Habakkuk 1

While there is no Messianic reference in a narrow sense, in the truest and deepest sense the whole foundation of the thought of the prophecy is Messianic. The question at stake in the world’s drama presented on its stage is the future of the kingdom of God upon earth, and the dénouement is that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (2 : 14). The theological and religious value of the piece is very great. Light is thrown on the methods of prophetic revelation (2 : 1, 2); the ultimate laws of political and social evolution (2 : 4-20); the moral and religious aspect of secular affairs (1 : 12). Indeed, the book is full of large conceptions of history, fine philosophical reasoning, subtle ethical analysis, and a superb faith in God and righteousness.

Subject to the limitations of his place in human progress and the development of revelation, this prophet may claim to be the apostle of the great ultimate fact of faith, and of its sovereign part in the evolution of human destiny (2 : 4). This key-note, alike of his prophecy and of his personal experience, has been taken up and expanded in the well-known New

Testament adaptation, reached its full rights at the Reformation, and in the creeds and life of Evangelical Christendom will doubtless continue to be illustrated in ever wider issues on to the world’s end. Elmslie.

Chap. 1. The prophet, distressed by the appalling prevalence of wickedness among his people, cries to God for help (verses 2-4); the Lord replies that He is raising up the Chaldeans to scourge them, and describes that people (verses 5-11) against which the prophet expostulates with God (verses 12-17). H. C.

1. The burden. This word corresponds very nearly in use and meaning to “vision” and “word,” but is used more specially of prophecies referring to heavy judgments. Jerome.

2-4. The complaint of Habakkuk: a vehement remonstrance, bringing out the real character of the prophet, and giving a lively portraiture of the prevalent corruption of the people. The prophet feels his nearness to God, and his expostulations give expression to that indignation at the triumph of wrong which is inseparable from the love of right. They involve a certain conviction that righteousness must have the upper hand when God manifests Himself. B. C.

The prophet speaks of the state of society in Judah before the Chaldeans were thought of. Verse 2 seems to imply that the prophet had been for some time in his prophetic work, laboring among a degenerate people, battling against sin, and almost impatient that the Lord did not interpose to convert, or chastise, or exterminate. Jer. 22 shows that the people were then horribly corrupt, and that their king, Jehoiakim, was the weakest, meanest, and wickedest king that had ever disgraced their throne. Verse 3 is literally rendered thus: “Why dost Thou cause me to behold iniquity, and why dost Thou look (unconcerned) upon human misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and men excite contention.” The second clause does not well admit the sense: Why dost Thou make me behold? The implied expostulation with God is stronger—Why dost Thou Thyself look on this woe with no effort to relieve or prevent? H. C.

4. The culminating point in Habakkuk’s complaint is the triumph of injustice in the guise of law. So long as the tribunal of justice stands firm, the national character is not fatally affected by the acts of evil-doers; but when it sides with the oppressor, all hope of reformation from within is lost, and judgment must come from without. This statement applies to the time of Jehoiakim. B. C

5-11. Jehovah Himself replies by predicting a judgment so much more terrible and wide in its sweep than any the prophet had expected as to redouble his amazement. As the prophet had spoken for the whole company of the righteous in Israel as well as for himself, so God addresses His reply to them as well as to him. He bids them look round among the nations with which they were at peace. Do they see no cloud on the horizon, no sign, no portent of danger? He is about to work a work of judgment so marvellous as to seem incredible to them. They will not believe it, though it be told them. He is about to rouse the Chasdim against them. Cox.

The whole tone of this passage implies that, when the prophecy was given, the Chaldeans had begun, and even carried on for some time, the course of rapid conquest; but that as yet the Jews had no apprehension that they would be attacked. They would not believe this when it was announced to them. So Jeremiah complains. B. C.

6. This is the work, the raising up of a new first-class power, the Chaldeans. By taking notice of recent events, the Jews might see the rise of this power. The Chaldean king Nabopolassar, aided by the Medes, had overthrown Nineveh (B.C. 625), as Nahum had foretold. The Egyptians, alarmed at their growth, came against them, but were badly beaten at Carchemish, on the Euphrates. Thenceforward no nation was able to stay their progress. The Jews, moreover, were probably the less alarmed at this because they were in sympathy with the Chaldean, while he was devastating Nineveh, and were certainly in league with him when Josiah felt bound in honor to march out against Necho, king of Egypt, as a common enemy to himself and to his ally, the Chaldean. But relations of friendship with such a power are evanescent. The Jews soon had reason to fear this new enemy, “bitter and rapid,” “who march upon broad regions,” vast countries of the earth—i.e., who fear nothing, and strike for vast conquests.

7,8. Sad proof that they were “terrible and dreadful” appears in the history (2 Chron. 36: 17): “He brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age.” H. C.

10. They shall scoff at the kings. The ignominious treatment of conquered princes is frequently referred to as characteristic of the Babylonian conquerors; it is specially declared by Ezekiel to be the punishment reserved for the evil-doers, the princes of Judah—see on chap. 22: 4-6—“those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee.”

11. The description of the Chaldeans thus closes with a distinct intimation of the cause of their final destruction; the principle of ungodliness developed by a series of aggressions, finding its full expression in self-worship, can have but one issue—ruin never long delayed. This result, however, is not yet declared; the prophet has to work it out in his own mind, and so be prepared for the final announcement. B. C.

12-17. Here the prophet interposes. The remainder of this chapter must be expounded as his expostulation or debate with God, the spirit of which is: “O Lord, spare Thy heritage, and give it not over to utter devastation. Thy people doubtless need correction, and Thou hast ordained the Chaldean power for this purpose; but do not let them ruin our nation utterly and forever.” H. C.

12. Thou art from everlasting, and then we shall not die. The Israel of God shall not be extirpated, nor the name of Israel blotted out, though it may sometimes seem to be very near it; like the apostles, chastened, and not killed; chastened sore, but not delivered over to death. The prophet infers the perpetuity of the Church from the eternity of God; for Christ has said, “Because I live, and therefore, as long as I live, ye shall live also” (John 14: 19). He is the Rock on which the Church is so firmly built that the gates of hell shall not, cannot, prevail against it. We shall not die. H.

13. The expression of trust is followed by an earnest expostulation; how can the purity and holiness of God be reconciled with the toleration of greater evil in the agent of wrath, than that which He had punished in His people? B. C.—The sense I take to be, “Thou canst not look calmly and unconcerned upon iniquity, or rather, upon misery—the woe that sin begets; it is not in Thy nature. Wherefore, then, dost Thou look quietly on the perfidious—those faithless Chaldeans—and wherefore art Thou silent,” etc. H. C.

16. The man who is continually coveting what God has denied him does not trust God; he does not believe God to be his chief good. He looks upon money, or worldly goods in some shape or other, to be more to be desired than God, and therefore “he sacrifices unto his net, and burns incense unto his drag.” He sets up a golden idol in his heart and worships it, and therefore the apostle warns us that “covet-

ousness is idolatry.” For this cause also our Saviour declares that those who serve Mammon cannot serve God. Tudor.