06_AN_Whitekettle_273_281_273_281 10/07/15 12:42 Pagina 280 280 RICHARD WHITEKETTLE announcement in 1,5-11 was first written/spoken at a time before the Babylonians had made their presence directly felt in Judah, and so, prob- ably before their appearance in Philistine territory in 604 14. If 1,12-17 was first written/spoken after 586, then God’s announcement in 1,5-11 and Habakkuk’s complaint in 1,12-17 were separated by many years (ca. pre-604 for 1,5-11 and ca. post-586 for 1,12-17). This would mean that Habakkuk had a long prophetic career, and was conscious of and was keeping track of the long trajectory of history and divine action. Second, although the most natural way to read the wayyiqṭol verb in 1,14 is as a reference to an actual past event, it is possible that the verb reflects the thinking of a prophet who has, “in his mind…projected him- self into a future point of view from which what is to come can be de- scribed as having occurred” 15. Such a reading of the verb would mean that the complaint in 1,14, and presumably the whole of Habakkuk’s speech in 1,12-17, was first written/spoken prior to the cataclysm of 586, and that Habakkuk was complaining about what he believed the Babylo- nians would eventually do to Judah ― that is, that they would eventually bring the Davidic polity to an end. Several things could have led him to such a belief: 1) the ferocity of the language in God’s announcement of the Babylonian assault (1,5-11); 2) the destruction of the nearby city-state of Ashkelon and its royal polity by the Babylonians in 604; 3) the statements of his contemporary Jere- miah announcing the demise of the Davidic monarchy, Jerusalem, and several of the last Davidic kings and their lineages, all at the hands of the Babylonians (e.g., Jer 21,1-10; 22,24-30; 32,1-5.26-35; 34,1-22; 36,27- 32; 37,3-10; 38,1-23); 4) the manipulation of the Davidic monarchy by the Babylonians in 597, when they deported Jehoiachin and installed Zedekiah as king (2 Kgs 24,8-17; 2 Chr 36,9-10). In the case of a pre-586 setting for 1,14, the time structure of 1,14-17 would be the same as that described above for a post-586 setting. The ver- bal time frames, however, would all be embedded within the visionary or imagined future. The issue of whether Hab 1,14 (and all of 1,12-17) was first written/spoken before or after 586 will not be settled here. To do so would require a thorough analysis of the relationship between 1,14-17 and the rest of 1,12-17, the relationship between 1,12-17 and the other sections of the book, the dates of the other sections of the book, and various other 14 ROBERTS, Nahum, 95; FLOYD, Minor Prophets, 84, 87; ANDERSEN, Habakkuk, 168; ROBERTSON, The Books, 36-37; BAILEY, “Habakkuk”, 260, 301. 15 J. JOOSTEN, The Verbal System of Biblical Hebrew. A New Synthesis Elaborated on the Basis of Classical Prose (JBS 10; Jerusalem 2012) 423. See also G. HATAV, “Past and Future Interpretation of Wayyiqtol”, JSS 61 (2011) 105-107.