NAHUM AND HABAKKUK

In all of the early manuscripts of the twelve minor prophets, these two books always appear in the same order next to one another, indicating some sort of close relationship between the two. So I decided to look through the commentaries at my disposal to see what that relationship might be.

R.L. Smith: “Habakkuk and Nahum were contemporaries, Habakkuk slightly later than Nahum. There are similarities between their books and messages as well as contrasts. Each of their books consist of three chapters. Nahum begins with a psalm; Habakkuk ends with one. Each spoke to a crisis situation and was convinced that Yahweh was Lord of the universe and history. Nahum wrote to assure his people that Nineveh was going to fall. Her enemy and oppressor would be overthrown. Nahum's message was basically an oracle against a foreign nation. Although Habakkuk addressed five woes to Babylon, his primary message was one of commitment to Yahweh even when a cruel, godless tyrant was poised on the border ready to overrun one's land.”

O.P. Robertson: “Because Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah all ministered essentially to the same constituency and labored within thirty years of one another, it may be helpful to discuss their theological perspective as a whole. Individualized distinctives are clearly present. But many overriding themes are common to all three, and may be understood better in the light of the united testimony.” These theological themes may be summarized as follows:

    Lack of emphasis on a coming Messiah

    Pronounced theocentric message

    Impartial nature of God's justice

    Divine judgment that is retributive and not always restorative

    Absence of covenant language

    Link between God's judgment on His enemies and Israel's salvation

In addition, Robertson points to common stylistic characteristics between the three books. As he says, In the prophecies of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, a number of characteristics, types, and forms emerge which determine the shape of the material....A great deal of variety and creativity marks the style of each of these three prophets. Each has developed his own distinctive approach to the use of language in the communication of his message.”

Finally, Christensen has actually proposed an overall structure for the united books of Nahum and Habakkuk to explain their relative positions of appearance within the twelve minor prophets:

    Hymn of theophany (Nahum 1)

            Taunt song against Nineveh (Nahum 2-3)

                    The problem of theodicy (Habakkuk 1:1-2:5)

            Taunt song against the “wicked one” (Habakkuk 2:6-20)

    Hymn of theophany (Habakkuk 3)

This proposal is not in itself an unreasonable one since the final three books of the Minor Prophets appear to have some sort of literary relationship to one another (see my post titled “The Unity of Haggai-Zechariah-Malachi”). This proposal has some support from my own literary analysis of Nahum in that there appears to be only a loose structural association between ch. 1 and its following two chapters. However, the relatively strong correspondence of Habakkuk 1 with Habakkuk 3 (see my post titled “Habakkuk: Introduction to Structural Analysis”) argues against Christensen's combined chiastic scheme.