Habakkuk 1

The prophet complaining of the growth of iniquity among the Jews, God foreshows him the desolations the Chaldeans will make in Judea, and the neighbouring countries, as the ministers of his vengeance. The prophet thereupon falls into a holy expostulation with God about these proceedings, moved thereunto, as it seems, by the impatience of the Jews, who justified themselves in comparison’of their conquerors: to ^vhich he receives an answer in the following chapter. scornful: the following words the same translation renders, And wonder and perish; which sense he proves the word tamah will admit.

Habakkuk 1:1

JL HE burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. The word burden is commonly explained of a burdensome prophecy, big with ruin and destruction. (See the note upon Jer. xxiii. 33.) But a learned prelate, in his Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 10/observcs, that the Hebrew; massa, signifies no more than barely a prophecy, and so is translated in our English Bibles, Prov. xxxi.l. and is often translated by vision and prophecy in the LXX. and other ancient versions; the word being used in that sense, from the prophet’s bearing or feeling within him the influence of God’s Spirit: for which reason they were called in Greek, Ozofyvpot, and Tlvzvparofyopou

Habakkuk 1:2

How long shall I cry unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save?. The prophet proposes the common objections against providence, taken from the prosperity of the wicked, and the oppression of the righteous, which has been a stumbling-block even to good men. (See Job xii. 1. 6. xxi. 7. Psal. xxxvii. lxxiii. Jer, xii. 1.)

Habakkuk 1:3

And there are that raise up strife and contention^. Or, There is strife, and contention carries it: they that are best skilled in the arts of contention carry the cause.

Habakkuk 1:4

And judgment doth never go forth. Or, Doth not go forth to perfection; is never rightly and duly administered. For the wicked doth compass about the righteous.] Doth overpower him.

Habakkuk 1:5

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and tvonder marvellously, &c. For a punishment to such exorbitant practices, behold God’s making the heathen, viz. the Chaldeans, (ver. G.) instruments of his vengeance: this is a judgment, you despisers of God’s prophets will hardly believe, when you consider that at present the Chaldeans are your friends and confederates: as appears by Josiah’s fighting with the king of Egypt, as being a confederate of the king of Assyria or Babylon. (See 2 Kings xxiii. 29. andDr. Prideaux, under the thirty-first year of Josiah.) St. Luke quoting this text according to the LXX.’s translation, Acts xiii. 41. reads it thus, Behold,ye despisers, and wonder, and perish. Tho learned Dr. Pocock, in his miscellaneous notes in PortamMosis, cap. 3. shews, that the interpretation is agreeable to the present Hebrew copy: the word bagojim, which we translate among the heathen, he derives from the verb baga, which still signifies, in Arabic, to be proud, or

Habakkuk 1:6

For, lo, I will raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, &e. Who should make several invasions into Judea, and at last utterly conquer it. (See 2 Kings xxiv. xxv.) They are said here to be cruel in their temper, and vigorous in their warlike expeditions. (Compare ver. 8.)

Habakkuk 1:7

Their judgment and their dignity [or, authority. shall proceed of themselves.] They will be theinown judges of what is right or wrong. The marginal reading in our English Bible does not seem to agree with the original.

Habakkuk 1:8

Their horses are more fierce than evening tvolves. Or, Are swifter than evening wolves, when they go out for their prey, and are pinched wdth hunger.- (See Psal. civ. 20. Jer. v. 6.) The words might be translated to an easier sense: Their horsemen are fiercer than evening wolves, and shall spread themselves, or shall be multiplied. And their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as an eagle, Sec] The words plainly allude to Deut. xxviii. 49, 50. (Compare Jer. v. 15.) The Chaldeans are said to come from far in respect of their neighbours the Philistines, Syrians, and Moabites, who used to infest Judea.

Habakkuk 1:9

Their faces shall sup up as the east wind. They shall destroy every thing where they march, as the east wind blasts the fruits of the earth. (Compare Ezek. xvii. 10. Hos. xiii. 15.) Some render the words, Whatsoever they gather, they shall carry it towards the east, meaning to Babylon, which lay north-east from Judea. And they shall gather captivity as the sand.] Not only in Judea, (see Jer. lii. 28—30.) but in all the neighbouring countries which they shall conquer. (See the following note.)

Habakkuk 1:10

And they shall scoff at the kings, &c. The Hebrew uses the singular number as well here as in the following verse; and is to be understood of the king of Babylon, who conquers kings and princes, and treats them with scorn and contempt: so they used Zedekiah and his princes, (see 2 Kings xxv. 6, 7. 18. 21.) and so they shall serve the. kings of Egypt and Tyre, and the princes of Moab, Edom, and the Philistines; who shall all of them successively be conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. (See Ezek. xxv. xxvi. xxix. xxxii.) JPor they shall heap dost, and take it.] Cast up mountains against them, and so take them. (See Jer. xxxii.. 24. xxxii i. 4.)

Habakkuk 1:11

Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and transgress, &c. The prophet speaks of the several kings of Babylon as if they were one and the same person; (see the note upon Isa. xxiii. 15.) and saith, that he shall change his mind with his fortune, and impute his success to his idol Belus; which was remarkably true of Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s successor: (see Dan. v. 4.) but we may understand the words of Nebuchadnezzar himself, if we translate the latter part of the verse thus, This his strength is his God; i. e. imputing all his success to his own prowess: (compare ver. 16.) and afterward, for those arrogant words of his, mentioned Dan. vi. 30. he was degraded into a beast.

Habakkuk 1:12

Art not thou from everlasting— ive shall not die. Thou that livest for ever, and whose word is as unchangeable as thyself, wilt preserve us from utter destruction, and in due time make good thy promises to us. (See Psal. cii. 27, 28.) TJiou hast ordained them for judgment, &e.] Thou hast appointed the Chaldeans to be instruments of thy vengeance upon sinners. (See 2 Kings xix. 25. Isa. x. 5—7.. Psal. xvii. 13. Ezek. xxx. 25.)

Habakkuk 1:13

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. : With any complaisance, or approbation. Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously,- and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?] Seemest to connive at, or dostnotshew any dislike at, the violence of those idolatrous. Chaldeans. •'

Habakkuk 1:14

And makest men as the fishes of the sea, &c. Suffereth the Chaldeans to treat them no better than fishes, who become a general prey to the fisherman’s net or angle."

Habakkuk 1:16

Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag. They impute all their victories to strength and skill, and make no acknowledgments to God for their success. (See ver. 11. Isa. x. 13. Deut. viii. 17, 18.) t..,.

Habakkuk 1:17

Shall they therefore empty their net?. Carry aw r ay the riches and treasures of their conquest (see 2 Kings xxiv. 13.) in order to undertake more; just as fishermen empty their ncts’to fill them again. But the words may be^ rendered, Shall he (see ver. 10.) castor spread his net? The Hebrew verb is, used of drawing a sword or spear: (see Ezek. xxviii. 7. Psal. xxxv. 3.) to this sense the Greek^ and Chaldee here understand it.