Yahweh Gears Up for Battle: Habakkuk 3,9a 83 evidence has now been provided in a recent publication by a leading Assyriologist, W. Heimpel, who asserts that mar˝ru (the Akkadian cognate of rrm) in the D stem means “to poison (weapons)” in a text from Mari (early eighteenth century B.C.E). In a letter to the king of Mari, a certain Buqaqum, mayor of Sapiratum, mentions recent hostilities with the Suteans. The latter had attacked a city in the district, and Buqaqum had subsequently made an incursion against them. In the context of this tense situation, he writes to the king: πukurr^ni i numarrir (53) — lit., “We shall make our lance(s) bitter”. The verb is the D stem 1st plural present-future form of mar˝ru. Heimpel asserts that “make bitter” in this passage means to smear the lances with poison in preparation for battle. He translates, “We shall poison our lances” (54). He further comments: “I am sure that the ubiquitous technique of poisoning projectiles was used in Mari also” (55). * ** In conclusion, the evidence from ancient classical and Near Eastern sources presented above justifies reading rmeT; in Hab 3,9a, which likewise has projectiles as its object, and translating it “to smear with (serpent’s) gall” = “to poison”. The complete bicolon is thus to be read and translated as follows: rmeT; t/Fm; t['b]vi // ÚTvq' hr<[;t] hrE[; ,] You removed your bow (from its case), // you poisoned (your) seven arrows. The resulting bicolon is an excellent example of classical Hebrew poetry. It is a well balanced bicolon, each colon consisting of three short words. The verse exhibits syntactic chiasmus: predicate — object // object — predicate. In the first colon the predicate consists of two words and the object of one, whereas in the second colon the predicate consists of one word and the object of two. The objects make up a word-pair, as is evident from the Ugaritic parallel pair qπt // mt≤m. The two finite verbs are both 2nd masculine singular yiqtol forms. Each colon contains the phonemes ¿ayin, resh, shin, and taw. Moreover, the bicolon begins and ends with a sonant inclusion, as the first and last words exhibit the vowel pattern /˝-ˇ/. In this poetic line Yahweh’s readying his bow for combat is aptly paralleled by his preparing arrows for battle by daubing their points with (serpent’s or dragon’s) poison as in Anzu II 63. St. Mary’s Seminary & University Michael L. BARRÉ Baltimore, Maryland 21210 U.S.A. (53) J.-M. DURAND, Archives épistolaires de Mari (Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations; ARM 26 I/2; Paris 1988) §483:25. (54) W. HEIMPEL, Letters to the King of Mari: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction, Notes, and Commentary (Mesopotamian Civilizations; Winona Lake, IN 2003) 385. (55) Ibid., n. 339.