1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:
I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.
Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?
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?
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
And David sat between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold a man running alone.
When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him.
Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book.
I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge.
And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Habakkuk 2
Commentary on Habakkuk 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
In this chapter we have an answer expected by the prophet (v. 1), and returned by the Spirit of God, to the complaints which the prophet made of the violences and victories of the Chaldeans in the close of the foregoing chapter. The answer is,
Hab 2:1-4
Here,
Hab 2:5-14
The prophet having had orders to write the vision, and the people to wait for the accomplishment of it, the vision itself follows; and it is, as divers other prophecies we have met with, the burden of Babylon and Babylon's king, the same that was said to pass over and offend, ch. 1:11. It reads the doom, some think, of Nebuchadnezzar, who was principally active in the destruction of Jerusalem, or of that monarchy, or of the whole kingdom of the Chaldeans, or of all such proud and oppressive powers as bear hard upon any people, especially upon God's people. Observe,
Hab 2:15-20
The three foregoing articles, upon which the woes here are grounded, are very near akin to each other. The criminals charged by them are oppressors and extortioners, that raise estates by rapine and injustice; and it is mentioned here again (v. 17), the very same that was said v. 8, for that is the crime upon which the greatest stress is laid; it is because of men's blood, innocent blood, barbarously and unjustly shed, which is a provoking crying thing; it is for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein, which God will certainly reckon for, sooner or later, as the asserter of right and the avenger of wrong.
But here are two articles more, of a different nature, which carry a woe to all those in general to whom they belong, and particularly to the Babylonian monarchs, by whom the people of God were taken and held captives.