Excerpt from The Book of Nahum: A New Metrical Translation With an Introduction, Restoration of the Hebrew Text and Explanatory and Critical Notes In my address on Purim, which I delivered at our meeting last year, I showed that the incidents related in the Book of Esther were suggested by the sufferings of the Jews during the Syrian persecution and their glorious victory over Nicanor on the 13th of Adar, 161 B. C. I have recently come to the conclusion that the Book of Nahum is a liturgical compilation for the celebration of that victory. He that dashes in pieces is come up before thy face, at the beginning of the second chapter of Nahum, refers to Judas Maccabseus; the Authorized Version gives the correct rendering hammer in the margin. The wicked counselor that imagineth evil against the Lord (1 11) is Nicanor, and instead of the clause translated in the Authorized Version: that no more of thy name he sown (1 14) we must read: thy remains shall he scattered. Judas Maccabaeus gibbeted the head and the right arm of Nicanor, and the tongue of this thrice-guilty wretch was cut up and given to the birds (2 Macc. 15 33). The Book of Nahum is not a prophecy, but a liturgical collection of four poems.

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