12 Are you not eternal, O Lord my God, my Holy One? for you there is no death. O Lord, he has been ordered by you for our punishment; and by you, O Rock, he has been marked out to put us right.
Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are all the children of Israel: and see, they are saying, Our bones have become dry our hope is gone, we are cut off completely. For this cause be a prophet to them, and say, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am opening the resting-places of your dead, and I will make you come up out of your resting-places, O my people; and I will take you into the land of Israel. And you will be certain that I am the Lord by my opening the resting-places of your dead and making you come up out of your resting-places, O my people. And I will put my spirit in you, so that you may come to life, and I will give you a rest in your land: and you will be certain that I the Lord have said it and have done it, says the Lord.
See, the eyes of the Lord are on the evil kingdom, and I will put an end to it in all the earth; but I will not send complete destruction on Jacob, says the Lord. For see, I will give orders, and I will have Israel moved about among all the nations, as grain is moved about by the shaking of the tray, but not the smallest seed will be dropped on the earth.
You, Lord, at the first did put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the works of your hands: They will come to their end; but you are for ever; they will become old as a robe; They will be rolled up like a cloth, even like a robe, and they will be changed: but you are the same and your years will have no end.
And you have not kept in mind the word which says to you as to sons, My son, do not make little of the Lord's punishment, and do not give up hope when you are judged by him; For the Lord sends punishment on his loved ones; everyone whom he takes as his son has experience of his rod.
How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up? For their rock is not like our Rock, even our haters themselves being judges.
Ho! Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, the instrument of my punishment! I will send him against a nation of wrongdoers, and against the people of my wrath I will give him orders, to take their wealth in war, crushing them down like the dust in the streets. But this is not what is in his mind, and this is not his design; but his purpose is destruction, and the cutting off of more and more nations.
In days to come Jacob will take root: Israel will put out buds and flowers; and the face of the world will be full of fruit. Is his punishment like the punishment of those who overcame him? or are his dead as great in number as those he put to the sword? Your anger against her has been made clear by driving her away; he has taken her away with his storm-wind in the day of his east wind. So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again. For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.
See, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and make them come against this land, and against its people, and against all these nations on every side; and I will give them up to complete destruction, and make them a cause of fear and surprise and a waste place for ever. And more than this, I will take from them the sound of laughing voices, the voice of joy, the voice of the newly-married man, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the stones crushing the grain, and the shining of lights. All this land will be a waste and a cause of wonder; and these nations will be the servants of the king of Babylon for seventy years. And it will come about, after seventy years are ended, that I will send punishment on the king of Babylon, and on that nation, says the Lord, for their evil-doing, and on the land of the Chaldaeans; and I will make it a waste for ever. And I will make that land undergo everything I have said against it, even everything recorded in this book, which Jeremiah the prophet has said against all the nations. For a number of nations and great kings will make servants of them, even of them: and I will give them the reward of their acts, even the reward of the work of their hands.
Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God. Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my ways; and after I had got knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was put to shame, truly, I was covered with shame, because I had to undergo the shame of my early years. Is Ephraim my dear son? is he the child of my delight? for whenever I say things against him, I still keep him in my memory: so my heart is troubled for him; I will certainly have mercy on him, says the Lord.
Have you taken note of what these people have said, The two families, which the Lord took for himself, he has given up? This they say, looking down on my people as being, in their eyes, no longer a nation. The Lord has said, If I have not made day and night, and if the limits of heaven and earth have not been fixed by me, Then I will give up caring for the seed of Jacob and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will let their fate be changed and will have mercy on them.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Habakkuk 1
Commentary on Habakkuk 1 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 1
Hab 1:1-17. Habakkuk's Expostulation with Jehovah on Account of the Prevalence of Injustice: Jehovah Summons Attention to His Purpose of Sending the Chaldeans as the Avengers. The Prophet Complains, that These Are Worse than Those on Whom Vengeance Was to Be Taken.
1. burden—the prophetic sentence.
2, 3. violence … Why dost thou show me iniquity?—Similar language is used of the Chaldeans (Hab 1:9, 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 (Pr 1:31). Jehoiakim's reign was marked by injustice, treachery, and bloodshed (Jer 22:3, 13-17). Therefore the Chaldeans should be sent to deal with him and his nobles according to their dealings with others (Hab 1:6, 10, 11, 17). Compare Jeremiah's expostulation with Jehovah, Jer 12:1; 20:8; and Job 19:7, 8.
3. cause me to behold grievance—Maurer denies that the Hebrew verb is ever active; he translates, "(Wherefore) dost Thou behold (without doing aught to check) grievance?" The context favors English Version.
there are that raise up strife and contention—so Calvin. But Maurer, not so well, translates, "There is strife, and contention raises itself."
4. Therefore—because Thou dost suffer such crimes to go unpunished.
law is slacked—is chilled. It has no authority and secures no respect.
judgment—justice.
wrong judgment proceedeth—Decisions are given contrary to right.
5. Behold … marvellously … a work—(Compare Isa 29:14). Quoted by Paul (Ac 13:41).
among the heathen—In Ac 13:41, "ye despisers," from the Septuagint. So the Syriac and Arabic versions; perhaps from a different Hebrew reading. In the English Version reading of Habakkuk, God, in reply to the prophet's expostulation, addresses the Jews as about to be punished, "Behold ye among the heathen (with whom ye deserve to be classed, and by whom ye shall be punished, as despisers; the sense implied, which Paul expresses): learn from them what ye refused to learn from Me!" For "wonder marvellously," Paul, in Ac 13:41, has, "wonder and perish," which gives the sense, not the literal wording, of the Hebrew, "Wonder, wonder," that is, be overwhelmed in wonder. The despisers are to be given up to their own stupefaction, and so perish. The Israelite unbelievers would not credit the prophecy as to the fearfulness of the destruction to be wrought by the Chaldeans, nor afterwards the deliverance promised from that nation. So analogously, in Paul's day, the Jews would not credit the judgment coming on them by the Romans, nor the salvation proclaimed through Jesus. Thus the same Scripture applied to both.
ye will not believe, though it be told you—that is, ye will not believe now that I foretell it.
6. I raise up—not referring to God's having brought the Chaldeans from their original seats to Babylonia (see on Isa 23:13), for they had already been upwards of twenty years (since Nabopolassar's era) in political power there; but to His being about now to raise them up as the instruments of God's "work" of judgment on the Jews (2Ch 36:6). The Hebrew is future, "I will raise up."
bitter—that is, cruel (Jer 50:42; compare Jud 18:25, Margin; 2Sa 17:8).
hasty—not passionate, but "impetuous."
7. their judgment and … dignity … proceed of themselves—that is, they recognize no judge save themselves, and they get for themselves and keep their own "dignity" without needing others' help. It will be vain for the Jews to complain of their tyrannical judgments; for whatever the Chaldeans decree they will do according to their own will, they will not brook anyone attempting to interfere.
8. swifter than the leopards—Oppian [Cynegeticks, 3.76], says of the leopard, "It runs most swiftly straight on: you would fancy it was flying through the air."
more fierce—rather, "more keen"; literally, "sharp."
evening wolves—wolves famished with fasting all day and so most keen in attacking the fold under covert of the approaching night (Jer 5:6; Zep 3:3; compare Ge 49:27). Hence "twilight" is termed in Arabic and Persian "the wolf's tail"; and in French, entre chien et loup.
spread themselves—proudly; as in Jer 50:11, and Mal 4:2, it implies strength and vigor. So also the Arabic cognate word [Maurer].
their horsemen … come from far—and yet are not wearied by the long journey.
9. all for violence—The sole object of all is not to establish just rights, but to get all they can by violence.
their faces shall sup up as the east wind—that is, they shall, as it were, swallow up all before them; so the horse in Job 39:24 is said to "swallow the ground with fierceness and rage." Maurer takes it from an Arabic root, "the desire of their faces," that is, the eager desire expressed by their faces. Henderson, with Symmachus and Syriac, translates, "the aspect."
as the east wind—the simoon, which spreads devastation wherever it passes (Isa 27:8). Gesenius translates, "(is) forwards." The rendering proposed, eastward, as if it referred to the Chaldeans' return home eastward from Judea, laden with spoils, is improbable. Their "gathering the sand" accords with the simoon being meant, as it carries with it whirlwinds of sand collected in the desert.
10. scoff at … kings—as unable to resist them.
they shall heap dust, and take it—"they shall heap" earth mounds outside, and so "take every stronghold" (compare 2Sa 20:15; 2Ki 19:32) [Grotius].
11. Then—when elated by his successes.
shall his mind change—He shall lose whatever of reason or moderation ever was in him, with pride.
he shall pass over—all bounds and restraints: his pride preparing the sure way for his destruction (Pr 16:18). The language is very similar to that describing Nebuchadnezzar's "change" from man's heart (understanding) to that of a beast, because of pride (see on Da 4:16; Da 4:30, 31; Da 4:33, 34). An undesigned coincidence between the two sacred books written independently.
imputing this his power unto his god—(Da 5:4). Sacrilegious arrogance, in ascribing to his idol Bel the glory that belongs to God [Calvin]. Grotius explains, "(saying that) his power is his own as one who is a god to himself" (compare Hab 1:16, and Da 3:1-30). So Maurer, "He shall offend as one to whom his power is his god" (Job 12:6; see on Mic 2:1).
12. In opposition to the impious deifying of the Chaldeans power as their god (Maurer, or, as the English Version, their attributing of their successes to their idols), the prophet, in an impassioned address to Jehovah, vindicates His being "from everlasting," as contrasted with the Chaldean so-called "god."
my God, mine Holy One—Habakkuk speaks in the name of his people. God was "the Holy One of Israel," against whom the Chaldean was setting up himself (Isa 37:23).
we shall not die—Thou, as being our God, wilt not permit the Chaldeans utterly to destroy us. This reading is one of the eighteen called by the Hebrews "the appointment of the scribes"; the Rabbis think that Ezra and his colleagues corrected the old reading, "Thou shalt not die."
thou hast ordained them for judgment—that is, to execute Thy judgments.
for correction—to chastise transgressors (Isa 10:5-7). But not that they may deify their own power (Hab 1:11, for their power is from Thee, and but for a time); nor that they may destroy utterly Thy people. The Hebrew for "mighty God" is Rock (De 32:4). However the world is shaken, or man's faith wavers, God remains unshaken as the Rock of Ages (Isa 26:4, Margin).
13. purer … than to behold evil—without being displeased at it.
canst not look on iniquity—unjust injuries done to Thy people. The prophet checks himself from being carried too far in his expostulatory complaint, by putting before himself honorable sentiments of God.
them that deal treacherously—the Chaldeans, once allies of the Jews, but now their violent oppressors. Compare "treacherous dealers," (Isa 21:2; 24:16). Instead of speaking evil against God, he goes to God Himself for the remedy for his perplexity (Ps 73:11-17).
devoureth the man that is more righteous—The Chaldean oppresses the Jew, who with all his faults, is better than his oppressor (compare Eze 16:51, 52).
14. And—that is, And so, by suffering oppressors to go unpunished, "Thou makest men as the fishes … that have no ruler"; that is, no defender. All may fish in the sea with impunity; so the Chaldeans with impunity afflict Thy people, as these have no longer the God of the theocracy, their King, to defend them. Thou reducest men to such a state of anarchy, by wrong going unpunished, as if there were no God. He compares the world to the sea; men to fishes; Nebuchadnezzar to a fisherman (Hab 1:15-17).
15. they take up all of them—all kinds of fishes, that is, men, as captives, and all other prey that comes in their way.
with the angle—that is, the hook. Some they take up as with the hook, one by one; others in shoals, as in a "net" and "drag" or enclosing net.
therefore—because of their successes.
they rejoice—They glory in their crimes because attended with success (compare Hab 1:11).
16. sacrifice unto their net—that is, their arms, power, and military skill, wherewith they gained their victories; instead of to God. Compare Hab 1:11, Maurer's interpretation. They idolize themselves for their own cleverness and might (De 8:17; Isa 10:13; 37:24, 25).
by them—by their net and dragnet.
their portion—image from a banquet: the prey which they have gotten.
17. Shall they … empty their net?—Shall they be allowed without interruption to enjoy the fruits of their violence?
therefore—seeing that they attribute all their successes to themselves, and not to Thee. The answer to the prophet's question, he by inspiration gives himself in the second chapter.