4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
Then said he to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of wrestling [of judgment]: for they say, Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh doesn't see.
Righteous are you, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet would I reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, And light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, And sweet for bitter!
How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice; righteousness lodged in her, But now murderers. Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They don't judge the fatherless, Neither does the cause of the widow come to them.
Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, Which brings about mischief by statute? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, And condemn the innocent blood.
> Do you indeed speak righteousness, silent ones? Do you judge blamelessly, you sons of men? No, in your heart you plot injustice. You measure out the violence of your hands in the earth.
Woe to those who devise iniquity And work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, Because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields, and seize them; And houses, and take them away: And they oppress a man and his house, Even a man and his heritage.
For I know how many your offenses, And how great are your sins-- You who afflict the just, Who take a bribe, And who turn aside the needy in the courts.
I said, "Please listen, you heads of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel: Isn't it for you to know justice? You who hate the good, And love the evil; Who tear off their skin, And their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, And flay their skin from off them, And break their bones, And chop them in pieces, as for the pot, And as flesh within the caldron.
The godly man has perished out of the earth, And there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; Every man hunts his brother with a net. Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; And the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together. The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, Even your visitation, has come; Now is the time of their confusion.
Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most assuredly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Now the chief priests, the elders, and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus, that they might put him to death; and they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But at last two false witnesses came forward, and said, "This man said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.'" The high priest stood up, and said to him, "Have you no answer? What is this that these testify against you?" But Jesus held his peace. The high priest answered him, "I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus said to him, "You have said it. Nevertheless, I tell you, henceforth you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of the sky." Then the high priest tore his clothing, saying, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Behold, now you have heard his blasphemy. What do you think?" They answered, "He is worthy of death!"
All the people answered, "May his blood be on us, and on our children!" Then he released to them Barabbas, but Jesus he flogged and delivered to be crucified.
He said to them, "Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.
They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit!"
When it was day, some of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. There were more than forty people who had made this conspiracy. They came to the chief priests and the elders, and said, "We have bound ourselves under a great curse, to taste nothing until we have killed Paul.
But you have dishonored the poor man. Don't the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts? Don't they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called?
transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness can't enter. Yes, truth is lacking; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Yahweh saw it, and it displeased him who there was no justice.
You shall not wrest justice: you shall not respect persons; neither shall you take a bribe; for a bribe does blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.
The two men, the base fellows, came in and sat before him: and the base fellows bore witness against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did curse God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him to death with stones.
For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.
Deliver me from the workers of iniquity. Save me from the bloodthirsty men.
> God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods. "How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked?" Selah. "Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked." They don't know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
Yahweh, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph?
but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. None sues in righteousness, and none pleads in truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they don't know; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes therein does not know peace.
You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; neither shall you testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice;
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and grew rich. They are grew fat, they shine: yes, they overpass in deeds of wickedness; they don't plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and the right of the needy they don't judge. Shall I not visit for these things? says Yahweh; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
It happened, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold on him, saying, You shall surely die.
and when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty-men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death; but when Uriah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt: and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, [namely], Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him, into Egypt; and they fetched forth Uriah out of Egypt, and brought him to Jehoiakim the king, who killed him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people.
Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I am not falling away to the Chaldeans. But he didn't listen to him; so Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon-house, and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days;
Then the princes said to the king, Let this man, we pray you, be put to death; because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them: for this man doesn't seek the welfare of this people, but the hurt. Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand; for the king is not he who can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst of it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in the midst of it. Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst of it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, [and] to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. Her prophets have daubed for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord Yahweh, when Yahweh has not spoken. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yes, they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully. I sought for a man among them, who should build up the wall, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.
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.