[266] iii. 3.
[267] It is the waters of the Tigris that the tradition avers to have broken the wall; but the Tigris itself runs in a bed too low for this: it can only have been the Choser. See both Jones and Billerbeck.
[268] ii. 6.
[269] If the above conception of chaps. ii. and iii. be correct, then there is no need for such a re-arrangement of these verses as has been proposed by Jeremias and Billerbeck. In order to produce a continuous narrative of the progress of the siege, they bring forward iii. 12–15 (describing the fall of the fortresses and gates of the land and the call to the defence of the city), and place it immediately after ii. 2, 4 (the description of the invader) and ii. 5–11 (the appearance of chariots in the suburbs of the city, the opening of the floodgates, the flight and the spoiling of the city). But if they believe that the original gave an orderly account of the progress of the siege, why do they not bring forward also iii. 2 f., which describe the arrival of the foe under the city walls? The truth appears to be as stated above. We have really two poems against Niniveh, chap. ii. and chap. iii. They do not give an orderly description of the siege, but exult over Niniveh’s imminent downfall, with gleams scattered here and there of how this is to happen. Of these “impressions” of the coming siege there are three, and in the order in which we now have them they occur very naturally: ii. 5 ff., iii. 2 f., and iii. 12 ff.
[270] ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. See above, pp. [94] f.
[271] ii. 13, iii. 5.
[272] See above, Vol. I., Chap. [IV.], especially pp. [54] ff.
[273] ii. 8.
[274] Isaiah xl.—lxvi. (Expositor’s Bible), pp. [197] ff.
[275] Read מַפֵּץ with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade’s Wörterbuch, sub פּוּץ) for מֵפִיץ, Breaker in pieces. In Jer. li. 20 Babylon is also called by Jehovah His מַפֵּץ, Hammer or Maul.