ramieh, some seven miles W. of Tibnin.