Plausible Circumstances for the Prophecy of Habakkuk

Abstract

Bell & Howell Information and LEarning: Foreign text omitted. ... stimulus for present study comes from two disparate sources-a student's question about twenty years ago and a more recent scholar's proposal. question was one raised in an OT survey course by a student of mine, a candidate for a master's degree, Kathrene Duhon, whether wording of Hab 3:17 might be associated with drought described in Jer 14. proposal is that of J. J. M. Roberts in his commentary on Habakkuk, that psalm in Hab 3 is content of vision promised in Hab 2:2-3, and that 2:4b is to be translated, The righteous person will live by its [that is, vision's] faithfulness.1 By this understanding, then, psalm is not a curious addition to prophetic material in chs. 1-2 at all, as has often been assumed, but rather an integral part of proclamation of prophet. possibility that a current drought gave rise to Hab 3:17-18 has been explored before,2 but I am not aware of a study relating these verses to drought of Jer 14. latter drought is not dated, but fifteen years ago, using various lines of indirect evidence, I made a proposal for a date. present analysis applies that date and its associated circumstances to prophecy of Habakkuk, given implications of student's question and of proposal for Hab 3 just mentioned. Let me here summarize my proposal for a date for drought in Jeremiah: I propose three lines of evidence pointing toward date of November/December, 601 B.C.E. for public response to crisis. These are briefly as follows.3 1. It is implied in Jer 14:12 that onset of drought called forth a public fast; only other instance of mentioned in Jeremiah (36:9) does carry a date. There were evidently no regular days of fasting in Judah until time of exile, certainly no others in the ninth month (Chislev, November/December). wording of 14:12 implies a memorable public event associated with a crisis (compare Joel 1:14), and crisis can hardly be other than drought. Wilhelm Rudolph explores possibility that fast mentioned in 36:9 was called because of a drought, perhaps that of ch. 14; he cites a passage in Mishnah which states, If first of Chislev was come and no rain had fallen, court enjoins on congregation three days of fasting.4 It is plausible, then, to assume that it was drought of Jer 14 that called forth fast referred to in 36:9. IMAGE FORMULA14 3. Suggestive is fact that Jer 8:8-13 implies both a drought (v. 13) and a recitation of law (vv. 8-9). If, as I have suggested, law of Deuteronomy was recited every seventh year during festival of booths (September/October), in accordance with stipulation in Deut 31:10-11, and if one marks these septennial readings from time of discovery of Deuteronomy in Josiah's eighteenth year (2 Kgs 22:3), then third such public reading would take place during autumn of 601,10 when, by my suggestion, drought would already have been under way. Form-critically I accept possibility raised by Otto Eissfeldt that Jer 14:1-15:9 represents Jeremiah's ironic counter-liturgy to whatever public liturgy was offered in crisis of drought.11 This suggestion in turn raises question whether prophetic material in Habakkuk does not embody that public liturgy. I shall return to this possibility below. It would not be useful here to survey total range of scholarly views on setting or settings of book of Habakkuk; a convenient view of this range may be found in Marvin Sweeney's treatment of book in Anchor Bible Dictionary.12 In general I shall move out from Roberts's analysis. material in 1:2-2:4 gives little difficulty. Roberts's outline is as follows: Habakkuk's Initial Lament, 1:2-4; God's Response, 1:5-11; Habakkuk's Second Lament, 1:12-17; Yahweh's Second Response, 2:1-4. …