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 MATHEMATICS
FOR ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 1 20/12/2022 14:40

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F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 2 20/12/2022 14:40

 MATHEMATICS
FOR ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS

IAN JACQUES
TENTH EDITION

Harlow, England • London • New York • Boston • San Francisco • Toronto • Sydney • Dubai • Singapore • Hong Kong
Tokyo • Seoul • Taipei • New Delhi • Cape Town • São Paulo • Mexico City • Madrid • Amsterdam • Munich • Paris • Milan

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 PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED
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First published 1991 (print)

Second edition published 1994 (print)
Third edition published 1999 (print)
Fourth edition published 2003 (print)
Fifth edition published 2006 (print)
Sixth edition published 2009 (print)
Seventh edition published 2013 (print and electronic)
Eighth edition published 2015 (print and electronic)
Ninth edition published 2018 (print and electronic)
Tenth edition published 2023 (print and electronic)

© Addison-Wesley Publishers Ltd 1991, 1994 (print)

© Pearson Education Limited 1999, 2009 (print)
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F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 4 20/12/2022 14:40

 To my family: Past, Present and Future

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 5 20/12/2022 14:40

 CONTENTS

Preface xiii

INTRODUCTION: Getting Started 1

Notes for students: how to use this text 1
Tour of textbook features 4

CHAPTER 1 Linear Equations 7

1.1 Introduction to algebra 8
1.1.1 Negative numbers 9
1.1.2 Expressions 11
1.1.3 Brackets 14
Key Terms 19
Exercise 1.1 20
Exercise 1.1* 22
1.2 Further algebra 24
1.2.1 Fractions 24
1.2.2 Equations 31
1.2.3 Inequalities 35
Key Terms 38
Exercise 1.2 38
Exercise 1.2* 40
1.3 Graphs of linear equations 42
Key Terms 52
Exercise 1.3 52
Exercise 1.3* 54
1.4 Algebraic solution of simultaneous linear equations 55
Key Term 65
Exercise 1.4 65
Exercise 1.4* 66
1.5 Supply and demand analysis 67
Key Terms 80
Exercise 1.5 80
Exercise 1.5* 82
1.6 Transposition of formulae 84
Key Terms 91
Exercise 1.6 91
Exercise 1.6* 92
1.7 National income determination 93
Key Terms 105
Exercise 1.7 105
Exercise 1.7* 106

Case study 1 109

Formal mathematics 110
Multiple-choice questions 113
Examination questions 117

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 6 20/12/2022 14:40

 CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER 2 Non-linear Equations 123

2.1 Quadratic functions 124

Key Terms 138
Exercise 2.1 139
Exercise 2.1* 140
2.2 Revenue, cost and profit 142
Key Terms 150
Exercise 2.2 150
Exercise 2.2* 151
2.3 Indices and logarithms 153
2.3.1 Index notation 153
2.3.2 Rules of indices 157
2.3.3 Logarithms 163
2.3.4 Summary 169
Key Terms 170
Exercise 2.3 170
Exercise 2.3* 172
2.4 The exponential and natural logarithm functions 175
Key Terms 185
Exercise 2.4 185
Exercise 2.4* 186

Case study 2 189

Formal mathematics 191
Multiple-choice questions 194
Examination questions 198

CHAPTER 3 Mathematics of Finance 203

3.1 Percentages 204
3.1.1 Index numbers 210
3.1.2 Inflation 214
Key Terms 216
Exercise 3.1 216
Exercise 3.1* 219
3.2 Compound interest 222
Key Terms 232
Exercise 3.2 232
Exercise 3.2* 234
3.3 Geometric series 236
Key Terms 244
Exercise 3.3 244
Exercise 3.3* 245
3.4 Investment appraisal 247
Key Terms 259
Exercise 3.4 259
Exercise 3.4* 261

Case study 3 263

Formal mathematics 264
Multiple-choice questions 266
Examination questions 270

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 7 20/12/2022 14:40

 viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER 4 Differentiation 275

4.1 The derivative of a function 276
Key Terms 285
Exercise 4.1 285
Exercise 4.1* 286
4.2 Rules of differentiation 287
Rule 1 The constant rule 287
Rule 2 The sum rule 288
Rule 3 The difference rule 289
Key Terms 294
Exercise 4.2 294
Exercise 4.2* 296
4.3 Marginal functions 298
4.3.1 Revenue and cost 298
4.3.2 Production 305
4.3.3 Consumption and savings 307
Key Terms 309
Exercise 4.3 309
Exercise 4.3* 310
4.4 Further rules of differentiation 312
Rule 4 The chain rule 313
Rule 5 The product rule 315
Rule 6 The quotient rule 318
Exercise 4.4 320
Exercise 4.4* 321
4.5 Elasticity 322
Key Terms 334
Exercise 4.5 334
Exercise 4.5* 335
4.6 Optimisation of economic functions 337
Key Terms 353
Exercise 4.6 353
Exercise 4.6* 355
4.7 Further optimisation of economic functions 356
Key Term 367
Exercise 4.7* 367
4.8 The derivative of the exponential and natural logarithm functions 369
Exercise 4.8 378
Exercise 4.8* 379

Case study 4 381

Formal mathematics 384
Multiple-choice questions 387
Examination questions 393

CHAPTER 5 Partial Differentiation 399

5.1 Functions of several variables 400
Key Terms 410
Exercise 5.1 411
Exercise 5.1* 412
5.2 Partial elasticity and marginal functions 414
5.2.1 Elasticity of demand 414

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 8 20/12/2022 14:40

 CONTENTS ix

5.2.2 Utility 417

5.2.3 Production 423
Key Terms 425
Exercise 5.2 426
Exercise 5.2* 428
5.3 Comparative statics 430
Key Terms 439
Exercise 5.3* 439
5.4 Unconstrained optimisation 443
Key Terms 454
Exercise 5.4 454
Exercise 5.4* 455
5.5 Constrained optimisation 457
Key Terms 466
Exercise 5.5 467
Exercise 5.5* 468
5.6 Lagrange multipliers 470
Key Terms 479
Exercise 5.6 479
Exercise 5.6* 480

Case study 5 482

Formal mathematics 483
Multiple-choice questions 485
Examination questions 488

CHAPTER 6 Integration 493

6.1 Indefinite integration 494
Key Terms 505
Exercise 6.1 506
Exercise 6.1* 507
6.2 Definite integration 509
6.2.1 Consumer’s surplus 513
6.2.2 Producer’s surplus 514
6.2.3 Investment flow 516
6.2.4 Discounting 518
6.2.5 Income inequality 518
Key Terms 520
Exercise 6.2 520
Exercise 6.2* 522

Case study 6 524

Formal mathematics 525
Multiple-choice questions 527
Examination questions 530

CHAPTER 7 Matrices 535

7.1 Basic matrix operations 536
7.1.1 Transposition 538
7.1.2 Addition and subtraction 539
7.1.3 Scalar multiplication 542
7.1.4 Matrix multiplication 543
7.1.5 Summary 551

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 9 20/12/2022 14:40

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 x CONTENTS

Key Terms 551

Exercise 7.1 552
Exercise 7.1* 554
7.2 Matrix inversion 556
Key Terms 571
Exercise 7.2 571
Exercise 7.2* 572
7.3 Cramer’s rule 575
Key Term 583
Exercise 7.3 583
Exercise 7.3* 584

Case study 7 587

Formal mathematics 589
Multiple-choice questions 590
Examination questions 594

CHAPTER 8 Linear Programming 599

8.1 Graphical solution of linear programming problems 600

Key Terms 614
Exercise 8.1 615
Exercise 8.1* 616
8.2 Applications of linear programming 618
Key Terms 626
Exercise 8.2 626
Exercise 8.2* 628

Case study 8 631

Formal mathematics 632
Multiple-choice questions 633
Examination questions 638

CHAPTER 9 Dynamics 643

9.1 Difference equations 644

9.1.1 National income determination 650
9.1.2 Supply and demand analysis 652
Key Terms 655
Exercise 9.1 655
Exercise 9.1* 656
9.2 Differential equations 659
9.2.1 National income determination 665
9.2.2 Supply and demand analysis 667
Key Terms 669
Exercise 9.2 670
Exercise 9.2* 671

Case study 9 674

Formal mathematics 675
Multiple-choice questions 676
Examination questions 679

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 10 20/12/2022 14:40

 CONTENTS xi

Answers to Problems 682

Chapter 1 682
Chapter 2 692
Chapter 3 701
Chapter 4 705
Chapter 5 716
Chapter 6 723
Chapter 7 727
Chapter 8 733
Chapter 9 737

Glossary 741
Index 748

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 11 20/12/2022 14:40

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F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 12 20/12/2022 14:40

 PREFACE

This textbook is intended primarily for students on economics, business studies and manage-
ment courses. It assumes very little prerequisite knowledge, so it can be read by students who have
not undertaken a mathematics course for some time. The style is informal, and the text con-
tains a large number of worked examples. Students are encouraged to tackle problems for
themselves as they read through each section. Solutions are provided so that all answers can
be checked. Consequently, it should be possible to work through this text on a self-study
basis. The material is wide ranging and varies from elementary topics such as percentages
and linear equations to more sophisticated topics such as constrained optimisation of multi-
variate functions. The text should therefore be suitable for use on both low- and high-level
quantitative methods courses.
This text was first published in 1991. The prime motivation for writing it then was to try
to produce a book that students could actually read and understand for themselves. This
remains the guiding principle when writing this tenth edition. Extra features and resources
requested by students over the years are now incorporated into the printed book. These
include end-of-chapter multiple-choice tests and longer examination questions. All of these
are designed to help students pass the course.
Online resources include access to the eBook and a bank of new problems in MyLab Math.
The latter provides students with an interactive learning environment where they can concen-
trate on topics that they find difficult and measure their own progress. There is a ‘help me solve
it’ mode which provides step-by-step guidance to solve a problem with the system acting like
a personal tutor. Lecturer’s resources include fully worked solutions to all of the standard
problems in the textbook, PowerPoint slides, and material on more advanced topics.
Many of the examples and questions in this edition have been updated to make them more
contemporary. New material on the second-order conditions for Lagrange multipliers and a
new section on Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients are provided. Case studies are now
included to give an indication how the mathematics covered in each chapter can actually be
used by businesses and individuals in practice, which we hope students will find relevant and
interesting.

Ian Jacques

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 13 20/12/2022 14:40

F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 14 20/12/2022 14:40
F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 15 20/12/2022 14:40
F01 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 16 20/12/2022 14:40
 INTRODUCTION
Getting Started
NOTES FOR STUDENTS: HOW TO USE THIS TEXT
I am always amazed by the mix of students on first-year economics courses. Some have not
acquired any mathematical knowledge beyond elementary algebra (and even that can be of a
rather dubious nature), some have never studied economics before in their lives, while others
have passed preliminary courses in both. Whatever category you are in, I hope that you will
find this text of value. The chapters covering algebraic manipulation, simple calculus, finance,
matrices and linear programming should also benefit students on business studies and manage-
ment courses.
The first few chapters are aimed at complete beginners and students who have not taken
mathematics courses for some time. I would like to think that these students once enjoyed
mathematics and had every intention of continuing their studies in this area, but somehow never
found the time to fit it into an already overcrowded academic timetable. However, I suspect that
the reality is rather different. Possibly they hated the subject, could not understand it and dropped
it at the earliest opportunity. If you find yourself in this position, you are probably horrified to
discover that you must embark on a quantitative methods course with an examination looming
on the horizon. However, there is no need to worry. My experience is that every student is
capable of passing a mathematics examination. All that is required is a commitment to study
and a willingness to suspend any prejudices about the subject gained at school. The fact that
you have bothered to buy this text at all suggests that you are prepared to do both.
To help you get the most out of this text, let me compare the working practices of
economics and engineering students. The former rarely read individual books in any great depth.
They tend to skim through a selection of books in the university library and perform a large
number of Internet searches, picking out relevant information. Indeed, the ability to read selec-
tively and to compare various sources of information is an important skill that all arts and
social science students must acquire. Engineering students, on the other hand, are more likely
to read just a few books in any one year. They read each of these from cover to cover and
attempt virtually every problem en route. Even though you are most definitely not an engineer,
it is the engineering approach that you need to adopt while studying mathematics. There are
several reasons for this. First, a mathematics text can never be described, even by its most
ardent admirers, as a good bedtime read. It can take an hour or two of concentrated effort to
understand just a few pages of a mathematics text. You are therefore recommended to work
through this text systematically in short bursts rather than to attempt to read whole chapters.
Each section is designed to take between one and two hours to complete, and this is quite
sufficient for a single session. Secondly, mathematics is a hierarchical subject in which one topic
follows on from the next. A construction firm building an office block is hardly likely to erect
the fiftieth storey without making sure that the intermediate floors and foundations are
securely in place. Likewise, you cannot ‘dip’ into the middle of a mathematics text
and expect to follow it unless you have satisfied the prerequisites for that topic. Finally, you
actually need to do mathematics yourself before you can understand it. No matter how
wonderful your lecturer is, and no matter how many problems are discussed in class, it is only

F02 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 1 14/12/2022 15:01

 2 INTRODUCTION GETTING STARTED

by solving problems yourself that you are ever going to become confident in using and applying
mathematical techniques. For this reason, several problems are interspersed within the text, and
you are encouraged to tackle these as you go along. You will require writing paper, graph paper,
pens and a calculator for this. There is no need to buy an expensive calculator unless you are
feeling particularly wealthy at the moment. A bottom-of-the-range scientific calculator should
be good enough. Answers to every question are printed at the back of this text so that you
can check your own answers quickly as you go along. However, please avoid the temptation
to look at them until you have made an honest attempt at each one. Remember that in the
future you may well have to sit down in an uncomfortable chair, in front of a blank sheet of
paper, and be expected to produce solutions to examination questions of a similar type.
At the end of each section there are two parallel exercises. The non-starred exercises
are intended for students who are meeting these topics for the first time and the questions are
designed to consolidate basic principles. The starred exercises are more challenging but still
cover the full range so that students with greater experience will be able to concentrate their
efforts on these questions without having to pick-and-mix from both exercises. The chapter
dependence is shown in Figure I.1. If you have studied some advanced mathematics before,
you will discover that parts of Chapters 1, 2 and 4 are familiar. However, you may find that
the sections on economics applications contain new material. You are best advised to test
yourself by attempting a selection of problems from the starred exercise in each section to
see if you need to read through it as part of a refresher course. Economics students in a
desperate hurry to experience the delights of calculus can miss out Chapter 3 without any
loss of continuity and move straight on to Chapter 4. The mathematics of finance is probably
more relevant to business and accountancy students, although you can always read it later if
it is part of your economics syllabus.
At the end of every chapter, you will find a multiple-choice test and some examination
questions. These cover the work of the whole chapter. We recommend that you try the
multiple-choice questions when you have completed the relevant chapter. As usual, answers

1
Linear equations

7 8
Matrices Linear programming
2
Non-linear equations

3
Mathematics of finance
4
Differentiation

5 6
Partial differentiation Integration

9
Dynamics

Figure I.1

F02 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 2 14/12/2022 15:01

 INTRODUCTION GETTING STARTED 3

are provided at the back of the book so that you can check to see how well you have done.
If you do get any of the questions wrong, it would be worth redoing them, perhaps writing
down full working so that you can spot your mistake more easily. The final section contains
several examination-style problems which are more challenging. They tend to be longer than
the questions encountered so far in the exercises and require more confidence and experience.
You might like to leave these until the end of the course and use them in your build-up to the
final exams.
I hope that this text helps you to succeed in your mathematics course. You never know,
you might even enjoy it. Remember to wear your engineer’s hat while reading the text. I have
done my best to make the material as accessible as possible. The rest is up to you!

F02 Mathematics for Economics and Business 20128.indd 3 14/12/2022 15:01

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Exploring the Variety of Random
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 Third: from each of these groups of critics Budde of Strasburg
borrows something, but so as to construct an arrangement of the
verses, and to reach a date, for the whole, from which both differ.
[320] With Hitzig, Ewald, König, Smend, Giesebrecht and Wellhausen

he agrees that the violence complained of in i. 2–4 is that inflicted

by a heathen oppressor, the wicked, on the Jewish nation, the
righteous. But with Kuenen and others he holds that the Chaldeans
are raised up, according to i. 5–11, to punish the violence
complained of in i. 2–4 and again in i. 12–17. In these verses it is
the ravages of another heathen power than the Chaldeans which
Budde descries. The Chaldeans are still to come, and cannot be the
same as the devastator whose long continued tyranny is described in
i. 12–17. They are rather the power which is to punish him. He can
only be the Assyrian. But if that be so, the proper place for the
passage, i. 5–11, which describes the rise of the Chaldeans must be
after the description of the Assyrian ravages in i. 12–17, and in the
body of God’s answer to the prophet which we find in ii. 2 ff. Budde,
therefore, places i. 5–11 after ii. 2–4. But if the Chaldeans are still to
come, and Budde thinks that they are described vaguely and with a
good deal of imagination, the prophecy thus arranged must fall
somewhere between 625, when Nabopolassar the Chaldean made
himself independent of Assyria and King of Babylon, and 607, when
Assyria fell. That the prophet calls Judah righteous is proof that he
wrote after the great Reform of 621; hence, too, his reference to
Torah and Mishpat (i. 4), and his complaint of the obstacles which
Assyrian supremacy presented to their free course. As the Assyrian
yoke appears not to have been felt anywhere in Judah by 608,
Budde would fix the exact date of Habakkuk’s prophecy about 615.
To these conclusions of Budde Cornill, who in 1891 had very
confidently assigned the prophecy of Habakkuk to the reign of
Jehoiakim, gave his adherence in 1896.[321]
Budde’s very able and ingenious argument has been subjected to
a searching criticism by Professor Davidson, who emphasises first
the difficulty of accounting for the transposition of chap. i. 5–11 from
what Budde alleges to have been its original place after ii. 4 to its
present position in chap. i.[322] He points out that if chap. i. 2–4 and
12–17 and ii. 5 ff. refer to the Assyrian, it is strange the latter is not
once mentioned. Again, by 615 we may infer (though we know little
of Assyrian history at this time) that the Assyrian’s hold on Judah
was already too relaxed for the prophet to impute to him power to
hinder the Law, especially as Josiah had begun to carry his reforms
into the northern kingdom; and the knowledge of the Chaldeans
displayed in i. 5–11 is too fresh and detailed[323] to suit so early a
date: it was possible only after the battle of Carchemish. And again,
it is improbable that we have two different nations, as Budde thinks,
described by the very similar phrases in i. 11, his own power
becomes his god, and in i. 16, he sacrifices to his net. Again, chap. i.
5–11 would not read quite naturally after chap. ii. 4. And in the woes
pronounced on the oppressor it is not one nation, the Chaldeans,
which are to spoil him, but all the remnant of the peoples (ii. 7, 8).
These objections are not inconsiderable. But are they conclusive?
And if not, is any of the other theories of the prophecy less beset
with difficulties?
The objections are scarcely conclusive. We have no proof that
the power of Assyria was altogether removed from Judah by 615; on
the contrary, even in 608 Assyria was still the power with which
Egypt went forth to contend for the empire of the world. Seven
years earlier her hand may well have been strong upon Palestine.
Again, by 615 the Chaldeans, a people famous in Western Asia for a
long time, had been ten years independent: men in Palestine may
have been familiar with their methods of warfare; at least it is
impossible to say they were not.[324] There is more weight in the
objection drawn from the absence of the name of Assyria from all of
the passages which Budde alleges describe it; nor do we get over all
difficulties of text by inserting i. 5–11 between ii. 4 and 5. Besides,
how does Budde explain i. 12b on the theory that it means Assyria?
Is the clause not premature at that point? Does he propose to elide
it, like Wellhausen? And in any case an erroneous transposition of
the original is impossible to prove and difficult to account for.[325]
But have not the other theories of the Book of Habakkuk equally
great difficulties? Surely, we cannot say that the righteous and the
wicked in i. 4 mean something different from what they do in i. 13?
But if this is impossible the construction of the book supported by
the great majority of critics[326] falls to the ground. Professor
Davidson justly says that it has “something artificial in it” and “puts a
strain on the natural sense.”[327] How can the Chaldeans be
described in i. 5 as just about to be raised up, and in 14–17 as
already for a long time the devastators of earth? Ewald’s, Hitzig’s
and König’s views[328] are equally beset by these difficulties; König’s
exposition also “strains the natural sense.” Everything, in fact, points
to i. 5–11 being out of its proper place; it is no wonder that
Giesebrecht, Wellhausen and Budde independently arrived at this
conclusion.[329] Whether Budde be right in inserting i. 5–11 after ii.
4, there can be little doubt of the correctness of his views that i. 12–
17 describe a heathen oppressor who is not the Chaldeans. Budde
says this oppressor is Assyria. Can he be any one else? From 608 to
605 Judah was sorely beset by Egypt, who had overrun all Syria up
to the Euphrates. The Egyptians killed Josiah, deposed his successor,
and put their own vassal under a very heavy tribute; gold and silver
were exacted of the people of the land: the picture of distress in i.
1–4 might easily be that of Judah in these three terrible years. And if
we assigned the prophecy to them, we should certainly give it a date
at which the knowledge of the Chaldeans expressed in i. 5–11 was
more probable than at Budde’s date of 615. But then does the
description in chap, i. 14–17 suit Egypt so well as it does Assyria?
We can hardly affirm this, until we know more of what Egypt did in
those days, but it is very probable.
Therefore, the theory supported by the majority of critics being
unnatural, we are, with our present meagre knowledge of the time,
flung back upon Budde’s interpretation that the prophet in i. 2—ii. 4
appeals from oppression by a heathen power, which is not the
Chaldean, but upon which the Chaldean shall bring the just
vengeance of God. The tyrant is either Assyria up to about 615 or
Egypt from 608 to 605, and there is not a little to be said for the
latter date.
In arriving at so uncertain a conclusion about i.—ii. 4, we have
but these consolations, that no other is possible in our present
knowledge, and that the uncertainty will not hamper us much in our
appreciation of Habakkuk’s spiritual attitude and poetic gifts.[330]

2. CHAP. II. 5–20.

The dramatic piece i. 2—ii. 4 is succeeded by a series of fine
taunt-songs, starting after an introduction from 6b, then 9, 11, 15
and (18) 19, and each opening with Woe! Their subject is, if we take
Budde’s interpretation of the dramatic piece, the Assyrian and not
the Chaldean[331] tyrant. The text, as we shall see when we come to
it, is corrupt. Some words are manifestly wrong, and the rhythm
must have suffered beyond restoration. In all probability these fine
lyric Woes, or at least as many of them as are authentic—for there is
doubt about one or two—were of equal length. Whether they all
originally had the refrain now attached to two is more doubtful.
Hitzig suspected the authenticity of some parts of this series of
songs. Stade[332] and Kuenen have gone further and denied the
genuineness of vv. 9–20. But this is with little reason. As Budde
says, a series of Woes was to be expected here by a prophet who
follows so much the example of Isaiah.[333] In spite of Kuenen’s
objection, vv. 9–11 would not be strange of the Chaldean, but they
suit the Assyrian better. Vv. 12–14 are doubtful: 12 recalls Micah iii.
10; 13 is a repetition of Jer. li. 58; 14 is a variant of Isa. xi. 9. Very
likely Jer. li. 58, a late passage, is borrowed from this passage; yet
the addition used here, Are not these things[334] from the Lord of
Hosts? looks as if it noted a citation. Vv. 15–17 are very suitable to
the Assyrian; there is no reason to take them from Habakkuk.[335]
The final song, vv. 18 and 19, has its Woe at the beginning of its
second verse, and closely resembles the language of later prophets.
[336] Moreover the refrain forms a suitable close at the end of ver. 17.
ver. 20 is a quotation from Zephaniah,[337] perhaps another sign of
the composite character of the end of this chapter. Some take it to
have been inserted as an introduction to the theophany in chap. iii.
Smend has drawn up a defence[338] of the whole passage, ii. 9–
20, which he deems not only to stand in a natural relation to vv. 4–
8, but to be indispensable to them. That the passage quotes from
other prophets, he holds to be no proof against its authenticity. If we
break off with ver. 8, he thinks that we must impute to Habakkuk the
opinion that the wrongs of the world are chiefly avenged by human
means—a conclusion which is not to be expected after chap. i.—ii. 1
ff.

3. CHAP. III.
The third chapter, an Ode or Rhapsody, is ascribed to Habakkuk
by its title. This, however, does not prove its authenticity: the title is
too like those assigned to the Psalms in the period of the Second
Temple.[339] On the contrary, the title itself, the occurrence of the
musical sign Selah in the contents, and the colophon suggest for the
chapter a liturgical origin after the Exile.[340] That this is more
probable than the alternative opinion, that, being a genuine work of
Habakkuk, the chapter was afterwards arranged as a Psalm for
public worship, is confirmed by the fact that no other work of the
prophets has been treated in the same way. Nor do the contents
support the authorship by Habakkuk. They reflect no definite
historical situation like the preceding chapters. The style and temper
are different. While in them the prophet speaks for himself, here it is
the nation or congregation of Israel that addresses God. The
language is not, as some have maintained, late;[341] but the
designation of the people as Thine anointed, a term which before
the Exile was applied to the king, undoubtedly points to a post-exilic
date. The figures, the theophany itself, are not necessarily archaic,
but are more probably moulded on archaic models. There are many
affinities with Psalms of a late date.
At the same time a number of critics[342] maintain the
genuineness of the chapter, and they have some grounds for this.
Habakkuk was, as we can see from chaps. i. and ii., a real poet.
There was no need why a man of his temper should be bound down
to reflecting only his own day. If so practical a prophet as Hosea,
and one who has so closely identified himself with his times, was
wont to escape from them to a retrospect of the dealings of God
with Israel from of old, why should not the same be natural for a
prophet who was much less practical and more literary and artistic?
There are also many phrases in the Psalm which may be interpreted
as reflecting the same situation as chaps. i., ii. All this, however, only
proves possibility.
The Psalm has been adapted in Psalm lxxvii. 17–20.

FURTHER NOTE ON CHAP. I.—II. 4.

Since this chapter was in print Nowack’s Die Kleinen Propheten in the
“Handkommentar z. A. T.” has been published. He recognises emphatically that the
disputed passage about the Chaldeans, chap. i. 5–11, is out of place where it lies
(this against Kuenen and the other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits
that it follows on, with a natural connection, to chap. ii. 4, to which Budde
proposes to attach it. Nevertheless, for other reasons, which he does not state, he
regards Budde’s proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed passage to be
by another hand than Habakkuk’s, and intruded into the latter’s argument.
Habakkuk’s argument he assigns to after 605; perhaps 590. The tyrant complained
against would therefore be the Chaldean.—Driver in the 6th ed. of his Introduction
(1897) deems Budde’s argument “too ingenious,” and holds by the older and most
numerously supported argument (above, pp. 116 ff.).—On a review of the case in
the light of these two discussions, the present writer holds to his opinion that
Budde’s rearrangement, which he has adopted, offers the fewest difficulties.
 CHAPTER X

THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC

HABAKKUK i.—ii. 4

Of the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that is personal save his

name—to our ears his somewhat odd name. It is the intensive form
of a root which means to caress or embrace. More probably it was
given to him as a child, than afterwards assumed as a symbol of his
clinging to God.[343]
Tradition says that Habakkuk was a priest, the son of Joshua, of
the tribe of Levi, but this is only an inference from the late liturgical
notes to the Psalm which has been appended to his prophecy.[344]
All that we know for certain is that he was a contemporary of
Jeremiah, with a sensitiveness under wrong and impulses to
question God which remind us of Jeremiah; but with a literary power
which is quite his own. We may emphasise the latter, even though
we recognise upon his writing the influence of Isaiah’s.
Habakkuk’s originality, however, is deeper than style. He is the
earliest who is known to us of a new school of religion in Israel. He
is called prophet, but at first he does not adopt the attitude which is
characteristic of the prophets. His face is set in an opposite direction
to theirs. They address the nation Israel, on behalf of God: he rather
speaks to God on behalf of Israel. Their task was Israel’s sin, the
proclamation of God’s doom and the offer of His grace to their
penitence. Habakkuk’s task is God Himself, the effort to find out
what He means by permitting tyranny and wrong. They attack the
sins, he is the first to state the problems, of life. To him the
prophetic revelation, the Torah, is complete: it has been codified in
Deuteronomy and enforced by Josiah. Habakkuk’s business is not to
add to it but to ask why it does not work. Why does God suffer
wrong to triumph, so that the Torah is paralysed, and Mishpat, the
prophetic justice or judgment, comes to nought? The prophets
travailed for Israel’s character—to get the people to love justice till
justice prevailed among them: Habakkuk feels justice cannot prevail
in Israel, because of the great disorder which God permits to fill the
world. It is true that he arrives at a prophetic attitude, and before
the end authoritatively declares God’s will; but he begins by
searching for the latter, with an appreciation of the great obscurity
cast over it by the facts of life. He complains to God, asks questions
and expostulates. This is the beginning of speculation in Israel. It
does not go far: it is satisfied with stating questions to God; it does
not, directly at least, state questions against Him. But Habakkuk at
least feels that revelation is baffled by experience, that the facts of
life bewilder a man who believes in the God whom the prophets
have declared to Israel. As in Zephaniah prophecy begins to exhibit
traces of apocalypse, so in Habakkuk we find it developing the first
impulses of speculation.
We have seen that the course of events which troubles Habakkuk
and renders the Torah ineffectual is somewhat obscure. On one
interpretation of these two chapters, that which takes the present
order of their verses as the original, Habakkuk asks why God is silent
in face of the injustice which fills the whole horizon (chap. i. 1–4), is
told to look round among the heathen and see how God is raising up
the Chaldeans (i. 5–11), presumably to punish this injustice (if it be
Israel’s own) or to overthrow it (if vv. 1–4 mean that it is inflicted on
Israel by a foreign power). But the Chaldeans only aggravate the
prophet’s problem; they themselves are a wicked and oppressive
people: how can God suffer them? (i. 12–17). Then come the
prophet’s waiting for an answer (ii. 1) and the answer itself (ii. 2 ff.).
Another interpretation takes the passage about the Chaldeans (i. 5–
11) to be out of place where it now lies, removes it to after chap. ii.
4 as a part of God’s answer to the prophet’s problem, and leaves the
remainder of chap. i. as the description of the Assyrian oppression of
Israel, baffling the Torah and perplexing the prophet’s faith in a Holy
and Just God.[345] Of these two views the former is, we have seen,
somewhat artificial, and though the latter is by no means proved,
the arguments for it are sufficient to justify us in re-arranging the
verses chap. i.—ii. 4 in accordance with its proposals.

The Oracle which Habakkuk the Prophet

Received by Vision.[346]

How long, O Jehovah, have I called and Thou

hearest not?
I cry to Thee, Wrong! and Thou sendest no help.
Why make me look upon sorrow,
And fill mine eyes with trouble?
Violence and wrong are before me,
Strife comes and quarrel arises.[347]
So the Law is benumbed, and judgment never
gets forth:[348]
For the wicked beleaguers the righteous,
So judgment comes forth perverted.
* * * * *[349]
Art not Thou of old, Jehovah, my God, my Holy
One?...[350]
Purer of eyes than to behold evil,
And that canst not gaze upon trouble!
Why gazest Thou upon traitors,[351]
Art dumb when the wicked swallows him that is
more righteous than he?[352]
Thou hast let men be made[353] like fish of the sea,
Like worms that have no ruler![354]
He lifts the whole of it with his angle;
Draws it in with his net, sweeps it in his drag-net:
So rejoices and exults.
So he sacrifices to his net, and offers incense
to his drag-net;
For by them is his portion fat, and his food rich.
Shall he for ever draw his sword,[355]
And ceaselessly, ruthlessly massacre nations?[356]

Upon my watch-tower I will stand,

And take my post on the rampart.[357]
I will watch to see what He will say to me,
And what answer I[358] get back to my plea.

And Jehovah answered me and said:

Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
For[359] the vision is for a time yet to be fixed,
Yet it hurries[360] to the end, and shall not fail:
Though it linger, wait thou for it;
Coming it shall come, and shall not be behind.[361]
Lo! swollen,[362] not level is his[363] soul within him;
But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.[364]

* * * * *
 Look[365] round among the heathen, and
look well,
Shudder and be shocked;[366]
For I am[367] about to do a work in your days,
Ye shall not believe it when told.
For, lo, I am about to raise up the Kasdim,[368]
A people the most bitter and the most hasty,
That traverse the breadths of the earth,
To possess dwelling-places not their own.
Awful and terrible are they;
From themselves[369] start their purpose and rising.
Fleeter than leopards their steeds,
Swifter than night-wolves.
Their horsemen leap[370] from afar;
They swoop like the eagle a-haste to devour.
All for wrong do they[371] come;
The set of their faces is forward,[372]
And they sweep up captives like sand.
They—at kings do they scoff,
And princes are sport to them.
They—they laugh at each fortress,
Heap dust up and take it!
Then the wind shifts,[373] and they pass!
But doomed are those whose own strength is
their god![374]

The difficulty of deciding between the various arrangements of

the two chapters of Habakkuk does not, fortunately, prevent us from
appreciating his argument. What he feels throughout (this is
obvious, however you arrange his verses) is the tyranny of a great
heathen power,[375] be it Assyrian, Egyptian or Chaldean. The
prophet’s horizon is filled with wrong:[376] Israel thrown into
disorder, revelation paralysed, justice perverted.[377] But, like
Nahum, Habakkuk feels not for Israel alone. The Tyrant has
outraged humanity.[378] He sweeps peoples into his net, and as soon
as he empties this, he fills it again ceaselessly, as if there were no
just God above. He exults in his vast cruelty, and has success so
unbroken that he worships the very means of it. In itself such
impiety is gross enough, but to a heart that believes in God it is a
problem of exquisite pain. Habakkuk’s is the burden of the finest
faith. He illustrates the great commonplace of religious doubt, that
problems arise and become rigorous in proportion to the purity and
tenderness of a man’s conception of God. It is not the coarsest but
the finest temperaments which are exposed to scepticism. Every
advance in assurance of God or in appreciation of His character
develops new perplexities in face of the facts of experience, and
faith becomes her own most cruel troubler. Habakkuk’s questions are
not due to any cooling of the religious temper in Israel, but are
begotten of the very heat and ardour of prophecy in its encounter
with experience. His tremulousness, for instance, is impossible
without the high knowledge of God’s purity and faithfulness, which
older prophets had achieved in Israel:—

Art not Thou of old, O LORD, my God, my Holy One,

Purer of eyes than to behold evil,
And incapable of looking upon wrong?
His despair is that which comes only from eager and persevering
habits of prayer:—

How long, O LORD, have I called and Thou hearest not!

I cry to Thee of wrong and Thou givest no help!

His questions, too, are bold with that sense of God’s absolute power,
which flashed so bright in Israel as to blind men’s eyes to all
secondary and intermediate causes. Thou, he says,—

Thou hast made men like fishes of the sea,

Like worms that have no ruler,

boldly charging the Almighty, in almost the temper of Job himself,

with being the cause of the cruelty inflicted by the unchecked tyrant
upon the nations; for shall evil happen, and Jehovah not have done
it?[379] Thus all through we perceive that Habakkuk’s trouble springs
from the central founts of prophecy. This scepticism—if we may
venture to give the name to the first motions in Israel’s mind of that
temper which undoubtedly became scepticism—this scepticism was
the inevitable heritage of prophecy: the stress and pain to which
prophecy was forced by its own strong convictions in face of the
facts of experience. Habakkuk, the prophet, as he is called, stood in
the direct line of his order, but just because of that he was the father
also of Israel’s religious doubt.
But a discontent springing from sources so pure was surely the
preparation of its own healing. In a verse of exquisite beauty the
prophet describes the temper in which he trusted for an answer to
all his doubts:—
 On my watch-tower will I stand,
And take up my post on the rampart;
I will watch to see what He says to me,
And what answer I get back to my plea.

This verse is not to be passed over, as if its metaphors were

merely of literary effect. They express rather the moral temper in
which the prophet carries his doubt, or, to use New Testament
language, the good conscience, which some having put away,
concerning faith have made shipwreck. Nor is this temper patience
only and a certain elevation of mind, nor only a fixed attention and
sincere willingness to be answered. Through the chosen words there
breathes a noble sense of responsibility. The prophet feels he has a
post to hold, a rampart to guard. He knows the heritage of truth,
won by the great minds of the past; and in a world seething with
disorder, he will take his stand upon that and see what more his God
will send him. At the very least, he will not indolently drift, but feel
that he has a standpoint, however narrow, and bravely hold it. Such
has ever been the attitude of the greatest sceptics—not only, let us
repeat, earnestness and sincerity, but the recognition of duty
towards the truth: the conviction that even the most tossed and
troubled minds have somewhere a ποῦ στῶ appointed of God, and
upon it interests human and divine to defend. Without such a
conscience, scepticism, however intellectually gifted, will avail
nothing. Men who drift never discover, never grasp aught. They are
only dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, only fretted and broken
by experience.
Taking then his stand within the patient temper, but especially
upon the conscience of his great order, the prophet waits for his
answer and the healing of his trouble. The answer comes to him in
the promise of a Vision, which, though it seem to linger, will not be
later than the time fixed by God. A Vision is something realised,
experienced—something that will be as actual and present to the
waiting prophet as the cruelty which now fills his sight. Obviously
some series of historical events is meant, by which, in the course of
time, the unjust oppressor of the nations shall be overthrown and
the righteous vindicated. Upon the re-arrangement of the text
proposed by Budde,[380] this series of events is the rise of the
Chaldeans, and it is an argument in favour of his proposal that the
promise of a Vision requires some such historical picture to follow it
as we find in the description of the Chaldeans—chap. i. 5–11. This,
too, is explicitly introduced by terms of vision: See among the
nations and look round.... Yea, behold I am about to raise up the
Kasdim. But before this Vision is given,[381] and for the uncertain
interval of waiting ere the facts come to pass, the Lord enforces
upon His watching servant the great moral principle that arrogance
and tyranny cannot, from the nature of them, last, and that if the
righteous be only patient he will survive them:—

Lo, swollen, not level, is his soul within him;

But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.

We have already seen[382] that the text of the first line of this
couplet is uncertain. Yet the meaning is obvious, partly in the words
themselves, and partly by their implied contrast with the second line.
The soul of the wicked is a radically morbid thing: inflated, swollen
(unless we should read perverted, which more plainly means the
same thing[383]), not level, not natural and normal. In the nature of
things it cannot endure. But the righteous shall live by his
faithfulness. This word, wrongly translated faith by the Greek and
other versions, is concentrated by Paul in his repeated quotation
from the Greek[384] upon that single act of faith by which the sinner
secures forgiveness and justification. With Habakkuk it is a wider
term. ’Emunah,[385] from a verb meaning originally to be firm, is
used in the Old Testament in the physical sense of steadfastness. So
it is applied to the arms of Moses held up by Aaron and Hur over the
battle with Amalek: they were steadiness till the going down of the
sun.[386] It is also used of the faithful discharge of public office,[387]
and of fidelity as between man and wife.[388] It is also faithful
testimony,[389] equity in judgment,[390] truth in speech,[391] and
sincerity or honest dealing.[392] Of course it has faith in God as its
secret—the verb from which it is derived is the regular Hebrew term
to believe—but it is rather the temper which faith produces of
endurance, steadfastness, integrity. Let the righteous, however
baffled his faith be by experience, hold on in loyalty to God and duty,
and he shall live. Though St. Paul, as we have said, used the Greek
rendering of faith for the enforcement of trust in God’s mercy
through Jesus Christ as the secret of forgiveness and life, it is rather
to Habakkuk’s wider intention of patience and fidelity that the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews returns in his fuller quotation of the
verse: For yet a little while and He that shall come will come and will
not tarry; now the just shall live by faith, but if he draw back My soul
shall have no pleasure in him.[393]
Such then is the tenor of the passage. In face of experience that
baffles faith, the duty of Israel is patience in loyalty to God. In this
the nascent scepticism of Israel received its first great
commandment, and this it never forsook. Intellectual questions
arose, of which Habakkuk’s were but the faintest foreboding—
questions concerning not only the mission and destiny of the nation,
but the very foundation of justice and the character of God Himself.
Yet did no sceptic, however bold and however provoked, forsake his
faithfulness. Even Job, when most audaciously arraigning the God of
his experience, turned from Him to God as in his heart of hearts he
believed He must be, experience notwithstanding. Even the
Preacher, amid the aimless flux and drift which he finds in the
universe, holds to the conclusion of the whole matter in a command,
which better than any other defines the contents of the faithfulness
enforced by Habakkuk: Fear God and keep His commandments, for
this is the whole of man. It has been the same with the great mass
of the race. Repeatedly disappointed of their hopes, and crushed for
ages beneath an intolerable tyranny, have they not exhibited the
same heroic temper with which their first great questioner was
endowed? Endurance—this above all others has been the quality of
Israel: though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. And, therefore, as
Paul’s adaptation, The just shall live by faith, has become the motto
of evangelical Christianity, so we may say that Habakkuk’s original of
it has been the motto and the fame of Judaism: The righteous shall
live by his faithfulness.
 CHAPTER XI

TYRANNY IS SUICIDE
HABAKKUK ii. 5–20

In the style of his master Isaiah, Habakkuk follows up his Vision with
a series of lyrics on the same subject: chap. ii. 5–20. They are taunt-
songs, the most of them beginning with Woe unto, addressed to the
heathen oppressor. Perhaps they were all at first of equal length,
and it has been suggested that the striking refrain in which two of
them close—

For men’s blood, and earth’s waste,

Cities and their inhabitants—

was once attached to each of the others as well. But the text has
been too much altered, besides suffering several interpolations,[394]
to permit of its restoration, and we can only reproduce these taunts
as they now run in the Hebrew text. There are several quotations
(not necessarily an argument against Habakkuk’s authorship); but,
as a whole, the expression is original, and there are some lines of
especial force and freshness. Verses 5–6a are properly an
introduction, the first Woe commencing with 6b.
The belief which inspires these songs is very simple. Tyranny is
intolerable. In the nature of things it cannot endure, but works out
its own penalties. By oppressing so many nations, the tyrant is
preparing the instruments of his own destruction. As he treats them,
so in time shall they treat him. He is like a debtor who increases the
number of his creditors. Some day they shall rise up and exact from
him the last penny. So that in cutting off others he is but forfeiting
his own life. The very violence done to nature, the deforesting of
Lebanon for instance, and the vast hunting of wild beasts, shall
recoil on him. This line of thought is exceedingly interesting. We
have already seen in prophecy, and especially in Isaiah, the
beginnings of Hebrew Wisdom—the attempt to uncover the moral
processes of life and express a philosophy of history. But hardly
anywhere have we found so complete an absence of all reference to
the direct interference of God Himself in the punishment of the
tyrant; for the cup of Jehovah’s right hand in ver. 16 is simply the
survival of an ancient metaphor. These proverbs or taunt-songs, in
conformity with the proverbs of the later Wisdom, dwell only upon
the inherent tendency to decay of all injustice. Tyranny, they assert,
and history ever since has affirmed their truthfulness—tyranny is
suicide.
The last of the taunt-songs, which treats of the different subject
of idolatry, is probably, as we have seen, not from Habakkuk’s hand,
but of a later date.[395]

INTRODUCTION TO THE TAUNT-SONGS (ii. 5–6a).

 For ...[396] treacherous,
An arrogant fellow, and is not ...[397]
Who opens his desire wide as Sheol;
He is like death, unsatisfied;
And hath swept to himself all the nations,
And gathered to him all peoples.
Shall not these, all of them, take up a proverb
upon him,
And a taunt-song against him? and say:—

FIRST TAUNT-SONG (ii. 6b–8).

Woe unto him who multiplies what is not his own,

—How long?—
And loads him with debts![398]
Shall not thy creditors[399] rise up,
And thy troublers awake,
And thou be for spoil[400] to them?
Because thou hast spoiled many nations,
All the rest of the peoples shall spoil thee.
For men’s blood, and earth’s waste,
Cities and all their inhabitants.[401]

SECOND TAUNT-SONG (ii. 9–11).

Woe unto him that gains evil gain for his house,[402]
To set high his nest, to save him from the grasp
of calamity!
Thou hast planned shame for thy house;
Thou hast cut off[403] many people,
While forfeiting thine own life.[404]
For the stone shall cry out from the wall,
And the lath[405] from the timber answer it.

THIRD TAUNT-SONG (ii. 12–14).

Woe unto him that builds a city in blood,[406]

And stablishes a town in iniquity![407]
Lo, is it not from Jehovah of hosts,
That the nations shall toil for smoke,[408]
And the peoples wear themselves out for nought?
But earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the
glory of Jehovah,[409]
Like the waters that cover the sea.

FOURTH TAUNT-SONG (ii. 15–17).

Woe unto him that gives his neighbour to drink,
From the cup of his wrath[410] till he be drunken,
That he may gloat on his[411] nakedness!
Thou art sated with shame—not with glory;
Drink also thou, and stagger.[412]
Comes round to thee the cup of Jehovah’s right hand,
And foul shame[413] on thy glory.
For the violence to Lebānon shall cover thee,
The destruction of the beasts shall affray thee.[414]
For men’s blood, and earth’s waste,
Cities and all their inhabitants.[415]

FIFTH TAUNT-SONG (ii. 18–20).

What boots an image, when its artist has graven it,

A cast-image and lie-oracle, that its moulder has
trusted upon it,
Making dumb idols?
Woe to him that saith to a block, Awake!
To a dumb stone, Arise!
Can it teach?
Lo, it ...[416] with gold and silver;
There is no breath at all in the heart of it.
But Jehovah is in His Holy Temple:
Silence before Him, all the earth!
 CHAPTER XII

“IN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS”

HABAKKUK iii.

We have seen the impossibility of deciding the age of the ode which
is attributed to Habakkuk in the third chapter of his book.[417] But
this is only one of the many problems raised by that brilliant poem.
Much of its text is corrupt, and the meaning of many single words is
uncertain. As in most Hebrew poems of description, the tenses of
the verbs puzzle us; we cannot always determine whether the poet
is singing of that which is past or present or future, and this difficulty
is increased by his subject, a revelation of God in nature for the
deliverance of Israel. Is this the deliverance from Egypt, with the
terrible tempests which accompanied it? Or have the features of the
Exodus been borrowed to describe some other deliverance, or to
sum up the constant manifestation of Jehovah for His people’s help?
The introduction, in ver. 2, is clear. The singer has heard what is
to be heard of Jehovah, and His great deeds in the past. He prays
for a revival of these in the midst of the years. The times are full of
trouble and turmoil. Would that God, in the present confusion of
baffled hopes and broken issues, made Himself manifest by power
and brilliance, as of old! In turmoil remember mercy! To render
turmoil by wrath, as if it were God’s anger against which the singer’s
heart appealed, is not true to the original word itself,[418] affords no
parallel to the midst of the years, and misses the situation. Israel
cries from a state of life in which the obscure years are huddled
together and full of turmoil. We need not wish to fix the date more
precisely than the writer himself does, but may leave it with him in
the midst of the years.
There follows the description of the Great Theophany, of which,
in his own poor times, the singer has heard. It is probable that he
has in his memory the events of the Exodus and Sinai. On this point
his few geographical allusions agree with his descriptions of nature.
He draws all the latter from the desert, or Arabian, side of Israel’s
history. He introduces none of the sea-monsters, or imputations of
arrogance and rebellion to the sea itself, which the influence of
Babylonian mythology so thickly scattered through the later sea-
poetry of the Hebrews. The Theophany takes place in a violent
tempest of thunder and rain, the only process of nature upon which
the desert poets of Arabia dwell with any detail. In harmony with
this, God appears from the southern desert, from Teman and Paran,
as in the theophanies in Deuteronomy xxxiii. and in the Song of
Deborah;[419] a few lines recall the Song of the Exodus,[420] and
there are many resemblances to the phraseology of the Sixty-Eighth
Psalm. The poet sees under trouble the tents of Kushan and of
Midian, tribes of Sinai. And though the Theophany is with floods of
rain and lightning, and foaming of great waters, it is not with hills,
rivers or sea that God is angry, but with the nations, the oppressors
of His poor people, and in order that He may deliver the latter. All
this, taken with the fact that no mention is made of Egypt, proves
that, while the singer draws chiefly upon the marvellous events of
the Exodus and Sinai for his description, he celebrates not them
alone but all the ancient triumphs of God over the heathen
oppressors of Israel. Compare the obscure line—these be His goings
of old.
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