The Acrostic of Nahum in the Jerusalem Liturgy

Abstract

In the current discussions concerning the relationship of the prophetic message to the cultic traditions, the short book of Nahum scarcely receives attention proportionate to the significance of its peculiar form. Here is a strange book-one filled with fierce denunciations of Judah's enemy but strikingly wanting in many elements commonly ascribed to the Hebrew most particularly in any declaration of Judah's sin as seen in the light of covenant obligations. For this reason, Nahum has been classed among the prophets of weal, or numbered among the false prophets, or even denied the name prophet in any true sense whatever. Aage BENTZEN is one of the few scholars who have clearly seen that, whatever the original life situation of Nahum's poems against Nineveh, the book as a whole has in all likelihood been shaped into its present form for use as a liturgy for the celebration of Assyria's overthrow 1). This is a point of view which the present writer strongly endorses and which he considers essential for an understanding, not only of how the book got into its present form, but also of how it gained its place in the canon of Hebrew prophecy. The ancient translations of Nahum often reveal the failure of those