The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw. Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save? Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.
“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you. For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand. Yes, he scoffs at kings, and princes are a derision to him. He laughs at every stronghold, for he builds up an earthen ramp, and takes it. Then he sweeps by like the wind, and goes on. He is indeed guilty, whose strength is his god.”
Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious, and his food is good. Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 Now follows The Prophet Habakkuk; but the time in…
Now follows The Prophet Habakkuk; but the time in which he discharged his office of a Teacher is not quite certain. The Hebrews, according to their usual manner, unhesitatingly assert that he prophesied under the king Manasseh; but this conjecture is not well founded. We are however led to think that this prophecy was announced when the contumacy of the people had become irreclaimable. It is indeed probable, from the complaint which we shall have presently to notice, that the people had previously given many proofs of irremediable wickedness. To me it appears evident that the Prophet was sent, when others had in vain endeavored to correct the wickedness of the people. But as he denounces an approaching judgement on the Chaldeans, he seems to have prophesied either under Manasseh or under the other kings before the time of Zedechiah; but we cannot fix the exact time.
The substance of the Book may be thus stated:—In the First chapter he complains of the rebellious obstinacy of the people, and deplores the corruptions which then prevailed; he then appears as the herald of God, and warns the Jews of their approaching ruin; he afterwards applies consolation, as God would punish the Chaldeans when their pride became intolerable. In the second chapter he exhorts the godly to patience by his own example, and speaks at large of the near ruin of Babylon; and in the third chapter, as we shall see, he turns to supplication and prayer.
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We shall now come to the words.
The greater part of interpreters refer this burden to the Chaldeans and the monarchy of Babylon; but of this view I do not approve, and a good reason compels me to dissent from their opinion: for as the Prophet addresses the Jews, and without any addition calls his prophecy a burden, there is no doubt but that he refers to them. Besides, their view seems wholly inconsistent, because the Prophet dreads the future devastation of the land, and complains to God for allowing His chosen and elect people to be so cruelly treated. What others think is more correct—that this burden belonged to the Jews.
What the Prophet understood by the word משא, mesha, has been elsewhere stated. Habakkuk then reproves here his own nation, and shows that they had in vain disdainfully resisted all God’s prophets, for they would at length find that their threatening would be accomplished. The burden, then, which the Prophet Habakkuk saw, was this—That God, after having exercised long forbearance towards the Jews, would at length be the punisher of their many sins. It now follows—
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 The Prophet complaineth unto God, and bewaileth that among…
The Prophet complaineth unto God, and bewaileth that among the Jews is left none equity and brotherly love: but instead hereof reigneth cruelty, theft, contention and strife.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–17 Hab 1:1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did…
Hab 1:1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
Ver. 1. The burden] The prophetic burden, saith the Chaldea paraphrast; the burdenous prophecy, saith Tremellius. {See Trapp on "Mal 1:1"}
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Which Habakkuk the prophet did see] Amplexator ille, That embracer (so some interpret his name), yea, Optimus Amplexator (as they gather from the last radical emphatically doubled), That best embracer. Et carte omen habet nomen, He hath not his name for nought; for (as Luther writeth) in this prophecy he loveth and huggeth his afflicted countrymen; he helps and solaces them, as the mother doth her crying babe, to still it. Jerome and others make Habakkuk to signify Luctatorem amplex stringentem, a wrestler, that, by closing, strives to prevail; that, by might and slight, seeks to get the better. Such a one was Jacob, whose wrestling was by weeping, and his prevailing by praying, Hos 12:4. Such another was Habakkuk, who argueth earnestly with God about the state of his people, and prayeth ardently for them; not doubting but that the Lord would "preserve the faithful, and plentifully reward the proud doer," Psa 31:23. A prophet he is here styled, and a seer, and that is all is said of him; nothing of his pedigree, or time of prophesying; that the word (and not the man) might be glorified, Act 13:47. Regis epistolis acceptis, saith Gregory; when a king’s letters are brought to his subjects, it is a ridiculous thing for them to inquire with what pen they were written; it is the matter must be minded: so here. A prophet Habakkuk was; and is therefore to be received into our hearts, if we look for a prophet’s reward. He received heavenly visions, whereunto therefore we must not be disobedient, Act 26:19. That memorable sentence of his, "The just shal1 live by faith," is more than once made use of by St Paul, in that weighty business of justification, Rom 1:17 Gal 3:11, which proves the canonical authority of this prophecy. The precise time when it was uttered is not known. In the days of Manasseh most think; but some are of the opinion in Josiah’s time rather, or not long before; because he foretelleth the Babylonish captivity, and seemeth to agree with Jeremiah in many things. Sure it is, that this prophet lived not after the captivity, {Hab 1:6-7} as Epiphanius and Jerome would have it; grounding upon those Apocryphal additions to Daniel, which either are false, or else there were two Habakkuks.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–17 The burden; see Nah 1:1; to which we may…
The burden; see Nah 1:1; to which we may here add, as proper to this time and place, that the prophet seems to speak of the grievous things here intended as a burden to himself, a trouble he did feel and groan under.
Habakkuk: here we might, as others, guess at his country, parentage, and tribe; but no certainty appears in these: his name may perhaps intimate somewhat, either actively one that embraceth, or passively one embraced, and so may refer to God, or to his people, and intimate good to a people, whom God will ere long embrace; or it may speak one that is puzzled with the intricacy of affairs, and therefore expostulateth, as Hab 1:2,3.
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The prophet; not he that is mentioned in the apocryphal book, but a prophet called and sent of God.
Did see; not only in the future certainty of it on others, but did also feel in the present trouble and perplexity wherewith it affected him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv5, 12 We have here an answer to the prophet's complaint,…
We have here an answer to the prophet's complaint, giving him assurance that, though God bore long, he would not bear always with this provoking people; for the day of vengeance was in his heart, and he must tell them so, that they might by repentance and reformation turn away the judgment they were threatened with.
I. The preamble to the sentence is very awful (Hab 1:5): Behold, you among the heathen, and regard. Since they will not be brought to repentance by the long-suffering of God, he will take another course with them. No resentments are so keen, so deep, as those of abused patience. The Lord will inflict upon them, 1. A public punishment, which shall be beheld and regarded among the heathen, which the neighbouring nations shall take notice of and stand amazed at; see Deu 29:24, Deu 29:25. This will aggravate the desolations of Israel, that they will thereby be made a spectacle to the world. 2. An amazing punishment, so strange and surprising, and so much out of the common road of Providence, that it shall not be paralleled among the heathen, shall be sorer and heavier than what God has usually inflicted upon the nations that know him not; nay, it shall not be credited even by those that had the prediction of it from God before it comes, or the report of it from those that were eye-witnesses of it when it comes: You will not believe it, though it be told you; it will be thought incredible that so many judgments should combine in one, and every circumstance so strangely concur to enforce and aggravate it, that so great and potent a nation should be so reduced and broken, and that God should deal so severely with a people that had been taken into the bond of the covenant and that he had done so much for. The punishment of God's professing people cannot but be the astonishment of all about them. 3. A speedy punishment: "I will work a work in your days, now quickly; this generation shall not pass till the judgment threatened be accomplished. The sins of former days shall be reckoned for in your days; for now the measure of the iniquity is full," Mat 23:36. 4. It shall be a punishment in which much of the hand of God shall appear; it shall be a work of his own working, so that all who see it shall say, This is the Lord's doing; and it will be found a fearful thing to fall into his hands; woe to those whom he takes to task! 5. It shall be such a punishment as will typify the destruction to be brought upon the despisers of Christ and his gospel, for to that these words are applied Act 13:41, Behold, you despisers, and wonder, and perish. The ruin of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans for their idolatry was a figure of their ruin by the Romans for rejecting Christ and his gospel, and it is a very marvellous thing, and almost incredible. Is there not a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?
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II. The sentence itself is very dreadful and particular (Hab 1:6): Lo, I raise up the Chaldeans. There were those that raised up a great deal of strife and contention among them, which was their sin; and now God will raise up the Chaldeans against them, who shall strive and contend with them, which shall be their punishment. Note, When God's professing people quarrel among themselves, snarl at, and devour one another, it is just with God to bring the common enemy upon them, that shall make peace by making a universal devastation. The contending parties in Jerusalem were inveterate one against another, when the Romans came and took away their place and nation. The Chaldeans shall be the instruments of the destruction threatened, and, though themselves acting unrighteously, they shall execute the righteousness of the Lord and punish the unrighteousness of Israel. Now, here we have,
1. A description of the people that shall be raised up against Israel, to be a scourge to them. (1.) They are a bitter and hasty nation, cruel and fierce, and what they do is done with violence and fury; they are precipitate in their counsels, vehement in their passions, and push on with resolution in their enterprises; they show no mercy and they spare no pains. Miserable is the case of those that are given up into the hand of these cruel ones. (2.) They are strong, and therefore formidable, and such as there is no standing before, and yet no fleeing from (Hab 1:7): They are terrible and dreadful, famed for the gallant troops they bring into the field (Hab 1:8); their horses are swifter than leopards to charge and pursue, and more fierce than the evening wolves; and wolves are observed to be the most ravenous towards the evening, after they have been kept hungry all day, waiting for that darkness under the protection of which all the beasts of the forest creep forth, Psa 104:20. Their squadrons of horse shall be very numerous: "Their horse-men shall spread themselves a great way, for they shall come from far, from all parts of their own country, and shall be dispersed into all parts of the country they invade, to plunder it, and enrich themselves with the spoil of it. And, in making speed to spoil, they shall hasten to the prey (as those, Isa 8:1, margin), for they shall fly as the eagle towards the earth when she hastens to eat and strikes at the prey she has an eye upon." (3.) Their own will is a law to them, and, in the fierceness of their pursuits, they will not be governed by any laws of humanity, equity, or honour: Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves, Hab 1:7. Appetite and passion rule them, and not reason nor conscience. Their principle is, Quicquid libet, licet - My will is my law. And, Sic volo, sic jubeo; stat pro ratione voluntas - This is my wish, this is my command; it shall be done because I choose it. What favour can be hoped for from such an enemy? Note, Those who have been unjust and unmerciful, among whom the law is slacked, and judgment doth not go forth, will justly be paid in their own coin and fall into the hands of those who will deal unjustly and unmercifully with them.
2. A prophecy of the terrible execution that shall be made by this terrible nation: They shall march through the breadth of the earth (so it may be read); for in a little time the Chaldean forces subdued all the nations in those parts, so that they seemed to have conquered the world; they overran Asia and part of Africa. Or, through the breadth of the land of Israel, which was wholly laid waste by them. It is here foretold, (1.) That they shall seize all as their own that they can lay their hands on. They shall come to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs, which they have no right to, but that which their sword gives them. (2.) That they shall push on the war with all possible vigour: They shall all come for violence (Hab 1:9), not to determine any disputed right by the sword, but, right or wrong, to enrich themselves with the spoil. Their faces shall sup up as the east wind; their very countenances shall be so fierce and frightful that a look will serve to make them masters of all they have a mind to; so that they shall swallow up all, as the east wind nips and blasts the buds and flowers. Their faces shall look towards the east (so some read it); they shall still have an eye to their own country, which lay eastward from Judea, and all the spoil they seize they shall remit thither. (3.) That they shall take a vast number of prisoners, and send them into Babylon: They shall gather the captivity as the sand for multitude, and shall never know when they have enough, as long as there are any more to be had. (4.) That they shall make nothing of the opposition that is given to them, Hab 1:10. Do the distressed Jews depend upon their great men to make a stand, and with their wisdom and courage to give check to the victorious arms of the Chaldeans? Alas! they will make nothing of them. They shall scoff (he shall, so it is in the original, meaning Nebuchadnezzar, who being puffed up with his successes, shall scoff) at the kings and commanders of the forces that think to make head against him; and the princes shall be a scorn to them, so unequal a match shall they appear to be. Do they depend upon their garrisons and fortified towns? He shall deride every stronghold, for to him it shall be weak, and he shall heap dust, and take it; a little soil, thrown up for ramparts, shall serve to give him all the advantage against them that he can desire; he shall make but a jest of them, and a sport of taking them. (5.) By all this he shall be puffed up with an intolerable pride, which shall be his destruction (Hab 1:11): Then shall his mind change for the worse. The spirit both of the people and of the king shall grow more haughty and insolent. Those that will not be content with their own rights will not be content when they have made themselves masters of other people's rights too; but as the condition rises the mind rises too. This victorious king shall pass over all the bounds of reason, equity, and modesty, and break through all their bonds, and thereby he shall offend, shall make God his enemy, and so prepare ruin for himself by imputing this his power to his god, whereas he had it from the God of Israel. Bel and Nebo were the gods of the Chaldeans, and to them they gave the glory of their successes; they were hardened in their idolatry, and blasphemously argued that because they had conquered Israel their gods were too strong for the God of Israel. Note, It is a great offence (and the common offence of proud people) to take that glory to ourselves, or to give it to gods of our own making, which is due to the living and true God only. These closing words of the sentence give a glimpse of comfort to the afflicted people of God; it is to be hoped that they will change their minds, and grow better, and ripen for deliverance; and they did so. However, their enemies will change their minds, and grow worse, and ripen for destruction, which will inevitably come in God's due time; for a haughty spirit, lifted up against God, goes before a fall.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. This…
The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. This prophecy is called a "burden", or something took up and carried, being what the prophet received from the Lord, and went with to the people of the Jews, and was a heavy burdensome prophecy to them; declaring the calamities that should come upon them by the Chaldeans, who would invade their land, and carry them captive; and Habakkuk, that brought this account, is called a "prophet", to give the greater sanction to it; and it was what he had in vision from the Lord represented unto him, and therefore should be credited. Abarbinel inquires why Habakkuk should be called a prophet, when none of the lesser prophets are, excepting Haggai and Zechariah; and thinks the reason of it is, to give weight to his prophecy, since it might be suspected by some whether he was one; there being none of those phrases to be met with in this prophecy as in others, as "the word of the Lord came", &c. or "thus saith the Lord".
The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. This prophecy is called a "burden", or something took up and carried, being what the prophet received from the Lord, and went with to the people of the Jews, and was a heavy burdensome prophecy to them; declaring the calamities that should come upon them by the Chaldeans, who would invade their land, and carry them captive; and Habakkuk, that brought this account, is called a "prophet", to give the greater sanction to it; and it was what he had in vision from the Lord represented unto him, and therefore should be credited. Abarbinel inquires why Habakkuk should be called a prophet, when none of the lesser prophets are, excepting Haggai and Zechariah; and thinks the reason of it is, to give weight to his prophecy, since it might be suspected by some whether he was one; there being none of those phrases to be met with in this prophecy as in others, as "the word of the Lord came", &c. or "thus saith the Lord".
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Habakkuk 1:2
hab 1:2
hab 1:2
hab 1:2O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!.... The prophet having long observed the sins and iniquities of the people among whom he lived, and being greatly distressed in his mind on account of them, had frequently and importunately cried unto the Lord to put a stop to the abounding of them, that the people might be brought to a sense of their sins, and reform from them; but nothing of this kind appearing, he concludes his prayers were not heard, and therefore expostulates with the Lord upon this head:
even cry unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! either of violence done to himself in the discharge of his office, or of one man to another, of the rich to the poor; and yet, though he cried again and again to the Lord, to check this growing evil, and deliver the oppressed out of the hands of their oppressors, it was not done; which was matter of grief and trouble to him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17 The prophet complains of the violence practiced by the…
The prophet complains of the violence practiced by the Jews, ver. 1-4. God foretells the punishment of it, ver. 5-11. The prophet complains of the mischief done by the Chaldeans, ver. 12-17.
The burden - The prophet seems to speak of these grievous things, as a burden which he himself groaned under.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 Chronological Notes relative to this Book, upon the supposition…
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET HABAKKUK
Chronological Notes relative to this Book, upon the supposition that it was written a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before the commencement of the Christian era.
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-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3404.
-Year of the Julian Period, 4114.
-Year since the Flood, 1748.
-Year since the vocation of Abram, 1321.
-Year from the foundation of Solomon's temple, 412.
-Year since the division of Solomon's monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 376.
-First year of the forty-fifth Olympiad.
-Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 121.
-Year before the birth of Jesus Christ, 596.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 600.
-Cycle of the Sun, 26.
-Cycle of the Moon, 10.
-Third year of AEropas, king of Macedon.
-Twentieth year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia.
-Twenty-sixth year of Cyaxares or Cyaraxes, king of Media.
-Sixth year of Agasicles, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae.
-Eighth year of Leon, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae.
-Seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
-Seventeenth year of Tarquinius Priscus, king of the Romans.
-Eleventh year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah.
CHAPTER I
The prophet enters very abruptly on his subject, his spirit
being greatly indignant at the rapid progress of vice and
impiety, 1-4.
Upon which God is introduced threatening very awful and sudden
judgments to be indicted by the ministry of the Chaldeans,
5-10.
The Babylonians attribute their wonderful successes to their
idols, 11.
The prophet then, making a sudden transition, expostulates with
God (probably personating the Jews) for permitting a nation
much more wicked than themselves, as they supposed, to oppress
and devour them, as fishers and fowlers do their prey, 12-17.
We know little of this prophet; for what we find in the ancients concerning him is evidently fabulous, as well as that which appears in the Apocrypha. He was probably of the tribe of Simeon, and a native of Beth-zacar. It is very likely that he lived after the destruction of Nineveh, as he speaks of the Chaldeans, but makes no mention of the Assyrians. And he appears also to have prophesied before the Jewish captivity, see Hab 1:5; Hab 2:1; Hab 3:2; Hab 3:16-19; and therefore Abp. Newcome thinks he may be placed in the reign of Jehoiakim, between the years 606 B.C. and 598 B.C.
As a poet, Habakkuk holds a high rank among the Hebrew prophets. The beautiful connection between the parts of his prophecy, its diction, imagery, spirit, and sublimity, cannot be too much admired; and his hymn, Hab 3:1-19, is allowed by the best judges to be a masterpiece of its kind. See Lowth's Praelect. xxi., xxviii.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. The burden] המשא hammassa signifies not only the burdensome prophecy, but the prophecy or revelation itself which God presented to the mind of Habakkuk, and which he saw - clearly perceived, in the light of prophecy, and then faithfully declared, as this book shows. The word signifies an oracle or revelation in general; but chiefly, one relative to future calamities.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13 Hab 1:1. The burden — The grievous calamities, or…
Hab 1:1. The burden — The grievous calamities, or heavy judgments; which Habakkuk did see — That is, foresee, and was commissioned to foretel. This burden, or prophetic vision, communicated to Habakkuk, was against the Chaldeans as well as the Jews. For while the prophet was complaining of iniquity among the Jews, 1st, God foreshows him the desolations which the Chaldeans would make in Judea and the neighbouring countries, as the ministers of divine vengeance: and, 2d, Upon the prophet’s falling into an expostulation with God about these proceedings, moved thereto probably by his compassion for his own people, God shows him the judgments which he would execute upon the Chaldeans.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–17 The burden - On the word “burden” see the…
The burden - On the word “burden” see the note at Nah 1:1.
Which Habakkuk the prophet did see - The prophet’s name signifies “strong embrace.” The word in its intensive form is used both of God’s enfolding the soul within His tender supporting love , and of man clinging and holding fast to divine wisdom Pro 4:8. It fits in with the subject of his prophecy, faith, cleaving fast to God amid the perplexities of things seen. Dion.: “He who is spiritually Habakkuk, cleaving fast to God with the arms of love, or enfolding Him after the manner of one holily wrestling, until he is blessed, enlightened, and heard by Him, is the seer here.” “Let him who would in such wise fervidly embrace God and plead with Him as a friend, praying earnestly for the deliverance and consolation of himself and others, but who sees not as yet, that his prayer is heard, make the same holy plaint, and appeal to the clemency of the Creator.” (Jer. Abarbanel has the like: “He strengthens himself in pleading his cause with God as to the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar as if he were joined with God for the cause of his people” Preface to Ezekiel). “He is called ‘embrace’ either because of his love to the Lord; or because he engages in a contest and strife and (so to speak) wrestling with God.” For no one with words so bold ventured to challenge God to a discussion of His justice and to say to Him, “Why, in human affairs and the government of this world is there so great injustice?”
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The prophet - The title, “the prophet,” is added only to the names of Habakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah. Habakkuk may have added it to his name instead because he prominently expostulates with God, like the Psalmists, and does not speak in the name of God to the people. The title asserts that he exercised the pastoral office of the prophets, although not directly in this prophecy.
Did see - Cyril: “God multiplied visons, as is written Hos 12:10, and Himself spoke to the prophets, disclosing to them beforehand what should be, and all but exhibiting them to sight, as if already present. But that they determined not to speak from their own, but rather transmit to us the words from God, he persuades us at the outset, naming himself a prophet, and showing himself full of the grace belonging thereto.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 Burden. Such prophecies more especially are called burdens, as…
Burden. Such prophecies more especially are called burdens, as threaten grievous evils and punishments. (Challoner) --- He says not against whom, because the menace is directed to persecutors in general. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 [The Prophet commences by setting forth the Cause of…
CHAPTER 1
[The Prophet commences by setting forth the Cause of the Chaldæan Invasion, which forms the Burden of his Prophecy. This Cause was the great Wickedness of the Jewish Nation at the Time he flourished (Hab_1:2-4). Jehovah is introduced as summoning Attention to that Invasion (Hab_1:5). The Prophet describes the Appearance, Character, and Operations of the Invaders (Hab_1:6-11).—C.E.]
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1 The burden, which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 How long, Jehovah, do I cry?
And thou hearest not?
I cry to thee, Violence,
And thou helpest not.
3 Why dost thou let me see wickedness?
And [why] dost thou look upon distress?
Oppression and violence are before me;
And there is strife, and contention exalts itself.
4 Therefore the law is slack;1
Justice no more2 goes forth;
For the wicked compass about the righteous;
Therefore justice goes forth perverted.
5 Look among the nations and see!
And be ye amazed,3 be amazed;
For I am about to work4 a work in your days:
Ye will not believe it, though it were told.
6 For behold!5 I am about to raise up the Chaldæans,
That bitter and impetuous nation,
Which marches over the breadths of the earth,
To take possession of dwelling-places, that do not belong to it.
7 It is terrible and dreadful:
Its right and its eminence proceed from itself.
8 And swifter than leopards are its horses,
And speedier than the evening wolves:
Its horsemen spring6 proudly along,
And its horsemen come from afar:
They fly like an eagle hastening to devour.
9 It comes wholly for violence:
The host7 of their faces is forward;
And it collects captives like the sand.
10 And it scoffs at kings;
And princes are a laughter to it:
It laughs at every stronghold,
And heaps up earth and takes it.
11 Then its spirit revives,8
And it passes on and contracts guilt:
This its strength is its god.
EXEGETICAL
In the heading (comp. the Introd.) this prophecy is designated as a מַשֹּא, sentence; compare on Nah_1:1. If it should there, as in Isaiah 13 ff., on account of the subjoined genitive of relation, still seem doubtful, whether the prophecy should not be taken as a burden prepared against Nineveh, Babylon, etc., so here, where this genitive is wanting and the discourse has certainly in it that which pertains to a burden, but still much more of that which is consolatory, the neuter signification of the word is just as plain as in Jeremiah, Zechariah, and in the appendix to the Proverbs The verb חָזָה, which, according to its original signification, “to see,” would seem incapable of being joined with Massâ, can be used with it, because “to see,” the most common expression for the prophetic intuition and conception, is generally employed to denote prophetic activity [die prophetisehe Thätigkeit, the exercise of the prophetic gift.—C. E.]
The “vision” of Isaiah (chap. 1. Hab_1:1) embraces threatenings, complaints, consolatory addresses, and symbolical actions. There is just as little ground to deny that the heading proceeds from the prophet himself, as there is in regard to the subscription (Hab_3:19), in which the prophet speaks of himself in the first person. Accordingly it is a general, and that of chap. 3 a special heading.
[Keil: “Hab_1:1 contains the heading, not only to chap 1 and 2, but the whole book, of which chap. 3. forms an integral part. On the special heading in chap. 3 Hab_1:1, see the commentary on the verse. The prophet calls his writing a massâ, or burden (see at Nah_1:1), because it nation and the imperial power.”—C. E.]
First Dialogue. Hab_1:2-11. In this conversation, as in the concluding passages of Micah, the function of the prophet is exhibited on two sides. He speaks, first, in the name of the true Israel, as an advocate of righteousness (comp. on Mic_7:1); then in the name of God. Hence the discourse takes the from of a dialogue, and is divided into two parts.
I. The Complaint. The prophet in the name of righteousness accuses the people of sin (Hab_1:2-4).
II. The Answer. God points to the scourge, by which this sin is to be punished (Hab_1:1-5).
Hab_1:2-4. The Complaint. Parallel with Micah 7, the prophet begins with the description of the wretched condition of the country, which urgently calls for judgment. That he is not yet speaking of the violent deeds of the Chaldæans (Rosenmüller, Ewald, Maurer), but of the condition of Judah itself is evident from the analogy of the language to the descriptions of other prophets, as well as from the fact that the calamity to be inflicted by the Chaldæans (Hab_1:5 ff.) is described as a future one, at present past all belief (comp. Hab_1:13). How long, properly until when, Jehovah,—thou covenant God, who hearest those that call [upon Thee] and art angry with the wicked,—do I cry, and thou hearest not;—cry to thee, violence,—and thou helpest not? Châmâs is not acc. modi, but objecti: a customary form of expression (comp. Jer_20:8, and Job_19:7). We have the same construction in our [the German] language. The tone is that of complaint, common also in the Psalms, with a gentle sound of reproach (Psa_22:2 ff; Psa_88:15 ff.), such as only the ideal congregation, which sees in actual sin an injury done to its vocation [ihrer Bestimmung, that for which a thing is designed—C. E.] can raise, but not the individual fellow-sinner and accomplice in guilt.
Hab_1:3. Why (thus the prophet assigns a reason for his calling and crying) dost thou let me see iniquity, and lookest thou upon perverseness inactively? Sc., since at least thou, as the Holy One, will not look upon it in Israel, and since, according to thy Word (Num_23:21). thy congregation are to remain free from it? עמל and און convey interchangeable ideas (comp. Hupf. on Psa_7:15); and the neuter צמל, which in itself may signify also distress (Bäumlein, Keil), receives here by means of the parallel און the meaning of mischief. [אָוֵן, R. אוּן, signifies (1) nothingness, vanity; (2) nothingness of words, i.e., falsehood, deceit; (3) nothingness as to worth, unworthiness, wickedness, iniquity. עָמָל from עָמַל, to labor, signifies, (1) labor, toil; (2) fruit of labor; (3) trouble, vexation, sorrow. Gesenius, Lex.—C. E.]
Oppression and violence are before my eyes; and strife arises, and contention exalts itself. Where the powers are unequal there is oppression: where they are equal, the strife of hearts and tongues results in fighting with hands. To this description of the leading characteristics of a social disorder the question, “Why does He permit it to happen?” is to be supplied in thought from a [first clause of the verse.—C. E.]. יִשָֹּא is intransitive, as in Nah_1:5; Psa_89:10.
Hab_1:4. Therefore, because thou dost not look into and restrain it, the law, “which was intended to be the soul and heart of the common political life” (Delitzsch), is slack. This is shown particularly (comp. Mic_3:1 ff.) in the chief pillar of the public life, the administration of justice: Yea a righteous sentence never comes forth. So it should be translated, if we understand נצח according to the customary usage of the language; לא נצח, i. e., not to perpetuity, not forever, i. e. never (Isa_13:20, Delitzsch, Keil). But, as the adjunct מעקל, in the following part of the verse shows משׁפט means also here, as it does frequently, not materially a righteous judgment, but formally a legal sentence in general (Hos_10:4). לנצח must consequently be uttered with emphasis; and the clause, “the sentence goes forth” לא לנצח, should form an antithesis to the clause, “the sentence goes forth perverted to injustice.” To נצח, therefore, the signification of truth, justice, is required to be given (comp. לאמת Isa_42:3; Jer_5:3). And this signification is possible. For the usual meaning perpetuity, stability, is not primitive, but has its inner ground in the fact that internal solidity is necessary to continuance; and this is undoubtedly evident from Pro_21:28, though one may grant to Delitzsch, that the signification, forever (better to perpetuity), is not to be given up even in this passage. The connection of the meanings, and the transition from the concrete to the abstract are the same as in צִרק. Compare also 1 Sara. 15:29, where God, as He who cannot lie, is called נצח ישׂראל, and Lam_3:18. Schultens has verified this meaning from the Arabic, Animadvv., p. 515. Therefore [read]: The sentence [or judgment] does not go forth according to truth, so that it may have stability. Similarly, Hitzig, Bäumlein.
For the wicked man (to be understood collectively) surrounds [in a hostile sense—C. E.] the righteous man: to a whole circle of wicked men there is but one righteous, so that right bows under superior power (comp. Mic_7:3): therefore judgment goes forth perverted. [Keil: Mishpat is not merely a righteous verdict, however; in which case the meaning would be: There is no more any righteous verdict given, but a righteous state of things, objective right in the civil and political life.—C. E.]
Hab_1:5-11. Jehovah’s Answer [to the preceding complaint—C. E]. The scourge is already prepared; and that a terrible one. Look around among the nations and see. רָאָח בְּ does not mean here, to look with delight, as it does in other places: the ב, moreover, does not enter simply into construction with the object, but it is local. Already has the storm burst forth among the nations, which also will overtake the secure sinners of Israel. And be astonished! astonished! The emphasis of the benumbing astonishment is expressed by the verb repeated in two conjugations (comp. Zep_2:1; Ewald, sec. 313 c). The reason for both the summons to look round and for the stupefying consternation following it is indicated by the following כי: for a work works, is carried into effect (comp. ῆδη ἐνεργεῖται 2Th_2:7), in your days: ye would not believe it, if it were told to you, it so far exceeds everything that can be imagined and expected. In order to transfer the emphasis entirely to the dreadful word, the speaker keeps back the author, and makes פעֵל apparently neuter: the impellent force is in the work itself (Eze_1:20). [Keil: The participle פֹעֵל denotes that which is immediately at hand, and is used absolutely, without a pronoun: According to Hab_1:6, אִַנִי is the pronoun we have to supply. For it is not practicable to supply הוּא, or to take the participle in the sense of the third person, since God, when speaking to the people, cannot speak of himself in the third person, and even in that case יהוָוָֹה could not be omitted. Hitzig’s idea is still more untenable, namely, that pô‘al is the subject, and that põ‘él is used in an intransitive sense: the work produces its effect. We must assume, as Delitzsch does, that there is a proleptical ellipsis, i. e., one in which the word immediately following is omitted (as in Isa_48:11; Zec_9:17). The admissibility of this assumption is justified by the fact that there are other cases in which the participle is used and the pronoun omitted; and that not merely the pronoun of the third person (e. g., Isa_2:11; Jer_38:23), but that of the second person also (1Sa_2:24; 1Sa_6:3; and Psa_7:10).—C. E.]
Hab_1:6 first mentions the doer: For behold, I, the Lord, bring up [am about to raise up—C. E.] the Chaldæans. [See Lenormant and Chevallier, vol. 1 p. 472; also Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, vol. 1 p. 58, and vol. 2 pp. 497, 505.—C. E.]. The expression בימיכם, and still more the immediately following description of the enemies themselves; point to the fact that they had already appeared in history. But that they are to appear in the history of Israel and come to execute judgment upon Judah for his sins, is, as the expression (הִנְנִי with the part.) shows, still in the future. And indeed the rapidity with which Babylon, which had just become independent, rose from being a city subject to Assyria to be the ruler of Asia, has something incredible. The nation, at whose head Nebuchadnezzar accomplished this sudden conquest, and whose great monarchy took the place of the Assyrian, is called in the Old Testament Casdim; and this designation stands, in the O. T., in the same reciprocal relation to Babylon, that Israel does to Jerusalem. The name Casdim, which, with the change of the second radical, has been preserved to this day in the name Kurds, and which appears in the Classics in the appellations Chalybes (II., ii. 856; comp. Strabo, xii. 545), Chaldi (Steph. Byz., s. v. Χαλδια) or Chaldæans (Ptolemæus, Strabo, Plinius, comp. Winer s. v. “Chaldäer,” Ewald, Hist. Isr., 1:333), Carduchi, or Gardyæi, belongs, according to the O. T. and the Classics to a tribe spread over the whole country between the Tigris and Pontus. Already in Jer_5:15 the same people are designated as a very ancient one; and as early as Gen_11:28 the country of Mesopotamia is called after them Ur [Ur of the Chaldees], so that it is more than doubtful whether Chesed (Gen_22:22), the nephew of Abraham, is to be considered their ancestor. If the conjecture of Ewald, Knobel, Dietrich, is correct that a reference to the name כשׂד already exists in Arphaxad [ארפכשׁד] Gen_10:22) then this circumstance would doubtless refer the name to a time beyond that of Abraham. Oppert (Deutsch.-morgenl. Zeitschr., German-Oriental Journal, 11:137) has proved, that the word Cas-dim is Tataric, and signifies, as well as Mesopotamia, two rivers; and (the correctness of the translation being presupposed) it is legitimately inferred from this fact that the name probably designates the aboriginal Tataric population between the Euphrates and Tigris. (It harmonizes well with this etymology, according to which Casdim is plural only in sound but not in original signification, that the name appears in the O. T. only as plur. tantum; that Casdim as an actual plural form would be abnormally formed; that the regular plural form כַשְׂדִּייִם occurs only once in later Hebrew (Eze_23:14, Cthibh), and the reconstructed singular form כשׂדי only in the Aramaic of Daniel. [The opinion] that the aboriginal population of that district was, in fact, not of a Semitic, but of a Tataric stock, appears, at present, to be subjected no longer to any opposition. (Comp. Brandis, art. “Assyria” in Pauly’s Realencyklopädie.) [On the early history of the Chaldæans and their Turanian origin, see Rawlinson’s Herodotus, vol. 1. pp. 247, 248, 245, 533.—C. E.] Certainly opposed to this view is the assumption of the great majority of exegetes that the primitive abode of the Casdim was the Armenian mountain land, where, according to Xenophon, a brave and freedomloving people of the Chaldæan stock dwelt, and where the Kurds still live, and that the Assyrians first settled them in the plain of Babylon, according to Hitzig in the year 625. This assumption, however, has, on closer examination, no broader foundation than a false, at the least a questionable interpretation of the obscure passage, Isa_23:13 : it is for that reason to be set aside. The present passage is the locus classicus for the characteristics of this warlike people, just as Isa_5:26 ff. is for the characteristics of the Assyrians. They are called the people, the bitter, i. e., ferocious (comp. Amarus, Cic. Att., 14, 21, and מר נפשׁ, Jdg_18:25) and the impetuous, properly hurrying on (Isa_32:4), rushing on precipitately—the conformity of sound of the two adjectives has something terribly graphic—which marches along [Keil: ל is not used here to denote the direction, or the goal, but the space, as in Gen_13:17 (Hitzig, Delitzsch)—C. E.] the breadths of the earth, which passes through the land in its whole extent (Jdg_8:8; Rev_20:9): to take possession of dwelling places that are not its own (comp. Hab_2:6).
Hab_1:7. Carries out the idea of the “bitter;” and Hab_1:8, that of the “impetuous,” in Hab_1:6. It is terrible and fearful; from it—not from God (Psa_17:1)—proceed its right and eminence: in sovereign vain-glory it revived the old character of Babylon (Gen_11:4; comp. Isa_14:13), put its own statutes in the place of the jura divina, and consequently entered despotically into the place of the world-power, which is at strife with God. שׂאת, an eminence, which rests upon inflated pride (נשׂא, Hos_13:1), in contrast with the כִּבור, which is bestowed by God. [Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, vol. 3 pp. 10, 11.—C. E.]
Hab_1:8. And fleeter than leopards, whose swiftness in catching the prey is proverbial, are its horses (Jeremiah employs in the same comparison the figure of the eagle, Jer_4:13); yea they are swifter than evening wolves (Zep_3:3; comp. Psa_59:7; Psa_59:15). The battle is to them, what the seizing of the prey is to a ravenous beast,—a savage delight, to which they hasten with impatience (Job_39:20 f.). And its horsemen rush along (there is here also a graphic conformity of sound in the words); yea its horsemen eome from afar, they fly like the eagle, which hastens to devour. [Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, vol. 3 pp. 10, 11.—C. E.] They come to fulfill the curse (Deu_28:49), to the words of which the prophet alludes.
This thought is further carried out in Hab_1:9. All its multitude—the suffix ה, contracted from ־ָהוּ is archaic, as in Gen_49:11—comes for deeds of violence, for the object is to inflict judgment for violence (Hab_1:2). The eagerness (in this sense the ἁπ. λεγ. מגמּה, occurs in the Rabbins, Kimchi on Psa_27:8) of their faces urges forward. קָדִימָה, also in Eze_11:1; Eze_45:7, for קִרְמָה (Gen_25:6). And it gathers prisoners together like dust (comp. Gen_41:49; Hos_2:9).
Hab_1:10. Forms a fit sequel to the description of the autocratic power in Hab_1:7 : and it scoffs at kings, and princes are a derision to it, for, 10 b, 11 a, it has the power to overcome every resistance: it laughs at every stronghold, and heaps up dust and takes it.
Hab_1:11. Then it turns a tempest [Ges.: then his spirit revives—C. E.] and passes on. To mark the little anxiety, which the haughty enemy bestows upon the capture, the approaches are called עפר, heaped up dust, instead of the usual סֹלְלָה (2Sa_10:15, and above). The fem. suff. in ילכרהּ, receives from the mas. מבצר, fortress, the idea of a city [עיר, which is fem.—C. E.] חלףּ nowhere means revirescit, not ever in Psa_90:5, but it signifies a speedy gliding away, turning away (Job_9:11; Psa_102:27), and unites, without violence, with עבר in expressing one idea. [See note 8 on Hab_1:11—C. E.] רוּח is placed between as an appositional comparison (comp. Isa_21:8 : and he cried, a lion, i. e., with a lion’s voice); there lies, indeed, in this apposition the threefold relative comparison of the revolving whirlwind, of rushing speed, and of demolishing power. A more descriptive expression of the astonishment at the invincible power of the Babylonian, who, immediately after the overthrow of Nineveh, marched against Necho, cannot be imagined. With a lofty elevation the prophet, 11 b, sets at naught this surging flood, and announces against the irresistible autocratic insolence of the enemy the unalterable decree of the Divine government [Governor] of the world, which, as in Micah and Nahum, concludes the description [of this haughty enemy—C. E.] with crushing effect: But he is guilty, and consequently incurs the Divine penalty, whose power is his God. That the accentuation incorrectly connects the verb אשׁם with the first half of the verse, which, according to the sense, should be included in one verse with 10 b, is plain; for the immediate coördination of the verbs יעבור and אשׁם, though retained by the exegetes, is certainly excluded by the dissimilar conjunctions (וְ, וַּ). [וַיַּֽעבֹר has vav conversive of the future; and אָשֵׁם has vav conversive of the preterite—C. E.] [Other translations: LXX.: Καὶ διελεύσεται καὶ ἐξιλάσεται αὕτη ἡ ἰσχὺς τῷ θεῷ μου Vulg.: “Et pertransibit et corruet; hœc. est fortitude ejus dei sui.” Drusius: “Et transgredietur et delinquet, hanc vim suam Deo suo (tribuens).” J. H. Michaelis: “Et reum se faciet (dicens): hanc potentiam suam deberi Deo suo;” or: “Et turn luel (impius Judæus), cujus vis sua fuit pro Deo suo.” Hitzig, Maurer: “And he loads himself with guilt; he, whose power becomes his god.” Gesenius, Ewald, Delitzsch, Keil: “He passes on farther and offends; this his power becomes (is) his god.” Bäumlein: “Since his power becomes his god].” לִ stands in the predicate of the object [Prädicat der Abzielung, the predicate denoting the purpose, object, or aim—C. E.] as in Nah_1:7; Exo_6:7; זוּ rel. as in Isa_42:24 and other places. As appertaining to the thought, which, with special regard to Hab_1:7, briefly comprises the moral character of the conqueror with its immanent [inherent] destiny and makes both the basis of the following dialogue, comp. Hab_2:6-10; Job_12:6; Isa_10:13.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
The inspiration of the prophets is rooted in the sacred soil of the heart, and presupposes the contest of faith and prayer with God, in which the struggling and praying soul experiences God’s answer and blessing: a contest of faith and prayer like that of the patriarch, which stands at the beginning of the entire history of the holy people, who had the Spirit of God (Gen_32:24 ff.; comp. Hos_12:5 f.; Isa_63:11). By this root of sanctification prophecy, among the people of Israel, is distinguished from all heathen divination, and not by the gift of the vision of future things. “Prophecy, as it speaks of future things, is almost one of the least important gifts, and comes sometimes even from the Devil.” Luther on Rom_12:7 (comp. Exodus 7). It has in the O. T. its peculiar significance, which is to be understood from the light of the history of the kingdom; but separated from the heart of God it would be nothing. Comp. 1Pe_1:11; 2Pe_1:21.
The heathen powers shoot up into ascendency, when in the kingdom of God, the truth is impeded by pride, injustice, and a spirit of contention. On these they live like fungi, and God permits them to spring up, in order to begin the judgment upon his house. The more certainly that individuals, following their own view of what is good and right, pursue the war of the flesh instead of the Gospel of peace, the more certainly is the scourge already in preparation. What the prophet says of one event is put down in writing, because it is uttered for all time (Act_13:41). The prudent man sees the evil and hides himself; but the silly man passes on and is punished. But even the most prudent man does not foresee it by his own prudence. God’s decisive acts, as well those which He does as those which He permits, are altogether Niphlaoth, wonderful deeds, and have ever on one side something incredible in them. That they will come, he who has learned to examine the signs of the times in the light of God’s Word, anticipates: how they are to be, God reserves to his own power. Enough, that we know that it is His power. To him, who knows this, there is, no strange work in the world.9
For however high the scourge may be raised, the destroyer [Zerbrecher, dasher in pieces] is also appointed to it, as soon as he intends that it shall be more than a scourge, that chastisement shall be converted into destruction, the work of God into his own work. All [assumption of] independence is apostasy from God, consequently separation from the source of life. The [assumption of] independence on the part of Adam ended in curse and misery. The same thing on the part of ancient Babel ended in destruction, dispersion, and confusion. And so it falls out with the new destroyer, the destiny of his own guilt overwhelms him, because his power is his god. And in his time he who has crushed will himself be crushed. Kings and princes and strong cities are an object of derision to him: he is the same before God. Only he who continues in a state of grace, receives from God in perpetuity what was not his: thus Israel received Canaan. If he renounce the grace, he must also surrender the gift. If this applies to Israel (Mic_2:10) how much more to the obstinate alien.
HOMILETICAL
How utterly incomprehensible are the judgments of God!
1. Incomprehensible in their delay, to the view of those who have no patience, and think that God ought to act as speedily as their anger prompts them (Hab_1:2-3).
2. Incomprehensible in their threatening to those upon whom they will fall, and who nevertheless continue to sin in security (Hab_1:4).
3. Incomprehensible to every human mind in their realization. For—
(a.) They are greater than any human thought would anticipate (Hab_1:5).
(b.) They take place in ways and by means of which no man would dream (Hab_1:6).
(c.) They are often brought about by men and events that, at first sight, have nothing in common with God.
4. Incomprehensible in their grandeur and universality to those by whom they are accomplished (Hab_1:11).
On Hab_1:2. God always hears, although we do not have an immediate sense of it. Therefore continue in prayer. It is also not always good to pray to Him to hasten his help. The future help, which He has prepared, is perhaps, for the moment, heavier to bear than the present burden, under which thou sighest.
Hab_1:3. He must certainly have his reasons, when He permits his saints to see misery and impious conduct. It touches his heart more than it does theirs. He suffers things to come to a crisis and the wicked thoughts of hearts to be revealed before He approaches [to judgment].
Hab_1:5. However long we have searched after the way of God, when He is suddenly revealed in his might and power, then the light is so dazzling that it is painful to us, and we are displeased that God has performed such powerful deeds in our days, and that we have not rather come to our rest in peace.
Hab_1:5. God has great power to destroy. Neither title-deed nor hereditary right protects against his power. He takes from whom He will and gives to whom He will. But He has still greater power and pleasure in building. The destruction is for a moment, the building for eternity. And in his destroying building is always included. With the stubble ploughed under, the field is manured for a new harvest; and the plough does not reap, but the ploughman.
Hab_1:7. Ye who despise the right, when you can have it, need not wonder when you are treated as if there were no right, and when you shall be dealt with according to your own principle: stat proratione voluntas.
Hab_1:10. When the judgments of God come, how quickly does everything on which men formerly placed their confidence and hope, fall to ruin! Then the earth, which was just now joyful, quakes.
Hab_1:11. When God permits you to succeed in everything that comes to hand, it is no reason for pride, but for humiliation. All success cleaves to him who is proud, not as a merit, but as guilt, and God will require [the punishment of] the guilt.
Luther: On Hab_1:2. As if he would say, I preach much, and it is of no avail; my word is despised; no one becomes better; they only become continually worse. Therefore I know not where to bring my complaint except to Thee; but Thou seemest as if Thou hearest me not, and dost not see them. But the prophet does not expostulate with God, as his words would sound and intimate to the ear; but he speaks thus in order that he may alarm the people and bring them to repentance, and show them how deservedly the wrath and burden will come upon them, because they turn not at preaching, threatening, and exhortation, nor even at prayer, directed against them.
Hab_1:3. This is written for our consolation and admonition that we should not wonder nor think it strange if few improve by our teaching. For generally preachers, especially if they have just newly come from the forge [seminary], indulge extravagant expectations [meinen sie, das solle sobald Hände und Fusse haben, und flugs alles geschehen und geändert werden, they think that everything should instantly have hands and feet, and that it should be immediately done and changed]. But that is a great mistake. Habakkuk rebukes the Jews, not on account of idolatry and other sins, but only on account of sins which were committed against their neighbors; there must, therefore, have been still at that time pious people, who maintained divine worship in its purity; but they were possessed with avarice and addicted to the practice of injustice and usury. So then no service, be it what it may, is pleasing to God, in which one does wrong to his neighbor.
Hab_1:4. There are much worse villains than public thieves and rogues. For the latter act openly against the law, so that their wrong doing is palpable to and felt by every one; but the former pretend to be pious, and would have wrong considered right. There are therefore two kinds of villains: first, those who do wrong; secondly, those who set off and defend the same wrong under the name of right.
Hab_1:5. All this is said also for us, who have the name and semblance of Christians, who boast of our baptism, or of our spiritual profession and office, as giving us the advantage over heathen and Jews, and yet we are, like them, without faith and the spirit: so that we also must certainly perish at last by those whom we now despise and consider worse than ourselves, just as it happened to the Jews by the Chaldæans.
Hab_1:6. It will be to you also of no avail that Jerusalem is the city and dwelling of God, to which you now trust: it is in vain, the Babylonian people will take possession of it altogether, though it is not their own.
Hab_1:11. No human heart can refrain from pride and boasting, when it has success and good fortune. The Scriptures do not alone teach this; but also the heathen testify and acknowledge it from experience, as Virgil says: nescia mens hominum servare modum rebus sublata secundis. It is a common saying: a man can bear all things except prosperity.
Starke: Hab_1:2. Human weakness is the reason why we cannot reconcile ourselves to the wonderful government of God, and why we think that all evil might be easily remedied. But in this we forget that it is not according to wisdom to treat men, whom He has endowed with freedom of the will, with absolute omnipotence and as if they were machines.
Hab_1:3. The ungodly exert themselves to the utmost in sinning.
Hab_1:4. Even lawsuits are not unknown to God: He keeps also his record of them.
Hab_1:5. God himself brings the enemy into the land, and punishes thereby all injustice.
Hab_1:6. Those who sin in haste and are unwilling to be restrained are suddenly punished by God, and do not escape.
Hab_1:8. God punishes the avarice of his people, who accumulate riches by injustice, in turn by the avarice of the soldiers, who plunder the unjustly acquired wealth and appropriate it to themselves. God can employ even the beasts, which at other times are compelled to render great service to men, for their punishment.
Hab_1:10. Those who despise and laugh at pious teachers and their admonitions, justly deserve in their turn to be despised and laughed at.
Pfaff: Hab_1:2 ff. Servants of God and preachers of the Gospel have reason to sigh over the prostration of faith in every quarter. Who can reproach them for thus sighing? But woe to you ungodly, who extort such sighs from them?
Hab_1:5. Whence come war, bloodshed, and devastation? They come hence: justice is depressed and the law of God is violated.
Rieger: On 2 ff. O God, into what times hast thou brought us? What must we see and experience? Where is the answer of all the prayer that has already for a long time been offered up for Divine help? These are also footsteps of faith in which we are often forced to tread.
Schmieder: Hab_1:4. The law becomes frigid, which, however, in its nature is fire and flame, and which, in the judgment, consumes sin. But where the judge is good for nothing, the law is frigid and lifeless.
Burck: Hab_1:5 : Ye believe it not, if ye merely hear it, if ye are not furnished with conviction by sight. Much, if it is merely heard, does not work in the mind of man faith so much as doubt. It is a miracle worthy of God that men by the hearing of the Gospel attain to faith.
Schlier: Habakkuk understands very well what kind of a corrective such a people, insolent and eager for conquest, are; and, when all means are in vain, only such a fearful judgment by means of a foreign people can rouse once more a fallen nation. The Lord needs only to point him to the Chaldæans; thus he knows that this nation is the means in the hand of the Lord of setting bounds to the state of general distress.
Talm.: Hab_1:7. Four men deified themselves and thereby brought evil upon themselves: Pharaoh, Hiram, Nebuchadnezzar, and Joash: the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar was divestiture of humanity.
Burck: Hab_1:9. Those who commit deeds of violence on one another (Hab_1:2-3) deserve to experience them from others.
Augustine: Hab_1:11. What art thou, O man, who puffest thyself up? Be contented to be filled. He who is filled is rich; he who puffs himself up is empty.
Footnotes:
[1][Hab_1:4.—תָּפוּג תוֹרָה. The primary idea of תָּפוּג is that of stiffness, rigidity, i. e., frigid and cold, cold and stiff being kindred terms. Compare the Greek πηγ·νυω, to be stiff. Trop. to be torpid, sluggish, slack: friget lax.
[2][Hab_1:4.—וְלֹא־יֵצֵא לָנֶצַח מּשְׁפָט may be rendered: judgment goeth not forth according to truth. Ges. But לָנֵצַח signifies also, to perpetuity, forever and connecting it with לֹא it gives the meaning of not forever, or never. See Keil. LXX.: Καὶ οὐ διεξάγεται εἰς τέλος κρίμα, Vulgate: et non pervenit usque ad finem judicium: Luther.: und kann keine rechte Sache gewinnen: Kleinert: und nicht fallt much Wahrheit der Rechtsspruch.
[3][Hab_1:5.—וְהִתַּמְּהוּ תְּמָהוּ. Double form, used for intensity. Compare Isa_29:9. The combination of the kal with the hiphil of the same verb serves to strengthen it, so as to express the highest degree of amazement.
[4][Hab_1:5.—פֹּצֵל denotes that which is immediately at hand. Green’s Heb Gram., sec. 266, 2. Nordheimer, sec- 1034, 3 a.
[5][Hab_1:6.—כּי־הּנְנִי מֵקִים, ecce suscitaturus sum. הִנְנִי before the participle refers to the future.
[6][Hab_1:8.—וּפָשוּ from פוּש, signifying to be proud, to show off proudly; hence of a horseman leaping proudly and fiercely. The subject of this verb, פָרָּשָיו, may be translated horses. See Ges., s. v.
[7][Hab_1:9.—מִגַמַּת פְּנֵיהֶם קָוּימָה. I have followed Gesenius in the translation of these words. LXX.: ἀνθεστηκότας προσώποις αὐτῶν ἐξεναντίας; Vulgate: facies eorum ventus urcns; Luther: reissen sie hindurch wie ein Ostwind; Kleinert: die Gier ihrer Angesichter strebt nach vorwarts.
[8][Hab_1:11.—אז חלף רוּח, then his spirit revives. Ges. LXX.: τὸτε μεταβαλεῖ τό πνεῦμα; Vulgate: Tunc mutabitur spiritus: Luther: Alsdann werden sic einen neuen Muth nehmen; Keil: Then it passes along a wind; Kleinert: Dann wendet es sich, ein sturm wind; Henderson: it gaineth fresh spirit.—C. E.]
[9]Compare the letter of the French theosophist, St. Martin, concerning the Revolution, in Varnhagen, Memoirs, 4:534 ff.: “I remind you of what I have written in the beginning of this letter, that the political commotions, in the storms of which we live, appear to me to be in the eye of God only the ways by which He is preparing us, as we think, for greater happiness. For the astonishing course of development of our grand revolution and the brilliant phenomena which mark it at every step, must show to every one, not devoid of understanding, or honesty, in its march of fire, the accomplishment of an express decree of Providence. We can even say that the work, on its part is already done, though not yet entirely on ours. Its hand, like that of a skillful surgeon, has removed the extraneous matter, and we feel all the inevitable effects of a painful operation and the pressure of the bandage of the wounds; but we must bear these pains with patience and courage, since there is none of them which does not conduce to our recovery.” See page Hab 453: “When I consider the French Revolution from its origin onward, and at the moment when it broke out, I find nothing better to compare it to than to a picture on a reduced scale, of the last judgment, where the trumpets sound abroad the fearful notes, which a higher voice gives to them, where all the powers of heaven and earth are shaken; and where in one and the same moment the righteous and the wicked receive their reward.”
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–17 violence . . . Why dost thou show me…
violence . . . Why dost thou show me iniquity?--Similar language is used of the Chaldeans (Hab 1:9, Hab 1:13), as here is used of the Jews: implying, that as the Jews sinned by violence and injustice, so they should be punished by violence and injustice (Pro 1:31). Jehoiakim's reign was marked by injustice, treachery, and bloodshed (Jer 22:3, Jer 22:13-17). Therefore the Chaldeans should be sent to deal with him and his nobles according to their dealings with others (Hab 1:6, Hab 1:10-11, Hab 1:17). Compare Jeremiah's expostulation with Jehovah, Jer 12:1; Jer 20:8; and Job 19:7-8.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17 1. The title.
1. The title.
Burden — See on Nah_1:1 (compare “take up,” Hab_2:6).
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Habakkuk — See Introduction to Habakkuk.
Did see — During the earlier period of Israelitish history dreams and visions appear to have been common vehicles of divine revelation (Num_12:6); and it was during that period that the prophetic terminology originated. In the early days the prophets “did see” and “had visions,” but during the golden age of Hebrew prophecy dreams and visions became less common; the ancient terminology, however, was retained (compare Hab_2:1-4; Nah_1:1; Amo_1:1; Mic_1:1, etc.).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–17 1. The burden] the oracle. Comp. Hab_2:6 “take up”…
1. The burden] the oracle. Comp. Hab_2:6 “take up” a proverb. Num_23:7; Isa_14:4. See Nah_1:1.
did see] Comp. Isa_2:1 “the word that Isaiah saw”; Isa_13:1 “the oracle which Isaiah did see.” Amo_1:1; Mic_1:1. In the early times of prophecy the ecstasy or exalted condition of mind was more usual and the things revealed to the prophet were seen by him. Thus Micaiah ben Jimlah said: “I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd” 1Ki_22:17; 1Ki_22:19. In later times these terms “see,” “vision” and the like, which had been formed in the early period, continued to be retained, and any revelation was called a “vision,” and “see” was employed of the act of receiving a revelation, even when it was a word (Isa_2:1). On the name Habakkuk see Introduction.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17 (1) The prophet.—This title (han-nâbî) is applied only to…
(1) The prophet.—This title (han-nâbî) is applied only to Habakkuk, Haggai, and Zechariah. In the later historical books it is used to designate the members of those prophetical colleges which were founded by Samuel, and kept up, at all events, till the time of Elisha. It is uncertain whether in these three minor prophets it has a similar force, or merely, as in the Pentateuch, indicates a chosen minister whom God inspires to reveal His will. On the term burden, or sentence, see Isa_13:1.
(1-4) Habakkuk complains of the apparent triumph of wickedness among his countrymen.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–17 Ver. 1-ch. Nah_1:1) The prophet. (Hab_3:1) This title, which…
Ver. 1-ch. Nah_1:1) The prophet. (Hab_3:1) This title, which is added in the inscriptions only to the names of Haggai and Zechariah, and cursorily to that of Jeremiah (46, 47, 50), implies that he exercised the practical office of prophet, and was well known; and, as Pusey thinks, Habakkuk appended it hero on account of the form in which his prophecy is cast, as being addressed almost entirely to God or the Chaldeans, not to his own people. Did see. In prophetic vision. (see note on Amo_1:1)
Ver. 1. A prophet"s burden.
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I THE PROPHET.
1. His name. Habakkuk which might signify either "one who embraces" or "one who is embraced." Accepting the former sense, Luther notes the suitability of the prophet"s name to his office. "He embraces his people (in his prophecy), and takes them to his arms; i.e. he comforts them, and lifts them up as one embraces a poor weeping child or man, to quiet it with the assurance that, if God will, it shall be better soon;" though probably the name rather points to the character of the prophet"s faith, which cleaved fast to the Lord amid the perplexity of things seen (Pusey).
2. His person. A Jewish prophet, belonging to the tribe of Levi, and officially qualified to take part in the liturgical service of the temple. (Hab_3:19) Beyond this nothing is known of his history, the Jewish legends concerning him (consult Introduction) being absolutely worthless.
3. His date. Uncertain. Before the arrival of the Chaldeans in Judah, (Hab_1:6) and therefore before the third year of Jehoiakim; (Dan_1:1) but whether in the reign of Manasseh (Havernick, Keil, Pusey), or in that of Josiah (Delitzsch), or in that of Jehoiakim (De Wette, Ewald, Umbreit, Hitzig, Bleek, Kleinert), is open to debate. That the Assyrians are not mentioned as a power seems to indicate that by this time Nineveh had fallen (B.C. 606), which speaks for the third of the above dates; that the predicted judgment (Hab_1:5) was to be so unlikely as barely to be credible favours a time while Babylon was yet subject to Assyria, and therefore a date in the reign of Manasseh. The moral and spiritual degeneracy of the age in which Habakkuk lived (Hab_1:1-4) harmonizes less with the reign of Josiah than with that of Manasseh or Jehoiakim. The latter is supported by the fact that the Chaldeans appear to be depicted as already on their march; (Hab_1:6) the former by the circumstance that the judgment is represented as not immediately at hand, but only as certain to happen in the days of those to whom the prophet spoke. (Hab_1:5)
II THE BURDEN.
1. Its contents. As Nahum had predicted the destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrian power, which had carried the ten tribes into captivity, (2Ki_17:6) so Habakkuk declares
(1) the judgment about to come upon the degenerate nation of Judah through the instrumentality of the Chaldeans; and
(2) the overthrow of the Chaldeans for their insatiableness, ambition, cruelty, treachery, and idolatry.
2. Its form. In the first two chapters the prophet sets forth his message in the form of a conversation between himself and Jehovah, the prophet addressing Jehovah in the language of complaint (Hab_1:1-4) and challenge, (Hab_1:12-17) and Jehovah in return replying to his complaint (Hab_1:5-11) and to his challenge. (Hab_2:2-19) In the third chapter Habakkuk appends a prayer, which begins by supplicating mercy for the afflicted people of God, (Hab_3:1, Hab_3:2) and quickly passes into a sublime description of Jehovah"s coming in the glory of the Almighty (Hab_3:3-11) for the destruction of his foes (Hab_3:12-15) and the salvation of his people and his anointed. (Hab_3:13) "The whole of the prophecy has an ideal stamp. Not even Judah and Jerusalem are mentioned, and the Chaldeans who are mentioned by name are simply introduced as the existing possessors of the imperial power of the world, which was bent upon the destruction of the kingdom of God, or as the sinners who swallow up the righteous man" (Keil).
3. Its style. The lofty sublimity of this brief composition, as regards both thought and expression, has been universally recognized. "His language is classical throughout His view and mode of presentation bear the seal of independent force and finished beauty" (Delitzsch). "Habakkuk bears not merely the prophet"s mantle, but also the poet"s wreath adorns his honourable head. He is a Jeremiah and an Asaph in one" (Umbrieit). "As regards force and fulness of conception and beauty of expression, he was certainly one of the most important among the prophets of the Old Testament" (Kleinert).
4. Its origin. No more in his case than in Nahum"s was this political foresight, but inspiration. If this prophecy proceeded from the age of Manasseh, political foresight is simply out of the question as its explanation; if from the first years of Jehoiakim, it will be time enough to admit that political foresight could certainly predict a Babylonian invasion at a year"s distance when it has been shown that modern statesmen can infallibly tell what shall be on the morrow. And, of course, if political foresight could not certainly predict the Babylonian invasion at one year"s distance, still less could it announce a Babylonian overthrow at a distance of more than half a century. Political foresight, then, being an insufficient hypothesis, Divine inspiration should be frankly admitted. Like Nahum, Habakkuk "saw" the burden he delivered. In the New Testament the book is cited as inspired. (Rom_1:17 Gal_3:11 Act_13:40 Heb_10:38)
Learn:
1. That future events are known to God Divine foreknowledge.
2. That God can reveal these to men, should he so please the possibilityof revelation.
3. That those whom God selects to be his messengers nevertheless retaintheir individual and characteristic modes of thought and expression inspiration not mechanical or uniform.
HOMILIES BY S.D. HILLMAN Ver. 1The title.
This introduces us to the writer and his work. Note
I HIS NAME. Habakkuk i.e. "One who embraces a name singularly appropriate in its significance to the man who "rested in the Lord, and waited patiently for him" through the dark days. Luther applied the name to the prophet"s regard for his people, "embracing them, taking them to his arms, comforting them, and lifting them up as one embraces a weeping child, to quiet it with the assurance that, if God will, it shall be better soon." Jewish tradition has identified him with the son of the Shunammite, (2Ki_4:18) and with the watchman sent by Isaiah to the watch tower (21) to look towards Babylon. But with these and other merely fanciful and utterly unreliable traditions the silence of Scripture very favourably contrasts. It makes him known to us through his teaching. It is the message rather than the messenger that is presented to us here; yet through the message we get to know the man so intimately that he becomes to us quite a familiar presence.
II HIS OFFICE. "Habakkuk the prophet." This title clearly indicates that he had been appointed to the prophetical office. Many men in Old Testament times uttered certain prophecies, as for instance Moses, David, Solomon, Daniel, but we do not find the title "the prophet" appended to their names, it being given simply to such as were specially chosen and set apart to this office. The closing words of the book (Hab_3:19) have led some to regard him as belonging to one of the Levitical families, and as appointed to take part in the liturgical services of the temple; but of this we cannot speak with any degree of certainty, though probably it was so.
III HIS PROPHECY. This is described as "the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see." The phrase is peculiar, but the meaning is clear. He saw a vision of coming events, in which solemn Divine judgments would be executed both against his own people and their oppressors; and the scene of impending woe oppressed his spirit and lay as a heavy weight upon his soul. Still, dark as the outlook was, and oppressed in heart as he felt himself to be amidst the mysteries of life viewed in relation to the Divine government, he maintained throughout unswervingly his trust in God; and which so clearly pervaded his spirit and so repeatedly revealed itself in his expressions as amply to justify the representation that he is "eminently the prophet of reverential, awe-filled faith." Viewed from a literary standpoint, his prophecy may well exite our profoundest interest. Critical writers with one consent bear testimony to the beauty of his contributions to these sacred oracles. Ewald calls the book "Habakkuk"s Pindaric Ode." Delitzsch says of it, "His language is classical throughout, full of rare and select words and turns, which are to some extent exclusively his own, whilst his view and mode of presentation bear the seal of original force and finished beauty." Pusey observes, "Certainly the purity of his language and the sublimity of his imagery is, humanly speaking, magnificent; his measured cadence is impressive in its simplicity." But valuable as this composition is in this respect, its great charm consists in the spirit of holy trustfulness which it breathes. As we ponder over its contents we feel at every stage our lack of confidence in our God reproved, and are impelled to cry, "Lord, we believe: help thou our unbelief"; (Mar_9:24) "Lord, increase our faith". S.D.H. (Luk_17:5)
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Vers. 1-4The cry of a good man under the perplexing procedure of God.
burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thee wilt not save!" etc. Of Habakkuk nothing is known for certainty. The fifth and sixth verses of the first chapter tell us that he prophesied before that series of invasions by the Chaldeans which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people probably between 640 and 610 years before Christ. He was therefore contemporary with Jeremiah and Zephaniah. The book treats of the wickedness of the Jews, the infliction of punishment upon the Chaldeans, and the destruction of the latter in their turn. It has also a splendid ode, composed by the prophet in anticipation of their deliverance from Babylonish captivity. His work is quoted by the apostles (Heb_10:37, 38 Rom_1:17 Gal_3:11 Act_13:41) hence it was regarded as having Divine authority. His style, in dignity and sublimity, is not surpassed by any of the Hebrew prophets. He is original. His utterances are bold and animated; his descriptions graphic and pointed. The lyric ode contained in the third chapter is esteemed by most biblical critics as one of the most splendid and magnificent in the whole compass of Hebrew poetry. The prophet sets forth the cause of the Chaldean invasion, and the great wickedness that abounded in the Jewish nation during his time. This was the burden of his discourse. "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see." What was the burden? The heavy judgments impending over his nation. He saw it like a mountain with his prophetic eye; nay, he felt it as a mountain on his heart. This doom hanging over the Jewish people was indeed an intolerable weight. The text contains the cry of a good man under the perplexing procedure of God Lord, how long shall I cry!" There seem to be two elements in his perplexity.
I GOD"S APPARENT DISREGARD TO HIS EARNEST PRAYER. "O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!" Under the pressure of "the burden" that was resting on his heart, viz. the moral corruption and the coming doom of his country, it would seem that he had often cried unto the Almighty and implored his interposition; but no answer had come. How often have good men in every age felt that God disregarded their supplications! They cried and cried, but no answer came. The heavens seemed like brass; the oracles were hushed. It was thus with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Christ for a time not only treated her application with seeming indifference, but he even repulsed her. Why are not the prayers of good men immediately answered? In reply to this question three undoubted facts should be borne in mind.
1. That importunity of soul is necessary to qualify for the appreciation of the mercies sought. It is not until a man is made to feel the deep necessity of a thing that he values it when it comes. If we obtained from the Almighty what we required by one cry, or even by a series of mere formal applications, the boon would be of doubtful service; it would scarcely be appreciated, and would fail to fire the soul with the sentiments of devout gratitude and praise. It is not what God gives a man that does him good; it is the state of mind in which it is received that transmutes it either into a blessing or a curse. "How long shall I cry!" How long? Until the sense of need is so intensified as to qualify for the reception and due appreciation of the blessing.
2. That the exercise of true prayer is in itself the best means of spiritual culture. Conscious contact wit? God is essential to moral excellence. You must bring the sunbeam to the seed you have sown, if you would have the seed quickened and developed; and you must bring God into conscious contact with your powers, if you would have them vivified and brought forth into strength and perfection. True prayer does this; it is the soul realizing itself in the presence of him "who quickeneth all things.
3. That prayers are answered where there is no bestowment of the blessing invoked. We know not what to pray for; and were we to have what we seek, we might be ruined. Acquiescence in the Divine will is the highest answer to all true prayer. Christ prayed that the cup should pass from him. It did not pass from him; but, instead, there came to him the spirit of acquiescence in the Divine will: "Not my will, but thine be done." This is all we want. Acquiescence in the Divine will is the moral perfection, dignity, and blessedness of all creatures in the universe. With these facts let us not be anxious about the apparent disregard of God to our prayers.
II GOD"S APPARENT DISREGARD TO THE MORAL CONDITION OF SOCIETY. "Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. Therefore the Law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked cloth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth." The rendering of Delitzsch is both faithful and forceful, "Why dost thou let me see mischief, and thou lookest upon distress? Devastation and violence are before me; there arises strife, and contention lifts itself up. Therefore the Law is benumbed, and justice comes not forth forever: for sinners encircle the righteous man: therefore justice goes forth perverted." The substance of this is the old complaint, "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?". (Jer_12:1) Two facts should be set against this complaint.
1. The good have the best of it, even in this life. Goodness is its own reward. Take two men one who enjoys the love and fellowship of God, but who is destitute of this world"s good and lives in poverty; the other, in whose heart reign the elements of wickedness, hut who has an abundance of the things of this life. Ask which of the two is the happier. The former, without doubt. Benevolence is the fountain of happiness, and selfishness the fountain of misery in both worlds. In this world give me poverty and piety rather than riches with wickedness.
2. That the evil will have the worst of it in the next life. There is no doubt about this. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus teaches this. "When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever". (Psa_92:7)
CONCLUSION. Pray on, brother. "Pray without ceasing" Thy prayers are not lost. Let not God"s apparent disregard to the supplications of his people and the moral condition of society perplex thy judgment and disturb thy peace. Wait the great explaining day. "What thou knowest not now thou shalt know hereafter. D.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 12, 13, 14, 16 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
Hab_1:1-4
The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
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Responsibilities
We can see how appropriate is the word burden used by the prophets to describe their gift and duty. The obligation laid on them often involved strain and danger. And yet it was a glorious privilege to be commissioned by God, to act for Him, to be His mouthpiece to the people. Habakkuks burden was the sight of the general evil and corruption prevalent in the Holy Land, among the chosen people. What burden can be heavier than this, to see evil prevail among Gods people, and to be unable to remedy it? Two lessons--
1. Every privilege entails suffering.
2. Do not lose heart.
The burden is laid on you by the Lord who gave you your glorious privilege. Look at the vocation, not at the burden. (S. Baring-Gould.)
The burden of enlightenment
The light of Divine favour bestowed upon Habakkuk was the source of much perplexity of mind and distress of soul to him. This paradox is common in Christian experience. The prophets mission of mercy was a burden to himself.
I. A burden of enlightenment. He was--
1. A spectator of evil; looking upon the great and terrible disorders that devastated his country.
2. An inspired spectator of evil. God showed him iniquity, etc. To see, in the light of heaven the fearful ramifications of evil in society is an essential condition of Christian service.
3. A troubled spectator of evil. His heart strings vibrated with jarring discords at the touch of the workers of iniquity.
II. A burden of prayer. With a vivid consciousness of Gods almighty power the prophet called upon Him to interpose and save His people. But days rolled on and lengthened into months, and still evil abounded. Oh, the burden of prayers unheard! Oh, the burden of unanswered prayers l Oh, the burden of delay! The heart grows sick with hope deferred.
III. A burden of discipline. Designed--
1. As a test to see if they will continue to work and witness for God.
2. Still trust in the Lord, even in the presence of the great mystery of iniquity. The burden is--
3. For training, that Gods servants may become strong in faith, giving glory to God. (Joseph Willcox)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Hab_1:2-17; Hab_2:1-4 (or 8)
HABAKKUK 1
Hab_1:2-17; Hab_2:1-4 (or 8)
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Yet it is the first piece which raises the most difficult questions. All admit that it is to be dated somewhere along the line of Jeremiahs long career, c. 627-586. There is no doubt about the general trend of the argument: it is a plaint to God on the sufferings of the righteous under tyranny, with Gods answer. But the order and connection of the paragraphs of the argument are not clear. There is also difference of opinion as to who the tyrant is-native, Assyrian, or Chaldee; and this leads to a difference, of course, about the date, which ranges from the early years of Josiah to the end of Jehoiakims reign, or from about 630 to 597.
As the verses lie, their argument is this. In Hab_1:2-4 Habakkuk asks the Lord how long the wicked are to oppress the righteous, to the paralyzing of the Torah, or revelation of His Law, and the making futile of judgment. For answer the Lord tells him, Hab_1:5-11, to look round among the heathen: He is about to raise up the Chaldees to do His work, a people swift, self-reliant, irresistible. Upon which Habakkuk resumes his question, Hab_1:12-17, how long will God suffer a tyrant who sweeps up the peoples into his net like fish? Is he to go on with this forever? In Hab_2:1 Habakkuk prepares for an answer, which comes in Hab_2:2-4 : let the prophet wait for the vision though it tarries; the proud oppressor cannot last, but the righteous shall live by his constancy, or faithfulness.
The difficulties are these. Who are the wicked oppressors in Hab_1:2-4? Are they Jews, or some heathen nation? And what is the connection between Hab_1:1-4 and Hab_1:5-11? Are the Chaldees, who are described in the latter, raised up to punish the tyrant complained against in the former? To these questions three different sets of answers have been given.
First: the great majority of critics take the wrong complained of in Hab_1:2-4 to be wrong done by unjust and cruel Jews to their countrymen, that is, civic disorder and violence, and believe that in Hab_1:5-11 Jehovah is represented as raising up the Chaldees to punish the sin of Judah-a message which is pretty much the same as Jeremiahs. But Habakkuk goes further: the Chaldees themselves with their cruelties aggravate his problem how God can suffer wrong, and he appeals again to God, Hab_1:12-17. Are the Chaldees to be allowed to devastate forever? The answer is given, as above, in Hab_2:1-4. Such is practically the view of Pusey, Delitzsch, Kleinert, Kuenen, Sinker, Driver, Orelli, Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer, and Davidson, a formidable league, and Davidson says "this is the most natural sense of the verses and of the words used in them." But these scholars differ as to the date. Pusey, Delitzsch, and Volck take the whole passage from Hab_1:5 as prediction, and date it from before the rise of the Chaldee power in 625, attributing the internal wrongs of Judah described in Hab_1:2-4 to Manassehs reign or the early years of Josiah. But the rest, on the grounds that the prophet shows some experience of the Chaldean methods of warfare, and that the account of the internal disorder in Judah does not suit Josiahs reign, bring the passage down to the reign of Jehoiakim, 608-598, or of Jehoiachin, 597. Kleinert and Von Orelli date it before the battle of Carchemish, 605, in which the Chaldean Nebuchadrezzar wrested from Egypt the Empire of the Western Asia, on the ground that after that Habakkuk could not have called a Chaldean invasion of Judah incredible. {Hab_1:5} But Kuenen, Driver, Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer, and Davidson date it after Carchemish. To Driver it must be immediately after, and before Judah became alarmed at the consequences to herself. To Davidson the description of the Chaldeans "is scarcely conceivable before the battle," "hardly one would think before the deportation of the people under Jehoiachin." This also is Kuenens view, who thinks that Judah must have suffered at least the first Chaldean raids, and he explains the use of an undoubted future in Hab_1:5, "Lo, I am about to raise up the Chaldeans," as due to the prophets predilection for a dramatic style. "He sets himself in the past, and represents the already experienced chastisement [of Judah] as having been then announced by Jehovah. His contemporaries could not have mistaken his meaning."
Second: others, however, deny that Hab_1:2-4 refers to the internal disorder of Judah, except as the effect of foreign tyranny. The "righteous" mentioned there are Israel as a whole, "the wicked" their heathen oppressors. So Hitzig, Ewald, Konig, and practically Smend. Ewald is so clear that Habakkuk ascribes no sin to Judah, that he says we might be led by this to assign the prophecy to the reign of the righteous Josiah; but he prefers, because of the vivid sense which the prophet betrays of actual experience of the Chaldees, to date the passage from the reign of Jehoiakim, and to explain Habakkuks silence about his peoples sinfulness as due to his overwhelming impression of Chaldean cruelty. Konig takes Hab_1:2-4 as a general complaint of the violence that fills the prophets day, and Hab_1:5-11 as a detailed description of the Chaldeans, the instruments of this violence. Hab_1:5-11, therefore, give not the judgment upon the wrongs described in Hab_1:2-4, but the explanation of them. Lebanon is already wasted by the Chaldeans; {Hab_2:17} therefore the whole prophecy must be assigned to the days of Jehoiakim. Giesebrecht and Wellhausen adhere to the view that no sins of Judah are mentioned, but that the "righteous." and "wicked" of Hab_1:4 are the same as in Hab_1:13, viz., Israel and a heathen tyrant. But this leads them to dispute that the present order of the paragraphs of the prophecy is the right one. In Hab_1:5 the Chaldeans are represented as about to be raised up for the first time, although their violence has already been described in Hab_1:1-4, and in Hab_1:12-17 these are already in full career. Moreover Hab_1:12 follows on naturally to Hab_1:4. Accordingly these critics would remove the section Hab_1:5-11. Giesebrecht prefixes it to Hab_1:1, and dates the whole passage from the Exile. Wellhausen calls Hab_1:5-11 an older passage than the rest of the prophecy, and removes it altogether as not Habakkuks. To the latter he assigns what remains, Hab_1:1-4; Hab_1:12-17; Hab_1:2 I-5, and dates it from the reign of Jehoiakim.
Third: from each of these groups of critics Budde of Strasburg borrows something, but so as to construct an arrangement of the verses, and to reach a date, for the whole, from which both differ. With Hitzig, Ewald, Konig, Smend, Giesebrecht, and Wellhausen he agrees that the violence complained of in Hab_1:2-4 is that inflicted by a heathen oppressor, "the wicked," on the Jewish nation, the "righteous." But with Kuenen and others he holds that the Chaldeans are raised up, according to Hab_1:5-11, to punish the violence complained of in Hab_1:2-4 and again in Hab_1:12-17. In these verses it is the ravages of another heathen power than the Chaldeans which Budde describes. The Chaldeans are still to come, and cannot be the same as the devastator whose long continued tyranny is described in Hab_1:12-17. They are rather the power which is to punish him. He can only be the Assyrian. But if that be so, the proper place for the passage, Hab_1:5-11, which describes the rise of the Chaldeans must be after the description of the Assyrian ravages in Hab_1:12-17, and in the body of Gods answer to the prophet which we find in Hab_2:2 ff. Budde therefore places Hab_1:5-11 after Hab_2:2-4. But if the Chaldeans are still to come, and Budde thinks that they are described vaguely and with a good deal of imagination, the prophecy thus arranged must fall somewhere between 625, when Nabopolassar the Chaldean made himself independent of Assyria and King of Babylon, and 607, when Assyria fell. That the prophet calls Judah "righteous" is proof that he wrote after the great Reform of 621; hence, too, his reference to Torah and Mishpat, {Hab_1:4} and his complaint of the obstacles which Assyrian supremacy presented to their free course. As the Assyrian yoke appears not to have been felt anywhere in Judah by 608, Budde would fix the exact date of Habakkuks prophecy about 615. To these conclusions of Budde, Cornill, who in 1891 had very confidently assigned the prophecy of Habakkuk to the reign of Jehoiakim, gave his adherence in 1896.
Buddes very able and ingenious argument has been subjected to a searching criticism by Professor Davidson, who emphasizes first the difficulty of accounting for the transposition of Hab_1:5-11 from what Budde alleges to have been its original place after Hab_2:4 to its present position in chapter 1. He points out that if Hab_1:2-4; Hab_1:12-17 and Hab_2:5 ff. refer to the Assyrian, it is strange the latter is not once mentioned. Again, by 615 we may infer (though we know little of Assyrian history at this time) that the Assyrians hold on Judah was already too relaxed for the prophet to impute to him power to hinder the Law, especially as Josiah had begun to carry his reforms into the northern kingdom: and the knowledge of the Chaldeans displayed in Hab_1:5-11 is too fresh and detailed to suit so early a date: it was possible only after the battle of Carchemish. And again, it is improbable that we have two different nations, as Budde thinks, described by the very similar phrases in Hab_1:11, "his own power becomes his god," and in Hab_1:16, "he sacrifices to his net." Again, Hab_1:5-11 would not read quite naturally after Hab_2:4. And in the woes pronounced on the oppressor it is not one nation, the Chaldeans, which are to spoil him, but all the remnant of the peoples. {Hab_2:7-8} These objections are not inconsiderable. But are they conclusive? And if not, is any of the other theories of the prophecy less beset with difficulties? The objections are scarcely conclusive. We have no proof that the power of Assyria was altogether removed from Judah by 615; on the contrary, even in 608 Assyria was still the power with which Egypt went forth to contend for the empire of the world. Seven years earlier her hand may well have been strong upon Palestine. Again, by 615 the Chaldeans, a people famous in Western Asia for a long time, had been ten years independent: men in Palestine may have been familiar with their methods of warfare: at least it is impossible to say they were not. There is more weight in the objection drawn from the absence of the name of Assyria from all of the passages which Budde alleges describe it; nor do we get over all difficulties of text by inserting Hab_1:5-11 between Hab_2:4-5. Besides, how does Budde explain Hab_1:12 b on the theory that it means Assyria? Is the clause not premature at that point? Does he propose to elide it, like Wellhausen? And in any case an erroneous transposition of the original is impossible to prove and difficult to account for. But have not the other theories of the Book of Habakkuk equally great difficulties? Surely, we cannot say that the "righteous" and the "wicked" in Hab_1:4 mean something different from what they do in Hab_1:13? But if this is impossible the construction of the book supported by the great majority of critics falls to the ground. Professor Davidson justly says that it has "something artificial in it" and "puts a strain on the natural sense." How can the Chaldeans be described in Hab_1:5 as "just about to be raised up," and in Hab_1:14-17 as already for a long time the devastators of earth? Ewalds, Hitzigs, and Konigs views are equally beset by these difficulties; Konigs exposition also "strains the natural sense." Everything, in fact, points to Hab_1:5-11 being out of its proper place; it is no wonder that Giesebreeht, Wellhausen, and Budde independently arrived at this conclusion. Whether Budde be right in inserting Hab_1:5. If after Hab_2:4, there can be little doubt of the correctness of his views that Hab_1:12-17 describe a heathen oppressor who is not the Chaldeans. Budde says this oppressor is Assyria. Can he be any one else? From 608 to 605 Judah was sorely beset by Egypt, who had overrun all Syria up to the Euphrates. The Egyptians killed Josiah, deposed his successor, and put their own vassal under a very heavy tribute; "gold and silver were exacted of the people of the land": the picture of distress in Hab_1:1-4 might easily be that of Judah in these three terrible years. And if we assigned the prophecy to them, we should certainly give it a date at which the knowledge of the Chaldeans expressed in Hab_1:5-11 was more probable than at Buddes date of 615. But then does the description in chap. Hab_1:14-17 suit Egypt so well as it does Assyria? We can hardly affirm this, until we know more of what Egypt did in those days, but it is very probable.
Therefore, the theory supported by the majority of critics being unnatural, we are, with our present meager knowledge of the time, flung back upon Buddes interpretation that the prophet in Hab_1:2-17; Hab_2:1-4 appeals from oppression by a heathen power, which is not the Chaldean, but upon which the Chaldean shall bring the just vengeance of God. The tyrant is either Assyria up to about 615 or Egypt from 608 to 605, and there is not a little to be said for the latter date.
In arriving at so uncertain a conclusion about Habakkuk 1- Hab_2:4, we have but these consolations, that no other is possible in our present knowledge, and that the uncertainty will not hamper us much in our appreciation of Habakkuks spiritual attitude and poetic gifts.
FURTHER NOTE ON
Habakkuk 1- Hab_2:4
Since this chapter was in print Nowacks "Die Kleinen Propheten" in the "Handkommentar z. A.T." has been published. He recognizes emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans, Hab_1:5-9, is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and the other authorities cited above), and admits that it follows on, with a natural connection, to Hab_2:4, to which Budde proposes to attach it. Nevertheless for other reasons, which he does not state, he regards Buddes proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed passage to be by another hand than Habakkuks, and intruded into the latters argument. Habakkuks argument he assigns to after 605; perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against would therefore be the Chaldean.-Driver in the 6th edition of his "Introduction" (1897) deems Buddes argument "too ingenious," and holds by the older and most numerously supported argument (above).-On a review of the case in the light of these two discussions, the present writer holds to his opinion that Buddes rearrangement, which he has adopted, offers the fewest difficulties.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 11 CRITICAL NOTES.] Burden] (cf. Nah_1:1).
CRITICAL NOTES.] Burden] (cf. Nah_1:1).
Hab_1:2. How] A complaint; wickedness continued long, and God did not interfere.
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Hab_1:3. Why] dost thou behold violence without checking it? some; the prophet is permitted to behold iniquity, and this is the reason for his cry. Since God the Holy One will not look upon it in Israel (Num_23:21), why should his servant? Raise] A litigious spirit prevailed; none were quietly permitted to enjoy their rights. All was seized by force or perversion of law.
Hab_1:4. Therefore] Because crimes are unpunished. Slacked] Lit. chilled; neither secures obedience nor influence. The word means to relax, to lose strength and vital energy. Forth] Lit. for a permanence, i.e. for ever, as in many other passages, e.g. (Psa_13:2; Isa_13:20) [cf. Keil]. Wrong] Unrighteous verdicts given, and godless men encircle the good.
HOMILETICS
THE IMPORTUNATE PRAYER.—Hab_1:2
The question asked is this: How long will God suffer his people to pray and still neglect to hear?
I. Until they see the plague of their own hearts. We may be astonished at the sins of others, and wonder at God’s forbearance with them. But we forget that seeds of iniquity dwell in our own hearts and ripen in our own lives. We must feel our sinfulness and humble ourselves in the dust. “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”
II. Until they remove the hindrances which prevent the revival of his work. Many stumbling-blocks are in the way. God can do nothing, and will not hear until they are removed. Ignorance, avarice, and slothfulness—all sins must be forsaken. We must be ready for every duty, be wathchful lest by apathy, selfishness, and unbelief, we hinder the work of God.
III. Until they are willing to give God the glory. We may pray for selfish ends, and withhold what is due to God. If in pride and success we claim the blessing, this will silence devotion. In prayer we often devour that which is holy, and consecrate to our own use that which should be given to God (Pro_20:25). We desire to pamper our lusts and feed our own vanity. Wrong in spirit and purpose, we cry, “O Lord, how long?” Learn,
1. Why so many prayers fail.
2. To search your own hearts and purify yourselves before God. We may have earnestness and grief and yet fail. “Though you stretch out your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; and though you make many prayers, I will not hear you [Adapted].
THE LAMENTABLE SIGHT.—Hab_1:2-4
The prophet is permitted to see the great social and national evils of the Jews. Unchecked and encouraged they grow in magnitude and number. He laments, in the name of all the godly among them, that their labours seem in vain, and he is forced to cry bitterly to God for relief.
I. The rights of property were disregarded. “For spoiling and violence are before me.” They robbed one another, and took goods and lands from others. God himself divided the land, established the rights of property, by sacred law fixed bounds to every citizen, and taught him to be content with his lot. When violence of any kind breaks forth in a land its prosperity will soon fade away.
1. This disregard was openly declared. “Before me.” The sins were deeply rooted, and those who committed them cared not who saw them. Modest at first, and afraid of discovery, sinners get bold in their wickedness, and openly and impudently avow them.
2. God seemed to connive at this open disregard. “How long shall I cry?” When God appears to overlook sin and to countenance it by permitting sinners to prosper, it grieves the heart and shakes the faith of good men. They cry to God for a sense of justice and right to prevail. “It is time for thee, Lord, to work.”
II. The spirit of litigation prevailed. “There are that raise up strife and contention.” They were broken up into parties and factions that bit and devoured one another continually. Hatred stirs up strifes of all kinds, domestic, political, and religious. It sets man against his fellow-men and against his God. It disturbs society, promotes crime, and rouses the moral forces of the universe.
“A Trinity there seems of principles,
Which represent and rule created life,—
The love of self, our fellows, and our God” [Festus].
III. The law had lost its authority. “Therefore the law is slacked,” &c. The law of peace and charity and the law of Moses were set at nought. That which was the soul, the heart of political and religious life, ceased to act, like the pulse ceasing to beat. The state of a country may be judged from the authority and influence of its moral laws.
1. The law was first disregarded. Contempt for the word and authority of God opens the door for all wickedness. Neither threatening nor promise will then check in evil courses.
2. Then the law was perverted. “Judgment (justice) doth never go forth.” (a) Wrong decisions were given. “Therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.” The law was weak, the magistrates were corrupted, and there was no appeal against injustice. (b) The ties of humanity were broken. “The wicked doth compass about the righteous.” The godly and innocent were surrounded and overcome by men turned into brutes. There was no security for persons or property. “Wickedness,” says Bp. Taylor, “corrupts a man’s reasonings, gives him false principles, and evil measuring of things.” Well, therefore, did the prophet lament and cry to God. “My soul is also sore vexed; but thou, O Lord, how long?”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hab_1:1.
1. The minister of God in this prophecy.
(1) By his name, Habakkuk.
(2) By his function, the prophet.
2. The manner how he came by it, vision.
3. The matter of it, the burden. In which two questions are moved—
(1) Why a burden; and
(2), whose burden it is: a burden in respect of the sin punished—of the punishment threatened—of the word of God threatening [Marbury].
Hab_1:2.
1. What the prophet did.
(1) He cried—with intense feeling, with great boldness, with long patience.
(2) He cried to God in perplexity and grief, to stir him in apparent forgetfulness, and remind him of promised goodness.
2. The reason why he did it. For violence, strife, and war in domestic circles, injustice and oppression in courts of law, prevailing without check and without shame.
3. The success he had in doing it.
(1) Thou wilt not hear.
(2) Thou wilt not save. As not hearing is to be imputed to his mercy and patience, so his not saving is to be imputed either to his wisdom, putting his children to the trial of their faith by afflictions, or to his justice, making one of them, who have corrupted their ways, a rod to scourge the other, neither of them being as yet worth the saving till he had humbled them [Adapted from Marbury].
Hab_1:2-4.
1. Prevalent evils grieve the minds of God’s servants. Like David and Jeremiah, they weep at what they see. It makes them sigh. It is a burden to them.
2. In their grief they fly to God for remedy. They have faith in his power, providence, and purpose. They earnestly pray for justice and truth to prevail, for sin and wickedness to end.
3. But in this course they do not always succeed. God is not unmindful of his promise nor regardless of sin, but his people are not always delivered, and retribution not generally sent in the time they fix. God is holy and just: we are hasty and sinful. “Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?”
“Thy God hath said ’tis good for thee
To walk by faith and not by sight.
Take it on trust a little while,
Soon shalt thou read the mystery right,
In the bright sunshine of his smile” [Keble].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Hab_1:1-4. How long. If men look upon some of God’s providential dealings with a mere eye of reason, they will hardly find any sense therein, such their muddle and disorder. But, alas! the wrong side is objected to our eyes, while the right side is presented to the high God of heaven, who knoweth that an admirable order doth result out of this confusion: and what is presented to him at present may, hereafter, be so showed to us as to convince our judgments in the truth thereof [T. Fuller].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The absolute holiness of God is a truth of…
Hab 1:13
The absolute holiness of God is a truth of both natural and revealed religion. We could not worship one who was not supremely holy. Every reason we have for believing in God at all is a reason for attributing this character to Him. The words of our text are an appeal to God on the ground of His holiness; an appeal to Him to explain what seemed inconsistent with this. It is the old, old problem. Why does God tolerate the existence, even permit the triumph, of the wicked? The holiness of His personal character must be offended at them; the righteousness of His rule demands their exposure and defeat; and yet again and again we see them prosperous. The results which are brought by the rule of God in a mingled world, where sin is allowed to display itself, are just the ends which a Holy Being would delight to secure.
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I. Consider the imperfect holiness of good men. It cannot be said of any one of us that we are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Some evils we cannot bear to see; but there are others of which we are very tolerant. There are few ways of bringing the evil of sin home to us more effective than making us see sin in others, and feel the bitterness of sin at the hands of others. The ungodly Jews were to learn, by the invasion of the still more ungodly Chaldeans, what a hateful thing ungodliness really was.
II. Consider the partiality of our appeals to the holiness of God. Personal antipathy wonderfully sharpens our sense of wickedness, and personal liking equally dulls our apprehension of the Divine judgment. God is wholly free from this disturbing partiality. What seems to us tolerance of evil, or indifference towards us, is often but the patience of wisdom working for ends which our partiality will not let us see.
III. The Divine method of rebuking evil is another thing to be considered. His method is to let wickedness expose and punish itself; and this it is sure ultimately to do.
IV. We have not a true conception of the holiness of God when we view it as impulsive merely; it bears the sight of evil in confidence of overcoming it. To overcome evil, and turn it into penitence and faith and love, is the object of Him who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity, when He endures the contradiction of sinners against Himself, and holds His peace in presence of unrighteousness.
A. Mackennal, Sermons from a Sick Room, p. 29.
Hab 1:16
The word "drag" simply means a large fishing-net. The bold metaphor of the text is that of a fisherman whose mind is so overborne by the large draughts of fish which he is continually taking, that he begins actually to worship those nets which are the instruments of such wonderful success.
I. The sin of man keeps repeating itself throughout the ages. Notwithstanding all the lessons of the past, there are still multitudes who forget the living God. They are not at all anxious to be doers of the right; but they are anxious that "their portion be fat, their meat plenteous." And when they are successful, they are puffed up with pride. They glory in their own skill and power. "They sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag."
II. "What have we that we have not received?" Our very existence is itself a boon from God, and all our faculties and blessings are gifts of His bounty. The highest blessings for man are not material, but spiritual—not the fat portion and the plenteous meat, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It is for want of grasping these two simple, cardinal truths that men so often fall into the worship of the net. Rank, wealth, intellect, business, such are some of the nets men worship. But God is not mocked, and in many ways He breaks men’s idols before their very eyes. Let us take God’s gifts with humble gratitude; let us use the powers which He has given us, not for our own aggrandisement, but for His glory; and instead of casting forth our net merely to enrich ourselves out of others, let us seek to become, in the good, true sense of the word, "fishers of men."
T. Campbell Finlayson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 168.
Reference: Hab 1:16.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 170.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Prophet's burden. The Answer of Jehovah
The Prophet's burden. The Answer of Jehovah
1. Burden] RM 'oracle': see on Isa_13:1.
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2, 3. How long?.. Why?] Even a prophet (Hab_1:1) can ask such questions. He never denies the existence of God, but he cannot understand His seeming failure to interpose in human affairs. In the end, however, the despondency merges into a faith which can believe where it cannot see (Hab_2:3; Hab_3:17.).
5. Behold ye among the heathen] For this we ought to read, 'Behold, ye treacherous' (as in the quotation in Act_13:41, 'ye despisers'). The despisers are those in Hab_1:1-4 who trample upon moral and social law, thinking Jehovah will never intervene. In your days] The profounder solution in Hab_2:3 contemplates the possibility of a long postponement of the issue.
6. The Chaldeans] possibly written after the battle of Carchemish, in 605 b.c., with reference to Nebuchadrezzar and his army, so graphically described in Hab_2:6-10.
7. The last clause means that the Chaldean recognises no master or judge: he is a law to himself.
9. RM 'Their faces are set eagerly forwards, and they gather captives as the sand.'
10. They shall heap dust] i.e. they shall throw up an enlargement of earth, to take the fortress.
11. The correct translation should probably be: Then he sweeps by as a wind, and passes on and makes his might his God—an admirable climax to the description of the Chaldeans.
12-17. A new riddle.
12. Habakkuk's faith is staggered by the conduct of the Chaldeans. He had welcomed them as ministers of the divine judgment, and 10!they had shown themselves to be cruel and haughty, working out not God's will, but their own. How was this consistent with the holiness of God?
13. The cry of a perplexed heart: Thou art too pure to look upon evil, why then dost Thou look upon it? God looks on in silence: He does nothing, says nothing! The wicked (i.e. the Chaldean) swallows up one who is more righteous than himself (i.e. Judah).
14. And makest] probably this should be 'and makes.' It is, as Hab_1:15-16 show, the Chaldean who makes men like fish, sweeping them into his net.
16. He sacrifices to his net] i.e. to his weapons of destruction, as to a god: for was not might his god? cp. Hab_1:11.
17. This v. should probably read, 'Will he draw the sword for ever, slaying nations mercilessly evermore?'.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 burden See note 1, (See Scofield "Isa 13:1").
burden See note 1, (See Scofield "Isa 13:1").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
CHAPTER 1
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The Judgment of Judah Through the Chaldeans Announced
1. The prophet’s cry to Jehovah (Hab 1:1-4)
2. The answer (Hab 1:5-11)
3. The prophet’s plea (Hab 1:12-17)
Hab 1:1-4. The prophet begins his message with a prayer-cry to Jehovah. He whose name is “the embracer” embraces the Lord and cries to Him on account of the conditions prevailing in Judah. The Spirit of God stirred up the heart of Habakkuk on account of the moral conditions in Judah. He is jealous for Jehovah’s glory, which manifested itself in hating the evil. “There is no prophetic delivery among the twelve lesser books more peculiar and characteristic than that of Habakkuk. It has no longer the occupation with the enemy as its main feature, although the enemy is referred to; but for its prominent topic we find the soul of the prophet, as representing the faithful among Judah, brought into deep exercise, and indeed a kind of colloquy between God Himself and the prophet, so as to set out not only that which gave him trouble of heart, but also divine comfort, as well as into exulting hope into which he was led by the communications of the Spirit of God.”
Like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, Habakkuk is deeply stirred on account of the declension among the people of God, and that led him to cry to Jehovah, to tell Him all about it. He begins with “How long, O LORD.” It is the cry of the saints of God in all generations. We, too, in the midst of the increasing apostasy, the perilous times, cry to Him, “How long, O Lord.” He had cried and there seemed to be no answer. Heaven was silent. And with him the righteous among the Jews had cried for help and for a change of conditions, under which they were suffering affliction. Wickedness and violence were evident on all sides. Strife and contention were the continued order of things. They injured each other wherever they could. The law of God was completely flouted; there was no more justice, and the wicked compassed about the righteous.
Hab 1:5-11. Jehovah speaks and answers the complaint of His servant. He is going to raise up the Chaldeans to chastise His wayward people. The Lord is calling on His people, that they should see now what He was going to do. “Behold ye among the nations, and regard, and wonder marvellously; for I work a work in your days, which ye will not believe though it were told you.” The meaning is that they should look around among the nations, the faithless ones among the Jews, and see how the storm would gather and ultimately break over the head of the house of Judah. He would work a judgment work, which they would not believe, it would be an unparalleled occurrence, amazing and terrible. This passage is quoted by the Apostle Paul inActs 13:411 and applied to the unbelievers and despisers of the gospel. In the quotation the Spirit of God led the Apostle to omit the address to the nations, and substituted for it “Ye despisers.” While in Habakkuk’s day God was about to work a work of judgment, which the unbelievers would not believe when they heard of it, we note that Paul preached the gospel; he has reference to speaking to the Jews in the synagogue; preached the gospel unto them, and they did not believe. Then He worked a work which they would not believe, in sending that gospel far hence to the Gentiles Act 28:1-31 while the unbelieving Jews would be dispersed among the nations.
In verse 6 the instrument of chastisement is announced, and afterward described. A new power would arise, the Chaldeans. They would make an invasion, and possess dwelling places which were not theirs, that is, they would set out for a widespread conquest and take away the dwelling place of Judah. They were to be the instrument in the hand of God to mete out judgment to the Jews and humble them, as well as other nations. The Chaldeans, called in Hebrew Hakhadsim were of Semitic origin, springing from Kesed, the son of Nahor, and brother of Abraham Gen 22:22. Jeremiah, who also announced the Chaldean invasion, speaks of them in the following manner: “Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from afar, O house of Israel, saith the LORD, it is a mighty nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat, they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds, they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees; they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustest, with the sword. Nevertheless, in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make an end of you” Jer 5:15-31. Their terrible onslaught is here compared to the swiftness of the leopards, their fierceness with the prowling evening wolves, and their horsemen in their dash with the eagle’s flight. They come for violence and know no defeat, for their faces are always forward. They make prisoners like the sand, and mock all attempts to check their advance; kings and princes are ridiculed and all strongholds are quickly reduced.
But as he is victorious the Chaldean becomes proud and forgets that he was but used as an instrument in the hand of God to deal with those who had done evil. As a result, they imputed their power to their own god, and do not give God the honor and the glory. His own might is his god. Then comes the day when the Lord takes the Chaldean in hand for judgment and deals with him, as He dealt with other nations. Nebuchadnezzar, the first great king of Babylon, after his humiliating experience, acknowledged the God of heaven, but his grandson Belshazzar praised the Babylonian idol-gods, at his licentious feast, dishonoring the temple vessels. Then followed the judgment of the Chaldeans in the overthrow of Babylon.
Hab 1:12-17. The prophet had listened to the terrible announcement from the lips of Jehovah, what was to befall his nation. How it must have shocked the man of God! But he knows the comfort and expresses it in faith at once. “Art Thou not from everlasting, O Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? we shall not die!” He knows Jehovah as the faithful God, the covenant-keeping God. Such a God will surely not permit the nation, to whom He has pledged His Word, to be wiped out. His faith lays hold on that and he realizes that the Lord is using this enemy for correction, to chastise His people. And furthermore in his plea he says, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, Thou canst not look upon injustice.” Would He, the righteous God, look on unconcerned at the wicked deeds of the Chaldeans? Can He remain silent to all their deeds of violence? If such is the case, the prophet asks next, “Why lookest Thou upon the treacherous; why art Thou silent when the wicked destroys?” It is the voice of the godly remnant here, seen suffering with the nation. It brings before us the same question concerning the suffering of the righteous.
The Chaldean took men as if they were fishes, as a fisherman puts out the net and the drag, so they catch men by the net and the drag. Gathering in the people with their wealth, he rejoices and is glad. Then the prophet takes up the statement given by the Lord that the Chaldean would offend, and fall by his pride, and the worship of his false gods, he sacrifices to his net; he burns incense; he makes the thing which prospers him his idol, his god. Is this then to go on continually? Shall he who empties his net, and throws it out to catch more, to do this again with the nations forever?
Such was the plea of Habakkuk, after the announcement of the coming chastisement of the Jews by the Chaldeans. He knows that the affliction could not continue forever, for God is a covenant-keeping God, and of purer eyes than to behold evil, a holy and a righteous God.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 The Announcement of Jehovah’s Judgment
The Announcement of Jehovah’s Judgment
v. 1. The burden, the prophetic sentence with its threat of punishment, which Habakkuk, the prophet, did see, his first statements being in the nature of a complaint on the part of righteousness, accusing the people of sin.
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v. 2. O Lord, how long shall I cry, until ’when would he have to raise his voice, and Thou wilt not hear? Jehovah, the God of the covenant, refused to heed any appeal in the interest of the people while they persisted in their wickedness. Even cry out unto Thee of violence, of the criminal acts of the people of the land, and Thou wilt not save? The fact that the Lord apparently remained indifferent to conditions in Judah and did nothing to stop the criminal activity, seemed to the prophet incompatible with the holiness of God.
v. 3. Why dost Thou show me iniquity, permitting him to see it on every hand, and cause me to behold grievance? rather, "and Thou observest distress inactively," seemingly paying no attention to perverseness. For spoiling and violence are before me, so that he could not help but be a witness of them daily; and there are that raise up strife and contention, literally, "there is strife, and contention arises. "
v. 4. Therefore the Law is slacked, the leaders not being interested in its enforcement, since God remained indifferent, and judgment doth never go forth, there, is never a righteous sentence delivered; for the wicked doth compass about the righteous, a whole circle of such wicked people surrounding one righteous person, so that he is often forced to bow to superior power; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth, righteousness and truth are perverted. Jehovah answers this complaint by saying that He intends to perform a marvelous work, namely, by pronouncing a sentence in agreement with the greatness of the transgression.
v. 5. Behold ye among the heathen, out of whose midst the storm of judgment would proceed, and regard and wonder marvelously, literally, "be astonished! astonished!". For I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe though it be told you, one which in ordinary circumstances is unbelievable.
v. 6. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, a fierce and impetuous nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, whose campaigns would extend throughout the earth, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs, to take possession of strange countries, to wage wars of conquest.
v. 7. They are terrible and dreadful, arousing terror, causing fear; their judgment and their dignity, what they consider their right and their eminence, shall proceed of themselves, they take this much upon themselves, they themselves decide the norm and the right of their actions.
v. 8. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, so that their attacks could be made with the greatest speed, and are more fierce than the evening wolves, when hunger makes them ravenous; and their horsemen shall spread themselves, rushing along with a fearful sound, and their horsemen shall come from far, from the remote country of Babylonia; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat, pouncing upon his food to devour it.
v. 9. They shall come all for violence, or, "all its multitude," the entire hostile nation, "comes for deeds of violence," so that none can withstand the impact of its attack; their faces shall sup up as the east wind, panting to go forward to the attack, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand, their captives being innumerable.
v. 10. And they shall scoff at the kings, rulers that attempt to stop their victorious onslaught, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them; they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, any kind of little earth-mound, and take it. The enemy would simply mock at every show of resistance to their advance as a ridiculous and futile effort.
v. 11. Then shall his mind change, then the spirit of the enemy revives, and he shall pass over, passing on in his whirlwind campaign, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god, or, "he becomes guilty, for this his power is his god," he deifies himself. With these words the Lord points out that the climax of Babylonia’s power would thereby be reached, for He cannot permit such idolatrous ideas to gain the upper hand in a nation.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15 The message that Habakkuk the prophet received,
The message that Habakkuk the prophet received,
These words introduce the first two chapters of the book. It is implicit that Habakkuk received this message from Yahweh. This can be stated as a complete sentence. AT: "This is the message that Habakkuk the prophet received from Yahweh." (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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Yahweh
This is the name of God that he revealed to his people in the Old Testament. See the translationWord page about Yahweh concerning how to translate this.
how long will I cry for help, and you will not hear?
The reader should understand that Habakkuk has been crying to Yahweh for help for a long time. He asks this question because he is frustrated and wants to know how much longer it will be before Yahweh responds. AT: "how much longer shall I cry for help before you will respond?" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Habakkuk
prophet
Yahweh
save
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 1:1 The word message (or oracle) identifies the book…
1:1 The word message (or oracle) identifies the book as God’s revelation through his prophet (cp. Nah 1:1; Mal 1:1).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.