Note 282 — Chapter VIII

פלדות, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur elsewhere. LXX. ἡνίαι; Vulg. habenæ. Some have thought that it means scythes—cf. the Arabic falad, “to cut”—but the earliest notice of chariots armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish literature they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias, op. cit., p. 97, where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum are applicable to the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian monuments, from which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf. ibid., p. 167, n. ***. But from the parallelism of the verse it is more probable that ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots were covered with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p. 167).