AJBI XLIV–XLV, (2018–2019): 25–43

A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk1
David S. Vanderhooft

Boston College
david.vanderhooft@bc.edu

Human consternation in the face of divine silence, or apparent divine indifference to formal procedures of supplication, appears somewhat often in the
Hebrew Bible. Biblical texts, especially in the Psalms and the Prophets, confront
head on the difficult situations where someone makes a formal inquiry or petition
to God but does not apparently receive an immediate answer from God. Ritualexperts, prophets, scribes and others sought remedies for this type of divine silence, and over time hard won strategies began to take shape to ameliorate theproblem.2 The solutions sought for the problem of divine silence in Psalm 77 andthe book of Habakkuk share a structurally similar logic, which explains their appeal to similar traditions and their similarities in diction.
In ancient Israel, thinkers shared an almost universal assumption about thecharacter of Yhwh, the God of Israel: they assumed—just as worshippers of oth1

I am grateful to numerous interlocutors who have discussed the present paper withme at various times: Simeon Chavel, Ronnie Goldstein, Baruch Halpern, Peter Machinist, Noemí Palomares, Tony Perry, Alexander Rofé, Brent Strawn, Daniel Vos andAvi Winitzer. I am especially grateful to Prof. Shuichi Hasegawa for the invitation todeliver a version of the paper at Rikkyo University, Tokyo. Patrick Angiolillo provided
important research assistance for which I am most grateful.

2

See here the wide-ranging and influential treatment of the problem in the work of Jon
D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
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Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019

er deities in the Near East also did—that Yhwh would respond to the legitimate
requests and acts of supplication directed to him by his human followers. Such
requests could be posed on behalf of the community as a whole, or by individuals, for example, the Psalmist, but also by others: prophets, expectant mothers,
kings, officiants in the cult, etc. The legitimate cries of Yhwh’s people, it was
expected, would have an almost automatic effect on him: he would respond actively. Exodus 2:23–24 represents something of an archetypal instance:‫ ויהי בימים הרבים ההם וימת מלך מצרים ויאנחו בני־ישראל מן־העבדה ויזעקו ותעל‬23‫ וישמע אלהים את־נאקתם ויזכר אלהים את־בריתו את־אברהם‬24 ‫שועתם אל־האלהים מן־העבדה׃‬‫את־יצחק ואת־יעקב׃‬“After a long while, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of
the slavery and they cried out; their plea went up to God because of the slavery.
God heard their plaint, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.”
On the other hand, specific bad actions of the people could affect God’s
responsiveness. Yet especially when this is the case, the exception proves therule, since texts must go to considerable lengths to explain why God might not
respond to a human cry. A poignant example is Samuel’s speech about the people
requesting a king: ‫וזעקתם ביום ההוא מלפני מלככם אשר בחרתם לכם ולא־יענה יהוה אתכם‬‫“ ביום ההוא׃‬You will cry out on that day on account of your king whom you havechosen for yourselves, but Yhwh will not answer you on that day” (1 Sam 8:18).
Lamentations 3:57 similarly wrestles with how the principle of God’s responsiveness can be reclaimed in the wake of disaster. With Jerusalem in rubble after
the assault of the Babylonians, the poet affirms the principle of divine response
to human supplication: ‫“ קרבת ביום אקראך אמרת אל־תירא׃‬You draw near on the day
when I call you; you say, ‘do not fear.’” And yet, destruction came to Judah andJerusalem. The explanation, Lamentations insists, may be expressed by the type26

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

of countervailing idea articulated also in the Samuel passage: ‫נחנו פשענו ומרינו אתה‬‫“ לא סלחת׃‬We transgressed and rebelled; you have not forgiven” (3:42).
Yet there is another type of specific example in which God’s apparent failure
to respond to a legitimate cry of supplication or act of cultic inquiry deserves
further consideration. In this type of example, legitimate acts of supplication
before the deity in the context of the cult apparently go unanswered and thisproduces a profound anxiety. The two examples I want to consider in more detailby way of illustration are taken from prophecy—the book of Habakkuk—andfrom Psalms—number 77.
Scholars have long recognized that the book of Habakkuk actually shares anumber of features in common with the Psalms. The opening of the first chapter
of Habakkuk, 1:2–4, reads like an excerpt from a typical individual lament orcomplaint psalm, as P. Humbert demonstrated.3 F. I. Andersen, building on thework of Humbert and P. D. Miller, argues convincingly in favor of taking these
verses as a complaint.4 M. Floyd has suggested that 1:2–4 may more technicallybe a “prophetic complaint about the fulfillment of an oracle.”5 The particular
problem in this psalm-like complaint has to do with calling out and not receivinga response from God; the absence of a divine response is thus signaled as thecentral problem of the prophetic book.6
Even more than the complaint of 1:2–4, the third chapter of Habakkuk, for3

P. Humbert, Problèmes du Livre d’Habacuc, Neuchâtel: University of Neuchâtel
Press, 1944, pp. 9–11.

4

F. I. Andersen, Habakkuk, Anchor Bible, New York: Doubleday, 2001, p. 21; P. D.
Miller, They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994, pp. 68–73.

5
6

M. H. Floyd, Minor Prophets, Part 2, FOTL 22, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000, p. 99.
“The prophet excoriates God’s inaction in response to ‘violence’ (1:2–3) and the dissolution of ‫‘ משפט‬justice’ (1:4). God’s inaction permits the perversion of Torah and the
predations of the wicked against the righteous,” D. S. Vanderhooft, Habakkuk, in: M.
D. Coogan (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible, New York and27

Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019

mally labeled the ‫“ תפלה‬prayer” of the prophet in its superscription (3:1), is aclear “psalm-like” composition. It is an archaic poetic text that celebrates theGod of Israel as a Warrior, one who appears in a dramatic theophany to defeat
the terrible forces of chaos.7 These foes are personified, as they sometimes areelsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, in the figures of “Sea” and “River.” In addition to
the dominant poetic form of its lines in tricola, Habakkuk 3 also has other psalmlike features: like most Psalms, it contains a superscription, which reads “thetĕpillāh of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to šigyōnôt.” Psalm 7:1 is the only
other text containing the obscure term šiggāyôn, which is probably related to the
Akkadian term šigû, a type of lamentation.8 Likewise, Habakkuk 3 uses the termselah as a liturgical marker three times, the only poem outside the Psalms to use
selah. Finally, Hab 3:19 concludes with a subscription or colophon that reads,‫“ למנצח בנגינותי‬for the leader, with [my] stringed instruments.” This phrase occurs
elsewhere in the superscriptions to seven psalms (4:1; 6:1; 54:1; 55:1; 61:1; 67:1;
76:1).9 Habakkuk 3 therefore deploys many formal markers that link it explicitly
to the Psalms as a whole.10
Yet there are more than simply formal markers signaling a connection to the
Oxford: Oxford University, 2011, pp. 351–57.
7

For its archaic elements, see W. F. Albright, The Psalm of Habakkuk, in: H. H. Rowley(ed.), Studies in Old Testament Prophecy, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1950, pp. 1–18;
B. Margulis, The Psalm of Habakkuk: A Reconstruction and Interpretation, ZAW 82,
1970, pp. 409–42; F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1973, pp. 70–71,
102–3, 140; and in greatest detail, T. Hiebert, God of My Victory: The Ancient Hymn
in Habakkuk 3, Harvard Semitic Monographs 38, Decatur, Georgia: Scholars, 1986;
Andersen, Habakkuk, pp. 284–89.

8

CAD Š2, s.v. šigû, pp. 413–14; see already S. Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004 [first edition Oxford:
Blackwell, 1962], p. 2.209; also Andersen, Habakkuk, pp. 268–72 with some reservations.

9

Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, pp. 210–13.
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D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

Psalms. An impressive list of lexical connections links Habakkuk to a particularpsalm, namely, Psalm 77. Scholars have long recognized the lexical overlap especially between the theophanic poem of Habakkuk 3 and Ps 77:17–20.11 There
are, however, broader connections between the book and Psalm 77. To understand the parallels in diction and logic, I begin with a translation of Psalm 77:
1. For the leader, pertaining to Yeduthun; of Asaph, a mizmôr.
2. Aloud to God I cry aloud to God, that he might hear me.
3. On the day of my distress I inquire of my Lord; my hand is outstretched allnight, it never falters12; my being refuses to be comforted.
4. I remember, O God, and I rail; I ponder and my spirit languishes. Selah.

5. You have gripped my very eyelids! I am so shaken I cannot speak.
6. I consider days of yore, bygone years.

10 Cf. Margulis, The Psalm of Habakkuk, p. 437.
11 See already C. A. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of
Psalms, International Critical Commentary, 2 vols., New York: Scribner’s, 1907, pp.
2.171–78: “[Psalm 77 is] based on Hab. 3”; Albright, Psalm of Habakkuk, p. 9, thinks
Habakkuk is dependent on Ps 77; he is followed by M. Dahood, Psalms, Anchor Bible,
Garden City, NJ, 1968; and Cross, Canaanite Myth, pp. 70–71. See also the studies ofJ. S. Kselman, Psalm 77 and the Book of Exodus, JANES 15, 1983, pp. 51–58; Hiebert,
God of My Victory; W. van der Meer, Psalm 77:17–19: Hymnisches Fragment oder
Aktualisierung? Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 70, 1994, pp. 105–11; and E.
S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations, FOTL 15, Grand Rapids, 2001,
p. 89. F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger suggest that “the author of the psalm has integrated
independent hymnic fragments,” Psalms 2, Hermeneia, Philadelphia: Fortress, 2005,
p. 276. For an exposition concentrating especially on aspects of Yhwh’s presentation
as a “weather god,” see R. Müller, Jahwe als Wettergott: Studien zur althebräischen
Kultlyrik anhand ausgewählter Psalmen, BZAW 387, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008, 43–
63.
12 On the meaning of the verb, see below, n. 32.
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Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019

7. I remember through the night my song, with my mind I ponder; my spirit
broods.
8. Will my Lord spurn forever, and never again show favor?
9. Has his ḥesed ceased in perpetuity; did he cut off [every] oracle for all generations?
10. Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he terminated his mercies throughwrath? 

Selah.

11. I concluded, “This pains me: the right hand of Elyon changed.”13

12. I remember the deeds of Yah; indeed I remember your wonders of yore.
13. I consider all your action; ponder your deeds.
14. O God, your way is in holiness! What god is as great as God?
15. You are the God who performs a wonder; you’ve made known among thepeoples your might.
16. You rescued your people with an arm, the children of Jacob and Joseph.
Selah.
17. Waters saw you, God14; Waters saw you and churned; indeed Deeps writhed.
18. Clouds poured waters; heavens thundered; your arrows darted around.
19. The sound of your thunder was in the tempest; lightning bolts lit the world;
the earth quaked and shook.
20. Your way was via the sea; your tracks over many waters; but your footprints
were unknown.
13 For this line, see especially Kselman, Psalm 77 and Exodus, p. 52 n. 7; similarly, Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, p. 274, n. e.
14 Originally perhaps “Yhwh,” thus altered here in the “Elohistic Psalter”; thus Briggs,
Book of Psalms, vol. 2, p. 171; also Cross, Canaanite Myth, p. 136 n. 82. Yet Elohim
here echoes the El/Elohim play in v. 14.
30

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

21. You led your people like the flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Psalm 77, in summary, is about crying out to God and bringing to his attention his deeds of old in the Psalmist’s present dire circumstance. The psalm
struggles with the problem of whether, in the midst of a human crisis, God might
disregard his characteristic faithfulness, cancel his promises, “forget” his actsof ḥesed, cut off every oracle (ˀōmer), and eliminate his mercies in anger. In
short, Psalm 77 treats the terrifying problem of whether, as v. 11 suggests, “theright hand of Elyon changes”—whether God remains silent in response to a formal human appeal for support. If he can disregard the formal cultic inquiry of asuffering person, then what is to become of the human community? A solution
seems mandatory.
The psalm divides into several parts. After the superscription, which invokes the enigmatic ‫( ידותון‬Qr; see also Ps 39:1; 62:1), it describes in vv. 2–7
a cultic act of divinatory inquiry by an individual. The Psalmist, in an unspecified moment of crisis, directs an inquiry to God to obtain an oracular assuranceof remedy. Whether this is an individual making inquiry on his own behalf, orrather on behalf of the community, is not directly relevant to my argument. Verse
2 announces the general problem:  ‫קולי אל־אלהים ואצעקה קולי אל־אלהים והאזין אלי׃‬The cry is, we should note, deliberately artful, not merely a cri de coeur,
placing the cohortative verb at the end of v. 2a, Janus-like, between two identicalphrases: ‫קולי אל־אלהים‬. Verse 3 is then very important for the larger argument.
The phrase, “On the day of my distress I inquire of my Lord,” is a reference
to making an oracular inquiry to God, perhaps at the temple, to solicit a divine
oracle in response. The verb ‫“ דרש‬inquire” is certainly used in this way elsewherein the Hebrew Bible.15 A good example that specifies the divine word in time of31

Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019

war as the object of the verb occurs in 1 Kgs 22:5, the case of Micaiah ben Imlah,
where Jehoshapat of Judah demands: ‫“  דרש־נא כיום את־דבר יהוה‬inquire today for aword of Yhwh.” The verb is used in the same sense as our Psalm on several occasions in Jeremiah as well (Jer 21:2; 29:7; 38:4).16 Another clue that this is the correct understanding of the Psalm’s reference to “making an inquiry of Yhwh,” isthe reference to the speaker’s posture: he extends his hand all night and will not
let it falter or drop, tāpûg. This posture, of extending the hands to God, routinely
signals an act of ritual supplication. Examples of stretching out the hands when
making a concrete plea include Ps 28:2, 63:5 and 143:6; meanwhile, Ps 44:21
protests that members of the Psalmist’s community have not stretched forth theirhands to a strange god. At the same time, nocturnal supplications, possibly ofa mantic nature, are common (e.g., Ps 88:10; 6:7). Christopher Frechette hasstudied this phenomenon of supplicatory posture in its wider Near Eastern andespecially Mesopotamian contexts. The gesture pertains to obtaining a favorable
audience with a superior in order to have a request heard and to generate a suitable response. A typical example, cited by Frechette, comes from the Assyrian
king Esarhaddon in the seventh century, one of whose inscriptions reads:“I lifted my hand (qātī aššīma) to the gods Aššur, Sîn, Šamaš, Bēl, Nabû, andNergal, Ištar of Nineveh, (and) Ištar of Arbela, and they received my word(s)favorably.”17  The expectation is that the royal request and associated rituals will
yield a divine response in the form of concrete aid.
In Psalm 77, the opening demand to be heard, the explicit reference to mak-15 See C. Westermann, Die Begriffe für Fragen und Suchen im Alten Testament, Kerygma und Dogma 6, 1960, pp. 2–30; also G. Gerleman, “drš,” TLOT, 346–51.
16 See the discussion in D. S. Vanderhooft, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, My Servant: Contrasting Prophetic Images of the Great King, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 7/1, 2018,  pp. 103–5.
17 C. Frechette, Mesopotamian Ritual-prayers of “Hand-lifting” (Akkadian Šuillas),
AOAT 379, Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2012, p. 237.
32

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

ing inquiry of Yhwh, the reference to extending the hand all night, a second reference to the night in v. 7, along with the vivid image of the eyelids forcibly heldopen by God himself (v. 5),18 all indicate that the text is describing a nocturnal
act of oracular inquiry. I am not persuaded, however, that Schmidt was correct
to argue, already in 1928, that the text describes a juridical ordeal, in which
an accused party endures a nocturnal trial by ordeal to ascertain, by morning’s
light, his guilt or innocence as before a court.19 But I do think that this and otherpsalms make it clear that oracular inquiries, in general, could be made at nightwith the expectation that morning would bring a divine response to the petitioner.
Whether we should follow Sigmund Mowinckel, and Begrich before him, inthe suggestion that the response was often transmitted as a “priestly oracle ofsalvation” remains less convincing to me.20 What Psalm 77 emphasizes, in any
case, is the Psalmist’s tortured nighttime experience. It pairs the sequence ofverbs zākar (twice), śiaḥ (twice), and ḥiššab with objects including God, daysof yore, and ‫“ שנות עולמים‬years gone by.” The acts of recollection are balancedwith painful expressions of total psychic breakdown: “I am so shaken I cannot
speak. I consider days of yore, bygone years. I remember through the night mysong, with my mind I ponder; my spirit broods” (vv. 4–7). This leads in turn in
vv. 8–10 to a series of rhetorical questions that illumine an even more significant
18 LXX and Syr. read the verb as plural, while Symm. and Jerome read a singular. MT,
as lectio deficilior, is preferable (so also Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, p. 277). The
idea that the Psalmist understands God to be responsible for “prying open the eyelids”
is unique.
19 See H. Schmidt, Das Gebet der Angeklagten im Alten Testament, BZAW 49, Giessen:
Töpelmann, 1928; and for an insightful critique, K. van der Toorn, Ordeal Proceduresin the Psalms and the Passover Meal, VT 38, 1988, pp. 427–29.
20 J. Begrich, Das Priesterliche Heilsorakel, ZAW 52, 1934, pp. 81–92; Mowinckel,
Psalms in Israel’s Worship, p. 2.60: “the temple prophet (priest) is supposed to be theintermediary and messenger; the deity is supposed to speak to the cultic official about
the worshipper, and then the cultic official announces what the deity has said.”
33

Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019problem than the one that elicited the original divination inquiry: no answer isforthcoming from God in response to the inquiry. Note the incredulous question particularly in v. 9b: “(has) he cut off (every) oracle for all generations?”
The noun ˀōmer here, I think, may reasonably be taken to be coextensive withthe content of the expected divination “oracle,” as Dahood already argued when
discussing the term in Ps 68:12:  ‫“ אדני יתן־אמר המבשרות צבא רב׃‬The Lord gavean oracle, the messengers [formed] a great brigade.”21 At the end of the Psalmist’s questions, however, he reaches a terrifying conclusion, because God has notprovided an oracle in response to his cry: “the right hand of Elyon changed.” Thecharacteristic response of the deity to the petitioner in need—active response anddeliverance—is in abeyance, or worse. The Psalmist is crushed.
The tone, however, then quickly changes in v. 12, which begins a new unit.
The Psalmist reexerts his cognitive faculties. He activates his mind. In a staccato
series of four verbs he “remembers” (twice), “considers,” and “ponders” God’s
acts of old. Earlier in the Psalm, consideration of God and the days of old or
bygone years in vv 3–7 were paired with statements of exasperation and distress.
Now, in an ecstatic affirmation, he declares, “your way is in holiness!” and heasks, ‫“ מי־אל גדול כאלהים‬what god is as great as God?” (v. 14; cf. Exod 15:11).22
And what acts in particular does the Psalmist recall? He recalls in v. 16, ‫גאלת‬‫“ בזרוע עמך בני־יעקב ויוסף‬You rescued your people with an arm, the children of
Jacob and Joseph.” Kselman argues that “by calling to mind the paradigmatic
act of wonder and power from Israel’s past, Yahweh’s victory over Egypt and his
mastery over the sea, the psalmist answers the questions of Psalm 77 by assertingthat God’s mighty power to save is still active.”23
Kselman’s reading is fundamentally correct, but more can be said. How,

21 Dahood, Psalms, p. 1.179.
22 The original was perhaps ‫כיהוה‬.
23 Kselman, Psalm 77 and Exodus, p. 53.
34

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

after all, does recollection of Yhwh’s past achievements help the Psalmist overcome his present anguish? No indication is given that he had received a response
to his opening oracular inquiry, any sort of “priestly oracle of salvation.” Instead,the text links the change of demeanor specifically to the Psalmist’s reassertionof cognitive energy, to the reactivation of memory. For the moment, the Psalmist
appears to have overcome his predicament, his nighttime crisis, by remembering the distant past. Whatever disaster brought about the existential pain he described at the beginning, it was not his oracular inquiry to God in the context ofa ritual that renewed his confidence, but rather his activation of memory about
God’s past actions.
But the Psalm, of course, is not at an end. An unprecedented four verses, allcontaining neatly balanced poetic tricola in climactic parallelism—marking their
antiquity in Albright’s opinion24—celebrate the original victory of God over the“Deeps” (‫תהמות‬, v. 17) and the Waters of chaos (‫מים רבים‬, v. 20). By setting God’s
victory over the waters between an allusion to his rescue of the children of Jacob
and Joseph and the reference to the leadership of Moses and Aaron in v. 21, thePsalm invites the interpretation that these four verses celebrate God’s victory inmuch the same way that Exodus 15 does. This prompted Frank Cross to noteof Psalm 77: “the creation myth is fully combined with the Exodus-Conquest
events.”25
Yet some scholars have argued that the poetic lines about God’s conquestof the Sea are secondary, added to an otherwise unrelated Psalm.26 Frank-Lothar
Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, in their Hermeneia commentary, favor seeing these
verses as secondary, and emphasize what they see as the fundamental problem
24 Albright, The Psalm of Habakkuk, pp. 3–4; Hiebert, God of My Salvation, pp. 62–63.
25 Cross, Canaanite Myth, p. 136; similarly Kselman, Psalm 77 and Exodus, pp. 51–58.
26 See already Briggs, Book of Psalms, p. 2.171: “To this Ps. was added at a later date alittle poem of four trimester tristichs, based on Hb. 3, and also citing (v. 19) from Ps.
97:4.”
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Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019

in the interpretation of Psalm 77: “The description of personal crisis and remembrance of salvation history stand unconnected . . . the remembrance is not applied
to the present of the petitioner’s situation of need.”27 However, analogies to the
problem detected by Hossfeld and Zenger are near at hand. Psalm 74, a maskîl ofAsaph, contrasts the possession of oracular “signs” (‫ )אתות‬by Israel’s foes (v. 4)
with a corresponding lack among Israel’s people: ‫“ אותתינו לא ראינו‬we do not perceive our signs” (v. 9). In Psalm 74, reflection on the decimation of the Temple,
combined with a lack of divinatory signs (words) from the deity (in response
to oracular inquiries?), likewise prompt recollection of God’s ancient acts ofconquest over the waters (vv. 13–15).28 Hossfeld and Zenger seem to disregard
this fact. Kselman makes a stronger case for understanding the references tothe Divine Warrior in Ps 77:17–20 as integral—although formally distinctive—
forming a coherent, unified argument. He argues that the hymnic material, with
its explicit allusions to God’s defeat of the mayim rabbim, was used by the poet
“to answer [the] series of questions” posed in vv. 8–10.29 I think that Kselman iscorrect, but that we can go one step further. The archaic poetic materials of vv.
17–20, I contend, stand as a substitute for the oracular response that did not comein response to the Psalmist’s oracular inquiry. Through the exertion of cognitiveeffort, the reappropriation or Aktualisierung of ancient tropes pertaining to theDivine Warrior, the poet recovers, reworks, and presents archaic hymnic materials—in whatever form they may have been known—as the effective equivalentof a new oracular response of God. The solution to what might be seen as a failure in cultic terms, as a case of divine silence, is overcome through an effort that
could be cautiously described as “proto-canonical.”Psalm 77 emerges from the realm of the Israelite cult; it is defined by the

27 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, p. 276.
28 Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, p. 1.84–85.
29 Kselman, Psalm 77 and Exodus, p. 53.
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D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

ritual framework of the Psalmist’s nighttime oracular inquiry. It has as its background a ritual process: the accepted idea that the crisis of a petitioner can bealleviated when the petitioner makes a cultic inquiry and awaits and receives
a word in response. But in Psalm 77, no indication is offered that God heard or
responded to the inquiry, which causes distress. When the divination inquiry
yields no response, the petitioner encounters silence. The petitioner then explicitly reappropriates elements of the ancient tradition. If vv. 17–20 rely upon traditions similar to those found elsewhere in such texts as Exodus 15, Psalm 18, andHabakkuk 3, then it would appear that the answer that the Psalmist is finally able
to offer in the wake of his failed inquiry does not come from a new oracular wordfrom God. The Psalmist recycles ancient hymnic materials to fit the purpose.
How does the approach to Ps 77:17–20 above pertain to understanding thebook of Habakkuk, then? As noted, scholars have long recognized that the hymn
in Ps 77:17–20 has close parallels in the language of the hymn of Habakkuk 3.
Of the 34 words in Ps 77:17–20, 24 of them appear in Habakkuk 3. Several of thelines bear obvious connections, especially vv. 10, 11, and 15.30
But let me set the question of parallels between these texts against the general framework of how the third chapter fits within the book of Habakkuk, which,I think, shares a structural logic similar to that of Psalm 77. Habakkuk treats
the causes and consequences of Chaldean military dominance not just over Judah, but over the earth.31 After the superscription, the prophet’s complaint begins
with a question about how long God will tolerate violence and evil. The prophet
30 For lexical similarities, see Humbert, Problèmes du Livre d’Habacuc, pp. 58–72, 204–
45; for clausal parallels, Müller, Jahwe als Wettergott, pp. 53–54.
31 On the designation “Chaldeans” in 1:5, and more generally in HB, see D. S. Vanderhooft, Depictions of ‫“ כשדים‬Chaldeans” in Judean Prophecy and Historiography, in: S.
Aḥituv, A. Baruchi-Unna, I. Ephʿal, T. Forti, and J. H. Tigay (eds.) “Now It Happenedin Those Days”: Studies in Biblical, Assyrian and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday, Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2017, pp. 171–82.
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angrily questions God’s inaction in response to “violence” (1:2, 3) and the dissolution of “justice”, ‫( משפט‬1:4). God’s inaction, the prophet asserts, permits thedisplacement or removal of Torah (‫—תפוג תורה‬the same verb is predicated of thePsalmist’s “hand” in Ps 77:3).32 In general, according to this complaint, God’s
failure to respond to the prophet’s cry about violence allows the wicked to prevail over the righteous (1:4).
After the prophet’s complaint comes God’s astonishing announcement in
1:5–11: for unstated reasons, God announces that he is now raising up the fearsome Chaldeans, who terrorize populations, take captives, and depose kings andrulers. As Abraham Heschel wrote of God’s announcement: “The Voice does
not explain why God should rouse the terrible Chaldeans to march through thebreadth of the earth. On the contrary, the message represents another assault
upon Habakkuk’s understanding, adding mystery to amazement.”33
In 1:12–17, Habakkuk therefore addresses God again, in the style of Moses,
now leveling a harsh accusation against him.34 After describing God’s characteristics—he is ‫מקדם‬, “primordial” (the phrase occurs also in Ps 77:12); “too pure ofeyes to look upon evil,” and “incapable of looking upon wrong” (1:12–13)—the32 The rarity of this word and its appearance in Ps 77:3 is noteworthy. In Habakkuk,
LXX translates διεσκέδασται, “(Torah) is dispersed,” indicating physical removal. In
post-biblical Hebrew, pwg does mean “to disappear” or “to lose (something),” and the
Greek translators apparently reflect this semantic sense. The meaning “to disappear,”moreover, has ancient roots. The Akkadian verb puāgu is cognate with Hebrew pwg,
and von Soden provides the definition “gewaltsam wegnehmen (jmd.m),” (AHw 874b,s.v.). The semantic range of the term in Akk., in biblical Hebrew, and in post-biblical
Hebrew (reflected also by LXX) includes “to displace, remove, or lose.” In Ps 77:3, itmeans “falter,” or “drop.”
33 A. Heschel, The Prophets, 2 vols., New York: Harper and Row, 1962, vol. 1, p. 141.
34 On the Mosaic aspect of the prophetic role here, see Y. Muffs, Who Will Stand in the
Breach?: A Study of Prophetic Intercession, in: Love and Joy. Law, Language andReligion in Ancient Israel, New York: JTS, 1992, pp. 9–48.
38

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

prophet then asks why God is silent when “the wicked swallows one more righteous than he” (1:13). Verse 14 levels another serious accusation against God,
that he has turned humans into fish. The central element in this accusation of
malfeasance is God’s demotion of humans from their rightful place in the cosmos. The accusation stems from the prophet’s perception of Chaldean crimes. By
denuding the nations, the Chaldean conqueror, God’s agent, becomes a kind ofimperial fisherman, a Sea Monster, or, as chapter 2 says, like Mawet (“Death,”
2:5). Chapter 1 ends with the prophet describing the Chaldean conqueror as aremorseless fisherman and his victims as the catch.
Chapter 2 opens with the prophet ascending a lookout’s post to await a divine response to his ‫תוכחת‬, what I define as an accusation of divine wrongdoing(“legally actionable accusation of malfeasance”). God must finally respond to
the prophet’s legal accusation, and He does break the silence that has plagued theprophet. The response consists of God’s instruction to transcribe a vision, which
2:3b says will come even if it is delayed. The warning here that the vision mightwell be delayed—even though the warning occurs in the account of God actuallyanswering the prophet’s charges—is most vexing. Just as the text hints, then, thecontent of the vision promised by God does not materialize. God instead asserts
the following about the vision: ‫“ וצדיק באמונתו יחיה‬the righteous one will live by
its reliability” (2:4). J. G. Janzen carefully demonstrated in connection with thisfamous verse that the 3ms pronoun refers to the vision’s reliability, not to therighteous one’s faithfulness.35 It appears that the vision itself must wait. A description of the oppressor is followed by four hôy or “woe” oracles to be utteredby the nations warning the oppressor of his inevitable fall.
It is the tĕpillāh of chapter 3, instead, that proleptically articulates Habakkuk’s vision of Yhwh’s restoration of the cosmos. Habakkuk incorporates ele-

35 J. G. Janzen, Habakkuk 2:2–4 in the Light of Recent Philological Advances, HTR 73,  
1980, pp. 53–78; also Andersen, Habakkuk, p. 214.
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Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019

ments of one or more archaic hymns in chap. 3, with patent echoes of traditions
reflected already in the Ugaritic tales of conflict between Baal and his cosmic
foes:   Mot and Nahar/Yamm. In the version in Habakkuk, Yhwh, the Divine
Warrior, marches out in an awesome theophany from Teman and Paran, both in
the Southeast (3:3). Deber, “Plague,” and Rešep, “Pestilence”—cosmic forcesof death identified in the archaic lore with divinities—march in God’s retinue:  
Deber in the van, Rešeph in the rearguard.  These olden gods have become partof Yhwh’s field force (3:5).36  The earth quakes and the mountains tremble in thegreat theophany of God.  The hymn celebrates, in other words, God’s primordial defeat of the agents of chaos.  He raged against his foes:  Nāhār and Yām,
“River” and “Sea” (3:8).  The echoes of Canaanite mythology are plain.  There,
Baal defeats Judge River (tpṭ nhrm) and Prince Yamm (ym).  These are precisely
the entities (minus their epithets) defeated by Yhwh in Habakkuk’s hymn after
Yhwh mounts his horse-drawn chariot and readies his bow.  The connections to
the old mythology were recognized already by Cassuto in 1938, not long after
the Ugaritic tablets were discovered and deciphered.37  But this is finally not only
a cosmic conflagration, for Yhwh not only defeated these hoary foes; he also
“trod the earth in fury, and threshed nations in wrath” (3:12). Why?  “To saveyour people, to save your anointed one” (3:13).  The poet, it would seem, moves
easily between the cosmic and historical planes, as Cross famously put it.
The author of Habakkuk 3, as Albright argued, “possessed a considerable
amount of literary appreciation and … lived in a strongly archaizing period.”38
More recently, M. Barré has made a case for viewing the entirety of the poetic
materials of Habakkuk 3 as a self-conscious scribal arrangement from its incep36 So also Hiebert, God of My Salvation, pp. 92–94; Andersen, Habakkuk, pp. 306–7.
37 U. Cassuto, Chapter III of Habakkuk and the Ras Shamra Texts, Biblical and Oriental
Studies 2, 1975, p. 11 (originally published in Annuario di Studi Ebraici, 1935–37[1938], pp. 7–22).
38 Albright, The Psalm of Habakkuk, p. 9.
40

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuktion.39 It exploits particular organizing principles including the use of anagramsof key roots, especially q-r-b and b-r-q, and r-g-z and g-z-r. Together with otherindications of scribal conceits, Barré favors interpreting the prayer as a scribal
composition rather than the incorporation of an older poem(s). Yet, the two views
need not be contradictory, and the evidence of Psalm 77 here may be helpful. In
both of these works, the authors advert to more ancient poetic materials and rework them into the macro-structures of their wider compositions. We may characterize this work as “scribal” even while we acknowledge the raw materials,
however precisely they were obtained, were archaic.
As a whole, the book of Habakkuk treats a fundamental problem, one familiar from other Judean prophetic writings: the causes and consequences of foreigninvasion. The book’s argument in response to this problem, however, is somewhat anomalous in the Judean prophetic tradition. It argues that God is complicitin the impending invasion by an implacable foe, and that his decision to raise up
the feared Chaldeans is unacceptable. The prophet lays before God several challenging accusations. Habakkuk does not address God’s people, does not containa prophetic messenger formula (e.g., “Thus says the Lord”), and does not warn
the people of the error of their ways. Instead, the pattern of argument developed in Habakkuk represents an application of the same logical formulation as isfound in Psalm 77. In Habakkuk 2, we recall, the prophet tried to get a response
from God about the Chaldean oppressor through a formal procedure of legal
disputation. He went up on his watchtower and awaited a response to his ‫תוכחת‬.
God responds with the promise of a ḥazôn, “vision.” This affords a parallel to thebasic function of the oracular inquiry in Psalm 77, which was designed to elicita favorable divine response. We saw, in Psalm 77, that no answer was forthcoming, and this precipitated a new crisis. Similarly, Habakkuk receives word that a

39 M. Barré, Newly Discovered Literary Devices in the Prayer of Habakkuk, CBQ 75,
2013, pp. 446–62.
41

Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute XLIV–XLV 2018–2019ḥazôn will arrive, but the text concedes that the vision might well be delayed. In
fact, it is not clear whether the vision to be transcribed upon tablets ever does actually arrive. This led Albright, and, after him, Hiebert, to conclude that the poemof chapter 3, a recycled ancient hymn, actually serves as the effective equivalentof the promised ḥazôn. I think this is the most satisfactory hypothesis to accountfor the relationship between chapters 1–2 and chapter 3 of Habakkuk.
Thus, in Habakkuk, the logic of the argument and the concluding recitationof God’s great achievements in defeating the agents of chaos, adumbrate thepossibility of renewed cosmic order. The answer to the prophet’s legal claim
against the deity forces the prophet back to archaic traditions, as in Psalm 77.  
Yet Habakkuk differs, too. What Psalm 77 presents as a cultic procedure andpossibly even private ritual, Habakkuk brings explicitly into the arena of political discourse and demands God’s response. The procedures of oracular inquiry
depicted in Psalm 77 give way in Habakkuk to language of the courtroom andare brought into the sphere of prophetic contest with God. But in both texts,
the appeal to recognizably archaic hymnic materials functions as the effective
equivalent of a new divine response. In Habakkuk, the hymn forms the content of
the delayed vision, while in Psalm 77, the hymnic material becomes the effective
content of a new oracle after a failed cultic inquiry.40

40 The present paper is based on a talk delivered at Rikkyo University in Tokyo on April
1, 2019. As Prof. Shuichi Hasegawa reminded me before delivering the lecture, theclassic Japanese novel, Silence, by Shusaku Endo, has as its main subject one variation of the problem considered in this paper: divine Silence in the face of suffering.
Endo’s historical novel deals with the perils of the 17th century Jesuit missionary workin Japan and the persecution of Japanese Christians during that period. Notwithstanding Endo’s focus on the explicit perception of divine Silence by his protagonist, theJesuit Rodrigues, Endo strategically breaks the Silence that Rodrigues experienced inseveral ways. First, through a kind of appeal to Natural Theology, Endo has Rodrigues
consistently describe the sounds—human and natural—that washed over him even42

D. S. VANDERHOOFT: A Strategy for Overcoming Divine Silencein Psalm 77 and Habakkuk

when he was terrified by Silence. In addition, Endo insists throughout the novel that
Rodrigues’s own memories could break the Silence: the priest regularly describes images of the Risen Jesus in art that affected him; but, most importantly for my subject,Rodrigues repeatedly quotes Scripture to himself and others, with the sound of thosewords echoing in the Silence. And in this latter sense, Endo was adopting and adapting
a post-canonical approach analogous to that of the texts discussed in this paper.
43