Do You Like Puzzles?
Stripped and distraught and despoiled, fainting heart and buckling knees and shuddering in all loins, and all faces lose their luster. Nahum 2:11 Robert Alter
Four in One
Do you know the story behind Nahum? Probably not. It’s one of those short prophetic books that get lost in the splendor of Isaiah and the woes of Jeremiah. Maybe you’ll take a few minutes to see why Nahum is important by watching this short video: CLICK
Great! Now let’s look at something odd and interesting in Nahum. One verse, chapter 2 verse 11, contains four hapax legomena. That’s pretty rare. It makes me think that Nahum was quite an unusual poet, making up or altering words to fit his theme. Sort of like Paul. But in one verse? Wow, that’s amazing. Four words that are only found one time in all the Tanakh, all in the same verse. Oh, by the way, in the standard English translations, the verse is number 10, not 11.
The NASB translates this opening phrase as “She is emptied. Yes, she is desolate.” But there are no verbs in Hebrew. Instead, we have two nouns, bûqâ and mĕbûqâ. Both never appear in any other place in the Tanakh. In fact, neither does their assumed root, bwq. So what do these words mean? Take a guess! We might hope to get a clue from the parallel “and despoiled” (Alter) or “and waste” (NASB), but examination shows that this word, meḇǔ·lā·qā(h), suffers the same fate. You can see that it has a consonant structure like the previous two words, and, once again, it is never found anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Now we have three, apparently related, one-time words. Oy vey! What are we supposed to do with this?
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown provides this:
Literally, “emptiness, and emptiedness, and devastation.” The accumulation of substantives without a verb (as in Na 3:2), the two first of the three being derivatives of the same root, and like in sound, and the number of syllables in them increasing in a kind of climax, intensify the gloomy effectiveness of the expression.[1]
Most other commentaries avoid the problem by speaking of the general message of destruction rather than this very difficult (and perhaps untranslatable) combination. However, J-F-B does make an interesting point. The words “grow” as they progress. The situation gets worse. Whatever Nahum’s poetry is about, it’s not pleasant. It is a foreboding description of increasing doom.
And then there’s pîq. “Hearts are melting” or “fainting hearts” at least are recognizable words, but pîq is the next hapax legomenon. A similar expression is found in Isaiah 28:7 and Amos 2:13 (pûq) which is why we translate Nahum’s word according to the use in these other prophets. But it isn’t spelled exactly the same. Did Nahum intend to follow Isaiah and Amos? Then why not use the same word? Why change it? No commentary I consulted speaks about this. For the fourth time in seven Hebrew words we have something that occurs only once. Strange indeed. Do you suppose Nahum’s audience knew what he was talking about, because, if the truth be told, we don’t?
Of course, we get the general idea. Nineveh, that great city of the Assyrians, is about to fall. Its ruin will shake the foundations of the Middle-Eastern world. Bad things are going to happen. God will be avenged. We get that. We just don’t know exactly what Nahum had in mind in this particular verse.
It’s a puzzle, isn’t it?
Topical Index: hapax legomenon, bûqâ, mĕbûqâ, meḇǔ·lā·qā(h), empty, tottering, Nahum 2:11 (10).
[1] https://biblehub.com/commentaries/nahum/2-10.htm
