What The Times, in an interesting article on part of
the scrolls discovered near the Dead Sea in 1947, describes as " new light on Habakkuk " seems to be no more than a further addition to the various interpretations that have been put on the writings of that enigmatic minor prophet. The Book of Habakkuk consists of only three chapters, and the third is commonly regarded as a separate composition by a different author. Habakkuk is generally supposed to have been written about 600 a.c., and it is assumed that when the author spoke of Chaldeans as about to descend on Jerusalem he meant Chaldeans. On this showing the prophet was predicting immediately imminent events, which in fact took place, But the commentary on Habakkuk found among the scrolls leaps some five hundred centuries and applies the prophecies to events in Judxa in the first century B.C. What is not clear is whether Habakkuk himself is to be moved likewise into the first century. If so his book would be much the latest in date of the writings included in the Old Testament.
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