Note 290 — Chapter VIII

הֻצּב, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of נצב and has been taken to mean it is determined, she (Niniveh) is taken captive. Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: it is settled. LXX. ὑπόστασις = מצב. Vulg. miles (as if some form of צבא?). Hitzig points it הַצָּב, the lizard, Wellhausen the toad. But this noun is masculine (Lev. xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other הַצָּב, fem., the litter or palanquin (Isa. lxvi. 20): “in lieu of anything better one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the woman or lady, just as in Arab. ḍḥa’inah means a woman’s litter and then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of הַצְּבי, the beauty. The Targ. has מלכתא, the queen. From as early as at least 1527 (Latina Interpretatio Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of scholars as a proper name, Huṣṣab. So Ewald and others. It may be an Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is corrupt.