Abstract
In Hab 1:14, Habakkuk compares the people who are being attacked by an oppressor to fish and other aquatic animals. One thing this comparison conveyed was exile, seen in the attacker’s removal of the fish and other aquatic animals from water, an action that will kill them. The comparison also conveyed the equal treatment of the righteous and the wicked, seen in the attacker’s consumption of the fish and other aquatic animals. According to Lev 11:9–12 and Deut 14:9–10, the only other place in the Israelite textual record where fish and other aquatic animals are mentioned together, fish are clean while other aquatic animals are unclean. Thus, the consumption of the fish and other aquatic animals by the oppressor represented the indiscriminate deportation of both the righteous (the clean fish) and the wicked (the unclean other aquatic animals).
