Habakkuk 1 commentary

HABAKKUK 1 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
I TRODUCTIO
THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY
As it has reached us, the Book of Habakkuk under the title "The Oracle which
Habakkuk the prophet received by vision," consists of three chapters, which fall
into three sections.
First: Habakkuk 1:2-17; Habakkuk 2:1-4 (or 8), a piece in dramatic form; the
prophet lifts his voice to God against the wrong and violence of which his whole
horizon is full, and God sends him answer.
Second: Habakkuk 2:5 (or 9-20), a taunt-song in a series of Woes upon the wrong-
doer.
Third: chapter 3, part psalm, part prayer, descriptive of a Theophany and
expressive of Israel’s faith in their God.
Of these three sections no one doubts the authenticity of the first; opinion is divided
about the second; about the third there is a growing agreement that it is not a
genuine work of Habakkuk, but a poem from a period after the Exile.
Commentary On The Prophecy of Habakkuk
by Dr Peter Pett BA BD (Hons-London) DD
Habakkuk prophesied at a time when the Babylonians were on the rise in the late
7th century BC, after the collapse of the Assyrian Empire, and the prophet is
informed that they were being used as a means of God’s judgment against Judah
and Jerusalem. evertheless his vision was not blinkered and he was well aware of
their dark side. Indeed He could not understand how God could use such an evil
nation in His purposes. But his even greater problem was as to how can God be
good and yet allow evil to continue?
His reply is twofold. Firstly that ‘the righteous man shall live by his faith.’ His
confidence and trust in God will give him life, so that he will trust God even in the
dark. And secondly that although He will use Babylon in the normal course of

history to chasten His people, He will finally judge them, and that, partly through
this, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of YHWH, and will come to know
that He is in His holy temple, with the result that they will worship before Him.
His name has been connected with the root ‘to embrace’ and also with the Akkadian
hambaququ referring to a plant, but nothing else is genuinely known about him.
THE PURPOSE OF HABAKKUK
Al Maxey, "The book of Habakkuk differs from other books of prophecy in one special
aspect. Instead of taking Jehovah's message directly to the people, he takes the complaint of
the people to Jehovah, representing them in the complaint" (Homer Hailey). Habakkuk is a
man of God; a man of faith; who is perplexed by what is happening around him. He doesn't
understand why God is doing what He is doing. It seems inconsistent with what has been
previously revealed.
Therefore, the prophet goes to God and asks some difficult questions, and he receives some
answers which greatly puzzle him. evertheless, through it all, whether he understands or
not, his faith in God never wavers!! "His spirit is deeply troubled .... How could God
permit so much suffering and death? How could God punish His own people, even though
they had sinned, by a nation that was even more wicked?" (Hester, The Heart of Hebrew
History). "How can a righteous God use the wicked Chaldeans to punish His people, which,
in spite of its apostasy, is still more righteous than they?" (Zondervan's Pictorial
Encyclopedia of the Bible).
“"Violence and law-breaking abounded, and the wicked seemed at least superficially to
triumph. According to all that Habakkuk knew about God's holiness and covenant (cf.
Deut. 26-33, on which Habakkuk seemed dependent), Yahweh should have arisen to correct
the situation, particularly in response to believing prayer for change by such as Habakkuk.
Such correction had not been forthcoming, and the prayers of the righteous and the
struggle for justice in the land seemed in vain, with the result that God's program of
redemptive history was threatened" (Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 7).
"Why is evil and suffering rampant in our world? Goodness and justice seem to fail! How
is it, God, that you are so against wrong but you go on tolerating wrong? God, is what you
are doing fair? Is this honestly the moral, ethical thing to do?" (D. Stuart Briscoe).
"Habakkuk is a freethinking prophet who is not afraid to wrestle with issues that test his
faith" (Expanded Open Bible). Such spiritual struggles are not new! "Jeremiah, too,
questions and expostulates with God as he struggles with the intractable problem of the
prosperity of the wicked --- Jeremiah 12:1-4; 13:17; 15:10-18; 20:7-18" ( ew Layman's
Bible Commentary).
The book of Job also discusses the question of why the individual righteous man or woman
suffers. This is further discussed in Psalm 37, 49 and 73. In the noncanonical literature it is
discussed in such places as --- IV Ezra 3:29-36 and II Baruch 11:1-7. "How can one justify
the facts of life with the doctrine of an all-powerful but just God who is active in history?
Events do not seem to bear out the doctrine that sin brings retribution. God seems
inactive!" (Jack Lewis). This was the problem with which Habakkuk wrestled!
"Where men attempt to think through the age-old problem of evil and seek to relate the
grim facts of history to a God of justice and power who holds all in His control, they find

themselves drawn to Habakkuk" ( ew Layman's Bible Commentary).
1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet
received.
BAR ES, "The burden - On the word “burden” see the note at Nah_1:1.
Which Habakkuk the prophet did see - The prophet’s name signifies “strong
embrace.” The word in its intensive form is used both of God’s enfolding the soul within
His tender supporting love , and of man clinging and holding fast to divine wisdom Pro_
4:8. It fits in with the subject of his prophecy, faith, cleaving fast to God amid the
perplexities of things seen. Dion.: “He who is spiritually Habakkuk, cleaving fast to God
with the arms of love, or enfolding Him after the manner of one holily wrestling, until he
is blessed, enlightened, and heard by Him, is the seer here.” “Let him who would in such
wise fervidly embrace God and plead with Him as a friend, praying earnestly for the
deliverance and consolation of himself and others, but who sees not as yet, that his
prayer is heard, make the same holy plaint, and appeal to the clemency of the Creator.”
(Jer. Abarbanel has the like: “He strengthens himself in pleading his cause with God as
to the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar as if he were joined with God for the cause of his
people” Preface to Ezekiel). “He is called ‘embrace’ either because of his love to the Lord;
or because he engages in a contest and strife and (so to speak) wrestling with God.” For
no one with words so bold ventured to challenge God to a discussion of His justice and
to say to Him, “Why, in human affairs and the government of this world is there so great
injustice?”
The prophet - The title, “the prophet,” is added only to the names of Habakkuk,
Haggai, Zechariah. Habakkuk may have added it to his name instead because he
prominently expostulates with God, like the Psalmists, and does not speak in the name
of God to the people. The title asserts that he exercised the pastoral office of the
prophets, although not directly in this prophecy.
Did see - Cyril: “God multiplied visons, as is written Hos_12:10, and Himself spoke
to the prophets, disclosing to them beforehand what should be, and all but exhibiting
them to sight, as if already present. But that they determined not to speak from their
own, but rather transmit to us the words from God, he persuades us at the outset,
naming himself a prophet, and showing himself full of the grace belonging thereto.”
CLARKE, "The burden - ‫המשא‬ hammassa signifies not only the burdensome
prophecy, but the prophecy or revelation itself which God presented to the mind of

Habakkuk, and which he saw-clearly perceived, in the light of prophecy and then
faithfully declared, as this book shows. The word signifies an oracle or revelation in
general; but chiefly, one relative to future calamities.
GILL, "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. This prophecy is
called a "burden", or something took up and carried, being what the prophet received
from the Lord, and went with to the people of the Jews, and was a heavy burdensome
prophecy to them; declaring the calamities that should come upon them by the
Chaldeans, who would invade their land, and carry them captive; and Habakkuk, that
brought this account, is called a "prophet", to give the greater sanction to it; and it was
what he had in vision from the Lord represented unto him, and therefore should be
credited. Abarbinel inquires why Habakkuk should be called a prophet, when none of
the lesser prophets are, excepting Haggai and Zechariah; and thinks the reason of it is, to
give weight to his prophecy, since it might be suspected by some whether he was one;
there being none of those phrases to be met with in this prophecy as in others, as "the
word of the Lord came", &c. or "thus saith the Lord".
HE RY 1-4, "We are told no more in the title of this book (which we have, Hab_1:1)
than that the penman was a prophet, a man divinely inspired and commissioned, which
is enough (if that be so, we need not ask concerning his tribe or family, or the place of his
birth), and that the book itself is the burden which he saw; he was as sure of the truth of
it as if he had seen it with his bodily eyes already accomplished. Here, in these verses,
the prophet sadly laments the iniquity of the times, as one sensibly touched with grief for
the lamentable decay of religion and righteousness. It is a very melancholy complaint
which he here makes to God, 1. That no man could call what he had his own; but, in
defiance of the most sacred laws of property and equity, he that had power on his side
had what he had a mind to, though he had no right on his side: The land was full of
violence, as the old world was, Gen_6:11. The prophet cries out of violence (Hab_1:2),
iniquity and grievance, spoil and violence. In families and among relations, in
neighbour-hoods and among friends, in commerce and in courts of law, every thing was
carried with a high hand, and no man made any scruple of doing wrong to his neighbour,
so that he could but make a good hand of it for himself. It does not appear that the
prophet himself had any great wrong done him (in losing times it fared best with those
that had nothing to lose), but it grieved him to see other people wronged, and he could
not but mingle his tears with those of the oppressed. Note, Doing wrong to harmless
people, as it is an iniquity in itself, so it is a great grievance to all that are concerned for
God's Jerusalem, who sigh and cry for abominations of this kind. He complains (Hab_
1:4) that the wicked doth compass about the righteous. One honest man, one honest
cause, shall have enemies besetting it on every side; many wicked men, in confederacy
against it, run it down; nay, one wicked man (for it is singular) with so many various arts
of mischief sets upon a righteous man, that he perfectly besets him. 2. That the kingdom
was broken into parties and factions that were continually biting and devouring one
another. This is a lamentation to all the sons of peace: There are that raise up strife and
contention (Hab_1:3), that foment divisions, widen breaches, incense men against one
another, and sow discord among brethren, by doing the work of him that is the accuser
of the brethren. Strifes and contentions that have been laid asleep, and begun to be
forgotten, they awake, and industriously raise up again, and blow up the sparks that
were hidden under the embers. And, if blessed are the peace-makers, cursed are such
peace-breakers, that make parties, and so make mischief that spreads further, and lasts

longer, than they can imagine. It is sad to see bad men warming their hands at those
flames which are devouring all that is good in a nation, and stirring up the fire too. 3.
That the torrent of violence and strife ran so strongly as to bid defiance to the restraints
and regulations of laws and the administration of justice, Hab_1:4. Because God did not
appear against them, nobody else would; therefore the law is slacked, is silent; it
breathes not; its pulse beats not (so, it is said, the word signifies); it intermits, and
judgment does not go forth as it should; no cognizance is taken of those crimes, no
justice done upon the criminals; nay, wrong judgment proceeds; if appeals be made to
the courts of equity, the righteous shall be condemned and the wicked justified, so that
the remedy proves the worst disease. The legislative power takes no care to supply the
deficiencies of the law for the obviating of those growing threatening mischiefs; the
executive power takes no care to answer the good intentions of the laws that are made;
the stream of justice is dried up by violence, and has not its free course. 4. That all this
was open and public, and impudently avowed; it was barefaced. The prophet complains
that this iniquity was shown him; he beheld it which way soever he turned his eyes, nor
could he look off it: Spoiling and violence are before me. Note, The abounding of
wickedness in a nation is a very great eye-sore to good people, and, if they did not see it,
they could not believe it to be so bad as it is. Solomon often complains of the vexation of
this kind which he saw under the sun; and the prophet would therefore gladly turn
hermit, that he might not see it, Jer_9:2. But then we must needs go out of the world,
which therefore we should long to do, that we may remove to that world where holiness
and love reign eternally, and no spoiling and violence shall be before us. 5. That he
complained of this to God, but could not obtain a redress of those grievances: “Lord,”
says he, “why dost thou show me iniquity? Why hast thou cast my lot in a time and place
when and where it is to be seen, and why do I continue to sojourn in Mesech and Kedar?
I cry to thee of this violence; I cry aloud; I have cried long; but thou wilt not hear, thou
wilt not save; thou dost not take vengeance on the oppressors, nor do justice to the
oppressed, as if thy arm were shortened or thy ear heavy.” When God seems to connive
at the wickedness of the wicked, nay, and to countenance it, by suffering them to prosper
in their wickedness, it shocks the faith of good men, and proves a sore temptation to
them to say, We have cleansed our hearts in vain (Psa_73:13), and hardens those in
their impiety who say, God has forsaken the earth. We must not think it strange if
wickedness be suffered to prevail far and prosper long. God has reasons, and we are sure
they are good reasons, both for the reprieves of bad men and the rebukes of good men;
and therefore, though we plead with him, and humbly expostulate concerning his
judgments, yet we must say, “He is wise, and righteous, and good, in all,” and must
believe the day will come, though it may be long deferred, when the cry of sin will be
heard against those that do wrong and the cry of prayer for those that suffer it.
JAMISO , "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.
burden — the prophetic sentence.
K&D, "Hab_1:1 contains the heading not only to ch. 1 and 2, but to the whole book,
of which ch. 3 forms an integral part. On the special heading in Hab_3:1, see the comm.

on that verse. The prophet calls his writing a massâ', or burden (see at Nah_1:1), because
it announces heavy judgments upon the covenant nation and the imperial power.
CALVI , "The greater part of interpreters refer this burden to the Chaldeans and
the monarchy of Babylon; but of this view I do not approve, and a good reason
compels me to dissent from their opinion: for as the Prophet addresses the Jews, and
without any addition calls his prophecy a burden, there is no doubt but that he
refers to them. Besides, their view seems wholly inconsistent, because the Prophet
dreads the future devastation of the land, and complains to God for allowing His
chosen and elect people to be so cruelly treated. What others think is more correct—
that this burden belonged to the Jews.
What the Prophet understood by the word ‫,משא‬ mesha, has been elsewhere stated.
Habakkuk then reproves here his own nation, and shows that they had in vain
disdainfully resisted all God’s prophets, for they would at length find that their
threatening would be accomplished. The burden, then, which the Prophet
Habakkuk saw, was this—That God, after having exercised long forbearance
towards the Jews, would at length be the punisher of their many sins. It now
follows—
COFFMA , "This chapter begins with the salutation (Habakkuk 1:1), and a
plaintive summary of Judah's wickedness (Habakkuk 1:2,3). Then comes the bold
and courageous prophecy of the destruction of Judah by the Chaldeans (Habakkuk
1:4-11). But Habakkuk had a problem with regard to the inherent justice of God
who would use the wicked Babylonians against a people who, wicked as they were,
were yet better than the Babylonians. As a result of that problem, Habakkuk did
not withdraw from God and assume the status of an enemy; but he boldly presented
it (Habakkuk 1:12-17) and waited patiently for the answer, which came, of course,
in the opening verses of the next chapter. It is well to keep in mind that Habakkuk's
concern here was the inherent justice or righteousness of God, a fact that
corroborates that as the subject of the apostle Paul in Romans 1:17ff.
Habakkuk 1:1
"The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see."
"Burden..." "This noun, translated in other versions as oracle, utterance, or lifted
up, is synonymous with revelation, a revelation which had come from God."[1] The
RSV is therefore correct in the addition of "from God." "It became a technical term
for a prophecy spoken against a nation under judgment";[2] and that is the usual
meaning of it in the Old Testament. ahum is a "burden" against Assyria; and
Habakkuk is a "burden" against both Judah and Babylon. Although the wickedness
of Judah is outlined, and the agent of their doom prophesied, the prophet
nevertheless directed his words, not to Judah, but "almost entirely to God or the
Chaldeans."[3]

COKE, "Habakkuk 1:1. The burden, &c.— The sentence, or prophesy. The prophet
in the first four verses inveighs against the irregularities of Judah; and in the 6th
verse he speaks of the coming of the Chaldeans into the country as of a thing
entirely new; and as if those people had been called into existence for the very
purpose of punishing the Jewish nation. See Calmet.
CO STABLE, "Verse 1
I. HEADI G1:1
The writer described this book as an oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw in a
vision or dream. This burden (Heb. massa", something lifted up) was a message
predicting judgment on Judah and Babylon.
"Habakkuk"s prophecy possesses a burdensome dimension from start to finish."
[ ote: Robertson, p135.]
We know nothing more about Habakkuk with certainty than that he was a prophet
who also had the ability to write poetry (ch3).
"Like Haggai and Zechariah in the books that bear their names ( Haggai 1:1;
Zechariah 1:1) Habakkuk is called the prophet. This may mean that Habakkuk was
a professional prophet on the temple staff ..." [ ote: F. F. Bruce, " Habakkuk ," in
The Minor Prophets, p842. Johannes Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel, pp208 ,
254 , advanced this view. ]
These temple prophets led the people in worshipping God (cf. 1 Chronicles 25:1).
[ ote: On the subject of prophets who led the people in worship, see Aubrey R.
Johnson, The Cultic Prophet in Ancient Israel.]
"One of the functions of temple prophets was to give responses to worshipers who
came seeking divine guidance: when the problem was stated, the prophet inquired
of God and obtained an answer." [ ote: Bruce, p832.]
Piper, “The situation which Habakkuk faces is the imminent invasion of the southern
kingdom of Judah by the Chaldeans (who are the same as the Babylonians). This
invasion eventually happened at the end of the sixth century B.C. and Jerusalem fell to
Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. The Lord revealed to Habakkuk beforehand that Judah
was going to be punished for her sin by the Chaldeans. Unlike Joel and Zephaniah and
Amos, Habakkuk does not even mention the possibility that destruction could be
averted. He does not call for national repentance. It is too late. Instead, he predicts the
destruction of Judah and beyond that the doom of the Chaldeans themselves. And he
promises that the only way to preserve your life through the judgment is by faith. So
even though destruction is decreed for the nation, there is hope for individuals who hold
fast their confidence in God. The full-blown doctrine of justification by faith as Paul
taught it in Romans and Galatians, is not yet here. But the seed is here. So what I would
like to do today is survey the content of this prophetic book, then focus on its main point
and how it unfolds in the New Testament as the great gospel truth of justification by

faith.
TRAPP, "Verse 1
Habakkuk 1:1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
Ver. 1. The burden] The prophetic burden, saith the Chaldea paraphrast; the
burdenous prophecy, saith Tremellius. {See Trapp on "Malachi 1:1"}
Which Habakkuk the prophet did see] Amplexator ille, That embracer (so some
interpret his name), yea, Optimus Amplexator (as they gather from the last radical
emphatically doubled), That best embracer. Et carte omen habet nomen, He hath
not his name for nought; for (as Luther writeth) in this prophecy he loveth and
huggeth his afflicted countrymen; he helps and solaces them, as the mother doth her
crying babe, to still it. Jerome and others make Habakkuk to signify Luctatorem
amplex stringentem, a wrestler, that, by closing, strives to prevail; that, by might
and slight, seeks to get the better. Such a one was Jacob, whose wrestling was by
weeping, and his prevailing by praying, Hosea 12:4. Such another was Habakkuk,
who argueth earnestly with God about the state of his people, and prayeth ardently
for them; not doubting but that the Lord would "preserve the faithful, and
plentifully reward the proud doer," Psalms 31:23. A prophet he is here styled, and a
seer, and that is all is said of him; nothing of his pedigree, or time of prophesying;
that the word (and not the man) might be glorified, Acts 13:47. Regis epistolis
acceptis, saith Gregory; when a king’s letters are brought to his subjects, it is a
ridiculous thing for them to inquire with what pen they were written; it is the
matter must be minded: so here. A prophet Habakkuk was; and is therefore to be
received into our hearts, if we look for a prophet’s reward. He received heavenly
visions, whereunto therefore we must not be disobedient, Acts 26:19. That
memorable sentence of his, "The just shal1 live by faith," is more than once made
use of by St Paul, in that weighty business of justification, Romans 1:17, Galatians
3:11, which proves the canonical authority of this prophecy. The precise time when
it was uttered is not known. In the days of Manasseh most think; but some are of the
opinion in Josiah’s time rather, or not long before; because he foretelleth the
Babylonish captivity, and seemeth to agree with Jeremiah in many things. Sure it is,
that this prophet lived not after the captivity, [Habakkuk 1:6-7] as Epiphanius and
Jerome would have it; grounding upon those Apocryphal additions to Daniel, which
either are false, or else there were two Habakkuks.
ELLICOTT, "(1) The prophet.—This title (han-nâbî) is applied only to Habakkuk,
Haggai, and Zechariah. In the later historical books it is used to designate the
members of those prophetical colleges which were founded by Samuel, and kept up,
at all events, till the time of Elisha. It is uncertain whether in these three minor
prophets it has a similar force, or merely, as in the Pentateuch, indicates a chosen
minister whom God inspires to reveal His will. On the term burden, or sentence, see
Isaiah 13:1.

Al Maxey “The name Habakkuk is an unusual one of uncertain meaning. Some feel
it comes from the Hebrew word Habaq which means "to embrace" --- thus, his name would
signify an "ardent embrace." "At the end of his book this name becomes appropriate
because Habakkuk chooses to cling firmly to (embrace) God regardless of what happens to
his nation --- 3:16-19" (Expanded Open Bible). Jerome preferred the idea of embracing so
as to wrestle, "because he wrestled with God." Martin Luther seemed to favor this idea,
saying, "It is certainly not unfitting, for in this little book we see a man, in deadly earnest,
wrestling with the mighty problem of theodicy (the divine justice) in a topsy-turvy world."
“Others have suggested that his name was derived from an Assyrian flower --- Hambaququ
--- but there is no way to verify this. According to a popular Jewish tradition he was the son
of the Shunammite woman, since Elisha told her, "At this season next year you shall
embrace (habaq) a son" (II Kings 4:16). A second tradition identifies him with the
"watchman" of Isaiah 21:6. Further legendary material may be gleaned from the pages of
the Apocryphal book Bel and The Dragon (vs. 33-42), where an angel carries this prophet
by his hair to Babylon to feed Daniel in the lions' den.
“ ow the prophet Habakkuk was in Judea; he had made a
stew and crumbled bread into the bowl, and he was on the
way to his field, carrying it to the reapers, when an angel
of the Lord said, 'Habakkuk, carry the meal you have with
you to Babylon, for Daniel, who is in the lion-pit.' Habakkuk
said, 'My Lord, I have never been to Babylon. I do not know
where the lion-pit is.' Then the angel took the prophet by the
crown of his head, and carrying him by his hair, he swept
him to Babylon with the blast of his breath and put him down
above the pit. Habakkuk called out, 'Daniel, Daniel, take the
meal that God has sent you!' Daniel said, 'O God, thou dost
indeed remember me; thou dost never forsake those who
love thee.' Then he got up and ate; and God's angel returned
Habakkuk at once to his home. On the seventh day the king
went to mourn for Daniel, but when he arrived at the pit and
looked in, there sat Daniel! Then the king cried aloud, 'Great
art thou, O Lord, the God of Daniel, and there is no God but
thou alone.' So the king drew Daniel up; and the men who
had planned to destroy him he flung into the pit, and then
and there they were eaten up before his eyes.”
The meaning of Habakkuk is uncertain. It may come from the Hebrew word Habaq which means
"to embrace"; if such is the case, it would be appropriate to the character of the book’s author.
For, it is evident that Habakkuk was determined to cling to (embrace) the Lord no matter
what happened either to Judah or himself. Martin Luther favored this meaning when he
wrote: "It is certainly not unfitting, for in this little book we see a man, in deadly earnest,
wrestling with the mighty problem of theodicy (divine justice) in a topsy-turvy world."
Who Was Habakkuk?
Habakkuk gives us a little more information about himself than other prophets, though
he does so indirectly.

His knowledge of music (3:1) and his familiarity with temple worship (3:19) are strong
clues to Habakkuk’s identity. His use of the pronoun "my" in 3:19 shows that he was
"officially qualified to take part in the liturgical singing of the temple, and therefore
belonged to one of the Levitical families, who were charged with the maintenance of
the temple music, and, like the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who sprang from
priestly households, belonged to the tribe of Levi."1
The claim of Levitical descent for Habakkuk seems reasonable and not problematic.
One must, however, consider that "neither David nor Hezekiah were Levites, and yet
they sang in the temple with their stringed instruments (Isaiah 38:20)"2. Whether or
not he was a Levite, he was without question a musician with access to the Temple.
Habakkuk’s introduction to his psalm in chapter three states the kind of song it is: it is
a Shigionoth. This is a "reeling song, i.e., a song delivered in the greatest excitement,
or with a rapid change of emotion... after the manner of a stormy, martial, and
triumphal ode"2.
He uses the same kind of musical-liturgical introduction to his psalm as other song-
and psalm-writers used - he specifies the type of melody, or style, in which it is to be
sung (see Psalm 6:1; 12:1; 22:1; 56:1; 67:1). From these passages one also can see
that the primary instrument to be played is also prescribed.
Assuming Habakkuk was a Levitical musician serving in the Temple in Jerusalem,
Habakkuk was in a unique position to observe the general religious attitude of Judah.
He is touched deeply by apathy toward God and how it is demonstrated in violence
and injustice (1:2-4).
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY
Verses 1-17
Habakkuk 1:1-17
Habakkuk 1:2-17; Habakkuk 2:1-4 (or 8)
Yet it is the first piece which raises the most difficult questions. All admit that it is to
be dated somewhere along the line of Jeremiah’s long career, c. 627-586. There is no
doubt about the general trend of the argument: it is a plaint to God on the
sufferings of the righteous under tyranny, with God’s answer. But the order and
connection of the paragraphs of the argument are not clear. There is also difference
of opinion as to who the tyrant is-native, Assyrian, or Chaldee; and this leads to a
difference, of course, about the date, which ranges from the early years of Josiah to
the end of Jehoiakim’s reign, or from about 630 to 597.
As the verses lie, their argument is this. In Habakkuk 1:2-4 Habakkuk asks the
Lord how long the wicked are to oppress the righteous, to the paralyzing of the
Torah, or revelation of His Law, and the making futile of judgment. For answer the

Lord tells him, Habakkuk 1:5-11, to look round among the heathen: He is about to
raise up the Chaldees to do His work, a people swift, self-reliant, irresistible. Upon
which Habakkuk resumes his question, Habakkuk 1:12-17, how long will God
suffer a tyrant who sweeps up the peoples into his net like fish? Is he to go on with
this forever? In Habakkuk 2:1 Habakkuk prepares for an answer, which comes in
Habakkuk 2:2-4 : let the prophet wait for the vision though it tarries; the proud
oppressor cannot last, but the righteous shall live by his constancy, or faithfulness.
The difficulties are these. Who are the wicked oppressors in Habakkuk 1:2-4? Are
they Jews, or some heathen nation? And what is the connection between Habakkuk
1:1-4 and Habakkuk 1:5-11? Are the Chaldees, who are described in the latter,
raised up to punish the tyrant complained against in the former? To these questions
three different sets of answers have been given.
First: the great majority of critics take the wrong complained of in Habakkuk 1:2-4
to be wrong done by unjust and cruel Jews to their countrymen, that is, civic
disorder and violence, and believe that in Habakkuk 1:5-11 Jehovah is represented
as raising up the Chaldees to punish the sin of Judah-a message which is pretty
much the same as Jeremiah’s. But Habakkuk goes further: the Chaldees themselves
with their cruelties aggravate his problem how God can suffer wrong, and he
appeals again to God, Habakkuk 1:12-17. Are the Chaldees to be allowed to
devastate forever? The answer is given, as above, in Habakkuk 2:1-4. Such is
practically the view of Pusey, Delitzsch, Kleinert, Kuenen, Sinker, Driver, Orelli,
Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer, and Davidson, a formidable league, and Davidson says
"this is the most natural sense of the verses and of the words used in them." But
these scholars differ as to the date. Pusey, Delitzsch, and Volck take the whole
passage from Habakkuk 1:5 as prediction, and date it from before the rise of the
Chaldee power in 625, attributing the internal wrongs of Judah described in
Habakkuk 1:2-4 to Manasseh’s reign or the early years of Josiah. But the rest, on
the grounds that the prophet shows some experience of the Chaldean methods of
warfare, and that the account of the internal disorder in Judah does not suit
Josiah’s reign, bring the passage down to the reign of Jehoiakim, 608-598, or of
Jehoiachin, 597. Kleinert and Von Orelli date it before the battle of Carchemish,
605, in which the Chaldean ebuchadrezzar wrested from Egypt the Empire of the
Western Asia, on the ground that after that Habakkuk could not have called a
Chaldean invasion of Judah incredible. [Habakkuk 1:5] But Kuenen, Driver,
Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer, and Davidson date it after Carchemish. To Driver it must
be immediately after, and before Judah became alarmed at the consequences to
herself. To Davidson the description of the Chaldeans "is scarcely conceivable
before the battle," "hardly one would think before the deportation of the people
under Jehoiachin." This also is Kuenen’s view, who thinks that Judah must have
suffered at least the first Chaldean raids, and he explains the use of an undoubted
future in Habakkuk 1:5, "Lo, I am about to raise up the Chaldeans," as due to the
prophet’s predilection for a dramatic style. "He sets himself in the past, and
represents the already experienced chastisement [of Judah] as having been then
announced by Jehovah. His contemporaries could not have mistaken his meaning."

Second: others, however, deny that Habakkuk 1:2-4 refers to the internal disorder
of Judah, except as the effect of foreign tyranny. The "righteous" mentioned there
are Israel as a whole, "the wicked" their heathen oppressors. So Hitzig, Ewald,
Konig, and practically Smend. Ewald is so clear that Habakkuk ascribes no sin to
Judah, that he says we might be led by this to assign the prophecy to the reign of the
righteous Josiah; but he prefers, because of the vivid sense which the prophet
betrays of actual experience of the Chaldees, to date the passage from the reign of
Jehoiakim, and to explain Habakkuk’s silence about his people’s sinfulness as due
to his overwhelming impression of Chaldean cruelty. Konig takes Habakkuk 1:2-4
as a general complaint of the violence that fills the prophet’s day, and Habakkuk
1:5-11 as a detailed description of the Chaldeans, the instruments of this violence.
Habakkuk 1:5-11, therefore, give not the judgment upon the wrongs described in
Habakkuk 1:2-4, but the explanation of them. Lebanon is already wasted by the
Chaldeans; [Habakkuk 2:17] therefore the whole prophecy must be assigned to the
days of Jehoiakim. Giesebrecht and Wellhausen adhere to the view that no sins of
Judah are mentioned, but that the "righteous." and "wicked" of Habakkuk 1:4 are
the same as in Habakkuk 1:13, viz., Israel and a heathen tyrant. But this leads them
to dispute that the present order of the paragraphs of the prophecy is the right one.
In Habakkuk 1:5 the Chaldeans are represented as about to be raised up for the
first time, although their violence has already been described in Habakkuk 1:1-4,
and in Habakkuk 1:12-17 these are already in full career. Moreover Habakkuk 1:12
follows on naturally to Habakkuk 1:4. Accordingly these critics would remove the
section Habakkuk 1:5-11. Giesebrecht prefixes it to Habakkuk 1:1, and dates the
whole passage from the Exile. Wellhausen calls Habakkuk 1:5-11 an older passage
than the rest of the prophecy, and removes it altogether as not Habakkuk’s. To the
latter he assigns what remains, Habakkuk 1:1-4; Habakkuk 1:12-17; Habakkuk 1:2
I-5, and dates it from the reign of Jehoiakim.
Third: from each of these groups of critics Budde of Strasburg borrows something,
but so as to construct an arrangement of the verses, and to reach a date, for the
whole, from which both differ. With Hitzig, Ewald, Konig, Smend, Giesebrecht, and
Wellhausen he agrees that the violence complained of in Habakkuk 1:2-4 is that
inflicted by a heathen oppressor, "the wicked," on the Jewish nation, the
"righteous." But with Kuenen and others he holds that the Chaldeans are raised up,
according to Habakkuk 1:5-11, to punish the violence complained of in Habakkuk
1:2-4 and again in Habakkuk 1:12-17. In these verses it is the ravages of another
heathen power than the Chaldeans which Budde describes. The Chaldeans are still
to come, and cannot be the same as the devastator whose long continued tyranny is
described in Habakkuk 1:12-17. They are rather the power which is to punish him.
He can only be the Assyrian. But if that be so, the proper place for the passage,
Habakkuk 1:5-11, which describes the rise of the Chaldeans must be after the
description of the Assyrian ravages in Habakkuk 1:12-17, and in the body of God’s
answer to the prophet which we find in Habakkuk 2:2 ff. Budde therefore places
Habakkuk 1:5-11 after Habakkuk 2:2-4. But if the Chaldeans are still to come, and
Budde thinks that they are described vaguely and with a good deal of imagination,
the prophecy thus arranged must fall somewhere between 625, when abopolassar
the Chaldean made himself independent of Assyria and King of Babylon, and 607,

when Assyria fell. That the prophet calls Judah "righteous" is proof that he wrote
after the great Reform of 621; hence, too, his reference to Torah and Mishpat,
[Habakkuk 1:4] and his complaint of the obstacles which Assyrian supremacy
presented to their free course. As the Assyrian yoke appears not to have been felt
anywhere in Judah by 608, Budde would fix the exact date of Habakkuk’s prophecy
about 615. To these conclusions of Budde, Cornill, who in 1891 had very confidently
assigned the prophecy of Habakkuk to the reign of Jehoiakim, gave his adherence in
1896.
Budde’s very able and ingenious argument has been subjected to a searching
criticism by Professor Davidson, who emphasizes first the difficulty of accounting
for the transposition of Habakkuk 1:5-11 from what Budde alleges to have been its
original place after Habakkuk 2:4 to its present position in chapter 1. He points out
that if Habakkuk 1:2-4; Habakkuk 1:12-17 and Habakkuk 2:5 ff. refer to the
Assyrian, it is strange the latter is not once mentioned. Again, by 615 we may infer
(though we know little of Assyrian history at this time) that the Assyrian’s hold on
Judah was already too relaxed for the prophet to impute to him power to hinder the
Law, especially as Josiah had begun to carry his reforms into the northern
kingdom: and the knowledge of the Chaldeans displayed in Habakkuk 1:5-11 is too
fresh and detailed to suit so early a date: it was possible only after the battle of
Carchemish. And again, it is improbable that we have two different nations, as
Budde thinks, described by the very similar phrases in Habakkuk 1:11, "his own
power becomes his god," and in Habakkuk 1:16, "he sacrifices to his net." Again,
Habakkuk 1:5-11 would not read quite naturally after Habakkuk 2:4. And in the
woes pronounced on the oppressor it is not one nation, the Chaldeans, which are to
spoil him, but all the remnant of the peoples. [Habakkuk 2:7-8] These objections are
not inconsiderable. But are they conclusive? And if not, is any of the other theories
of the prophecy less beset with difficulties? The objections are scarcely conclusive.
We have no proof that the power of Assyria was altogether removed from Judah by
615; on the contrary, even in 608 Assyria was still the power with which Egypt went
forth to contend for the empire of the world. Seven years earlier her hand may well
have been strong upon Palestine. Again, by 615 the Chaldeans, a people famous in
Western Asia for a long time, had been ten years independent: men in Palestine may
have been familiar with their methods of warfare: at least it is impossible to say they
were not. There is more weight in the objection drawn from the absence of the name
of Assyria from all of the passages which Budde alleges describe it; nor do we get
over all difficulties of text by inserting Habakkuk 1:5-11 between Habakkuk 2:4-5.
Besides, how does Budde explain Habakkuk 1:12 b on the theory that it means
Assyria? Is the clause not premature at that point? Does he propose to elide it, like
Wellhausen? And in any case an erroneous transposition of the original is
impossible to prove and difficult to account for. But have not the other theories of
the Book of Habakkuk equally great difficulties? Surely, we cannot say that the
"righteous" and the "wicked" in Habakkuk 1:4 mean something different from
what they do in Habakkuk 1:13? But if this is impossible the construction of the
book supported by the great majority of critics falls to the ground. Professor
Davidson justly says that it has "something artificial in it" and "puts a strain on the
natural sense." How can the Chaldeans be described in Habakkuk 1:5 as "just

about to be raised up," and in Habakkuk 1:14-17 as already for a long time the
devastators of earth? Ewald’s, Hitzig’s, and Konig’s views are equally beset by these
difficulties; Konig’s exposition also "strains the natural sense." Everything, in fact,
points to Habakkuk 1:5-11 being out of its proper place; it is no wonder that
Giesebreeht, Wellhausen, and Budde independently arrived at this conclusion.
Whether Budde be right in inserting Habakkuk 1:5. If after Habakkuk 2:4, there
can be little doubt of the correctness of his views that Habakkuk 1:12-17 describe a
heathen oppressor who is not the Chaldeans. Budde says this oppressor is Assyria.
Can he be any one else? From 608 to 605 Judah was sorely beset by Egypt, who had
overrun all Syria up to the Euphrates. The Egyptians killed Josiah, deposed his
successor, and put their own vassal under a very heavy tribute; "gold and silver
were exacted of the people of the land": the picture of distress in Habakkuk 1:1-4
might easily be that of Judah in these three terrible years. And if we assigned the
prophecy to them, we should certainly give it a date at which the knowledge of the
Chaldeans expressed in Habakkuk 1:5-11 was more probable than at Budde’s date
of 615. But then does the description in chap. Habakkuk 1:14-17 suit Egypt so well
as it does Assyria? We can hardly affirm this, until we know more of what Egypt
did in those days, but it is very probable.
Therefore, the theory supported by the majority of critics being unnatural, we are,
with our present meager knowledge of the time, flung back upon Budde’s
interpretation that the prophet in Habakkuk 1:2-17; Habakkuk 2:1-4 appeals from
oppression by a heathen power, which is not the Chaldean, but upon which the
Chaldean shall bring the just vengeance of God. The tyrant is either Assyria up to
about 615 or Egypt from 608 to 605, and there is not a little to be said for the latter
date.
In arriving at so uncertain a conclusion about Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4, we
have but these consolations, that no other is possible in our present knowledge, and
that the uncertainty will not hamper us much in our appreciation of Habakkuk’s
spiritual attitude and poetic gifts.
FURTHER OTE O
Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4
Since this chapter was in print owack’s "Die Kleinen Propheten" in the
"Handkommentar z. A.T." has been published. He recognizes emphatically that the
disputed passage about the Chaldeans, Habakkuk 1:5-9, is out of place where it lies
(this against Kuenen and the other authorities cited above), and admits that it
follows on, with a natural connection, to Habakkuk 2:4, to which Budde proposes to
attach it. evertheless for other reasons, which he does not state, he regards
Budde’s proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed passage to be by another
hand than Habakkuk’s, and intruded into the latter’s argument. Habakkuk’s
argument he assigns to after 605; perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against
would therefore be the Chaldean.-Driver in the 6th edition of his "Introduction"
(1897) deems Budde’s argument "too ingenious," and holds by the older and most

numerously supported argument (above).-On a review of the case in the light of
these two discussions, the present writer holds to his opinion that Budde’s
rearrangement, which he has adopted, offers the fewest difficulties.
THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC
Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4
OF the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that is personal save his name - to our
ears his somewhat odd name. It is the intensive form of a root which means to caress
or embrace. More probably it was given to him as a child, than afterwards assumed
as a symbol of his clinging to God.
Tradition says that Habakkuk was a priest, the son of Joshua, of the tribe of Levi,
but this is only an inference from the late liturgical notes to the Psalm which has
been appended to his prophecy. All that we know for certain is that he was a
contemporary of Jeremiah, with a sensitiveness under wrong and impulses to
question God which remind us of Jeremiah; but with a literary power which is quite
his own. We may emphasize the latter, even though we recognize upon his writing
the influence of Isaiah’s.
Habakkuk’s originality, however, is deeper than style. He is the earliest who is
known to us of a new school of religion in Israel. He is called "prophet," but at first
he does not adopt the attitude which is characteristic of the prophets. His face is set
in an opposite direction to theirs. They address the nation Israel, on behalf of God:
he rather speaks to God on behalf of Israel. Their task was Israel’s sin, the
proclamation of God’s doom, and the offer of His grace to their penitence.
Habakkuk’s task is God Himself, the effort to find out what He means by permitting
tyranny and wrong. They attack the sins; he is the first to state the problems, of life.
To him the prophetic revelation, the Torah, is complete: it has been codified in
Deuteronomy and enforced by Josiah. Habakkuk’s business is not to add to it, but
to ask why it does not work. Why does God suffer wrong to triumph, so that the
Torah is paralyzed, and Mishpat, the prophetic "justice" or "judgment," comes to
naught? The prophets travailed for Israel’s character-to get the people to love
justice till justice prevailed among them: Habakkuk feels justice cannot prevail in
Israel, because of the great disorder which God permits to fill the world. It is true
that he arrives at a prophetic attitude, and before the end authoritatively declares
God’s will; but he begins by searching for the latter, with an appreciation of the
great obscurity cast over it by the facts of life. He complains to God, asks questions,
and expostulates. This is the beginning of speculation in Israel. It does not go far: it
is satisfied with stating questions to God; it does not, directly at least, state questions
against Him. But Habakkuk at least feels that revelation is baffled by experience,
that the facts of life bewilder a man who believes in the God whom the prophets
have declared to Israel. As in Zephaniah prophecy begins to exhibit traces of
apocalypse, so in Habakkuk we find it developing the first impulses of speculation.
We have seen that the course of events which troubles Habakkuk and renders the

Torah ineffectual is somewhat obscure. On one interpretation of these two chapters,
that which takes the present order of their verses as the original, Habakkuk asks
why God is silent in face of the injustice which fills the whole horizon, [Habakkuk
1:1-4] is told to look round among the heathen and see how God is raising up the
Chaldeans, [Habakkuk 1:5-11] presumably to punish this injustice (if it be Israel’s
own) or to overthrow it (if Habakkuk 1:1-4 mean that it is inflicted on Israel by a
foreign power). But the Chaldeans only aggravate the prophet’s problem; they
themselves are a wicked and oppressive people: how can God suffer them?
[Habakkuk 1:12-17] Then come the prophet’s waiting for an answer [Habakkuk
2:1] and the answer itself. [Habakkuk 2:2 ff.} Another interpretation takes the
passage about the Chaldeans {Habakkuk 1:5-11] to be out of place where it now lies,
removes it to after chapter 4 as a part of God’s answer to the prophet’s problem,
and leaves the remainder of chapter1 as the description of the Assyrian oppression
of Israel, baffling the Torah and perplexing the prophet’s faith in a Holy and Just
God. Of these two views the former is, we have seen, somewhat artificial, and
though the latter is by no means proved, the arguments for it are sufficient to justify
us in re-arranging the verses of chapter 1-2:4 in accordance with its proposals.
"The Oracle which Habakkuk the Prophet Received by Vision. How long, O
Jehovah, have I called and Thou hearest not? I cry to Thee. Wrong! and Thou
sendest no help. Why make me look upon sorrow, And fill mine eyes with trouble?
Violence and wrong are before me, Strife comes and quarrel arises. So the Law is
benumbed, and judgment never gets forth: For the wicked beleaguers the righteous,
So judgment comes forth perverted."
"Art not, Thou of old, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? Purer of eyes than to
behold evil, And that canst not gaze upon trouble! Why gazest Thou upon traitors,
Art dumb when the wicked swallows him that is more righteous than he? Thou hast
let men be made like fish of the sea, Like worms that have no ruler! He lifts the
whole of it with his angle: Draws it in with his net, sweeps it in his drag-net: So
rejoices and exults. So he sacrifices to his net, and offers incense to his drag-net; For
by them is his portion fat, and his food rich. Shall he forever draw his sword, And
ceaselessly, ruthlessly massacre nations?"
"Upon my watch-tower I will stand, And take my post on the rampart. I will watch
to see what He will say to me, And what answer I get back to my plea".
"And Jehovah answered me and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon
tablets, That he may run who reads it".
"For the vision is for a time yet to be fixed, Yet it hurries to the end, and shall not
fail: Though it linger, wait thou for it; Coming it shall come, and shall not be
behind. Lo! swollen, not level is his soul within him; But the righteous shall live by
his faithfulness. [Habakkuk 1:5-11] round among the heathen, and look well,
Shudder and be shocked; For I am about to do a work in your days, Ye shall not
believe it when told. For, lo, I am about to raise up the Kasdim, A people the most
bitter and the most hasty, That traverse the breadths of the earth, To possess

dwelling-places not their own. Awful and terrible are they; From themselves start
their purpose and rising".
"Fleeter than leopards their steeds, Swifter than night-wolves. Their horsemen leap
from afar; They swoop like the eagle a-haste to devour. All for wrong do they come:
The set of their faces is forward, And they sweep up captives like sand. They-at
kings do they scoff, And princes are sport to them. They-they laugh at each fortress,
Heap dust up and take it! Then the wind shifts and they pass! But doomed are those
whose own strength is their god!"
The difficulty of deciding between the various arrangements of the two chapters of
Habakkuk does not, fortunately, prevent us from appreciating his argument. What
he feels throughout (this is obvious, however you arrange his verses) is the tyranny
of a great heathen power, be it Assyrian, Egyptian, or Chaldean. The prophet’s
horizon is filled with Habakkuk 1:3; Israel thrown into disorder, revelation
paralyzed, justice perverted. [Habakkuk 1:4] But, like ahum, Habakkuk feels not
for Israel alone. The tyrant has outraged humanity. [Habakkuk 1:13-17] He
"sweeps peoples into his net," and as soon as he empties this, he fills it again
"ceaselessly," as if there were no just God above. He exults in his vast cruelty, and
has success so unbroken that he worships the very means of it. In itself such impiety
is gross enough, but to a heart that believes in God it is a problem of exquisite pain.
Habakkuk’s is the burden of the finest faith. He illustrates the great commonplace
of religions doubt, that problems arise and become rigorous in proportion to the
purity and tenderness of man’s conception of God. It is not the coarsest but the
finest temperaments which are exposed to skepticism. Every advance in assurance
of God or in appreciation of His character develops new perplexities in face of the
facts of experience, and faith becomes her own most cruel troubler. Habakkuk’s
questions are not due to any cooling of the religious temper in Israel, but are
begotten of the very heat and ardor of prophecy in its encounter with experience.
His tremulousness, for instance, is impossible without the high knowledge of God’s
purity and faithfulness, which older prophets had achieved in Israel:-
"Art not Thou of old, O Lord, my God, my Holy One, Purer of eyes than to behold
evil, And incapable of looking upon wrong?"
His despair is that which comes only from eager and persevering habits of prayer:-
"How long, O Lord, have I called and Thou hearest not! I cry to Thee of wrong and
Thou givest no help!"
His questions, too, are bold with that sense of God’s absolute power, which flashed
so bright in. Israel as to blind men’s eyes to all secondary and intermediate causes.
"Thou," he says, -
"Thou hast made men like fishes of the sea, Like worms that have no ruler,"
boldly charging the Almighty in almost the temper of Job himself, with being the

cause of the cruelty inflicted by the unchecked tyrant upon the nations; "for shall
evil happen, and Jehovah not have done it?" Thus all through we perceive that
Habakkuk’s trouble springs from the central founts of prophecy. This skepticism-if
we may venture to give the name to the first motions in Israel’s mind of that temper
which undoubtedly became skepticism-this skepticism was the inevitable heritage of
prophecy: the stress and pain to which prophecy was forced by its own strong
convictions in face of the facts of experience. Habakkuk, "the prophet," as he is
called, stood in the direct line of his order, but just because of that he was the father
also of Israel’s religious doubt.
But a discontent springing from sources so pure was surely the preparation of its
own healing. In a verse of exquisite beauty the prophet describes the temper in
which he trusted for an answer to all his doubts:-
"On my watch-tower will I stand, And take up my post on the rampart; I will watch
to see what He says to me, And what answer I get back to my plea."
This verse is not to be passed over, as if its metaphors were merely for literary
effect. They express rather the moral temper in which the prophet carries his doubt,
or, to use ew Testament language, "the good conscience, which some having put
away, concerning faith have made shipwreck." or is this temper patience only and
a certain elevation of mind, nor only a fixed attention and sincere willingness to be
answered. Through the chosen words there breathes a noble sense of responsibility.
The prophet feels he has a post to hold, a rampart to guard. He knows the heritage
of truth, won by the great minds of the past; and in a world seething with disorder,
he will take his stand upon that and see what more his God will send him. At the
very least, he will not indolently drift, but feel that he has a standpoint, however
narrow, and bravely hold it. Such has ever been the attitude of the greatest skeptics-
not only, let us repeat, earnestness and sincerity, but the recognition of duty towards
the truth: the conviction that even the most tossed and troubled minds have
somewhere a {missing Greek word} appointed of God, and upon it interests human
and Divine to defend. Without such a conscience, skepticism, however intellectually
gifted, will avail nothing. Men who drift never discover, never grasp aught. They are
only dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, only fretted and broken by experience.
Taking then his stand within the patient temper, but especially upon the conscience
of his great order, the prophet waits for his answer and the healing of his trouble.
The answer comes to him in the promise of "a Vision," which, though it seem to
linger, will not be later than the time fixed by God. "A Vision" is something
realized, experienced-something that will be as actual and present to the waiting
prophet as the cruelty which now fills his sight. Obviously some series of historical
events is meant, by which, in the course of trine, the unjust oppressor of the nations
shall be overthrown and the righteous vindicated. Upon the re-arrangement of the
text proposed by Budde, this series of events is the rise of the Chaldeans, and it is an
argument in favor of his proposal that the promise of "a Vision" requires some such
historical picture to follow it as we find in the description of the Chaldeans-
Habakkuk 1:5-11. This, too, is explicitly introduced by terms of vision: "See among

the nations and look round Yea, behold I am about to raise up the Kasdim." But
before this vision is given, and for the uncertain interval of waiting ere the facts
come to pass, the Lord enforces upon His watching servant the great moral
principle that arrogance and tyranny cannot, from the nature of them, last, and that
if the righteous be only patient he will survive them:-
"Lo, swollen, not level, is his soul within him; But the righteous shall live by his
faithfulness."
We have already seen that the text of the first line of this couplet is uncertain. Yet
the meaning is obvious, partly in the words themselves, and partly by their implied
contrast with the second line. The soul of the wicked is a radically morbid thing:
inflated, swollen (unless we should read perverted, which more plainly means the
same thing), not level, not natural and normal. In the nature of things it cannot
endure. "But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness." This word, wrongly
translated faith by the Greek and other versions, is concentrated by Paul in his
repeated quotation from the Greek [Romans 1:17,, Galatians 3:11] upon that single
act of faith by which the sinner secures forgiveness and justification. With
Habakkuk it is a wider term. ‘Emunah, from a verb meaning originally to be firm,
is used in the Old Testament in the physical sense of steadfastness. So it is applied to
the arms of Moses held up by Aaron and Hur over the battle with Amalek: "they
were steadiness till the going down of the sun." [Exodus 17:12] It is also used of the
faithful discharge of public office [2 Chronicles 19:9] and of fidelity as between man
and Hosea 2:22 (Heb.). It is also faithful testimony, [Proverbs 14:5] equity in
judgment, [Isaiah 11:5] truth in speech, [Proverbs 12:17; cf. Jeremiah 9:2] and
sincerity or honest dealing. [Proverbs 12:22] Of course it has faith in God as its
secret-the verb from which it is derived is the regular Hebrew term to believe-but it
is rather the temper which faith produces of endurance, steadfastness, integrity. Let
the righteous, however baffled his faith be by experience, hold on in loyalty to God
and duty, and he shall live. Though St. Paul, as we have said, used the Greek
rendering of "faith" for the enforcement of trust in God’s mercy through Jesus
Christ as the secret of forgiveness and life it is rather to Habakkuk’s wider intention
of patience and fidelity that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews returns in his
fuller quotation of the verse: "For yet a little while and He that shall come will come
and will not tarry; now the just shall live by faith, but if he draw back My soul shall
have no pleasure in." [Hebrews 10:37-38]
Such, then is the tenor of the passage. In face of experience that baffles faith, the
duty of Israel is patience in loyalty to God. In this the nascent skepticism of Israel
received its first great commandment, and this it never forsook. Intellectual
questions arose, of which Habakkuk’s were but the faintest foreboding-questions
concerning not only the mission and destiny of the nation, but the very foundation
of justice and the character of God Himself. Yet did no skeptic, however bold and
however provoked, forsake his faithfulness. Even Job, when most audaciously
arraigning the God of his experience, turned from Him to God as in his heart of
hearts he believed He must be, experience notwithstanding. Even the Preacher,
amid the aimless flux and drift which he finds in the universe, holds to the

conclusion of the whole matter in a command, which better than any other defines
the contents of the faithfulness enforced by Habakkuk: "Fear God and keep His
commandments, for this is the whole of man." It has been the same with the great
mass of the race. Repeatedly disappointed of their hopes, and crushed for ages
beneath an intolerable tyranny, have they not exhibited the same heroic temper with
which their first great questioner was endowed? Endurance, this above all others
has been the quality of Israel: "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." And,
therefore, as Paul’s adaptation, "The just shall live by faith," has become the motto
of evangelical Christianity, so we may say that Habakkuk’s original of it has been
the motto and the fame of Judaism: "The righteous shall live by His faithfulness."
PARKER, "The Burden of Habakkuk
Habakkuk 1
"The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see" ( Habakkuk 1:1).
This is the way of the Bible. It is the way of personal testimony. It is the way of
individual experience. Habakkuk has not come to comment upon himself, but to tell
us what he himself "did see." If prophets and preachers and teachers would do this
the world would soon be religiously awakened. What are we apt to do? To deal in
photographs. Here is a photograph of what our fathers believed three hundred
years ago. What have I to do with that? I look at it, form an opinion about it, and
ask about the life of this day. You do not like your own old photographs. You were
pleased with them at the time when they were taken, and you generously gave some
of them away to your friends, and now you scarcely identify them, and you beg your
friends to allow you to replace them with something better. Yet you have
photographed the creed of three hundred years ago, and you worship it like a fetish.
Why do you not tell us what you have seen, what you feel? We do not want the
photograph of the man as he was when he was a child, we want him to-day, his own
personality, to stand before us and talk to us the language of the day, and delight us
with the recital of his immediate consciousness of God and experience of life. This is
the genius of the Bible. We do not find that the men rise up with great anxiety to
conform themselves to lines which somebody else laid down a thousand years
before; the prophets, man after Prayer of Manasseh , come forward and say, "I
saw." Very good; what did you see? Write the biography of your soul; tell us what
happened between you and God when you were locked up together in confiding
conference. That will do us good. Your ink will be blood; we have had pale ink
enough, we now want the vermilion of the heart. But if you do not happen to
conform to the testimony which somebody else has borne? So much the better. God
is not the God of monotony. But if your testimony should be unique? God be
thanked. At present one man is so much like another that we cannot tell which is
which. We want uniqueness of religious testimony, poignancy of religious emphasis;
we want men who believe something, and who state it, and explain it, and who are
prepared to drop it immediately that the true revelation comes to claim the
occupancy of the mind and heart. We carry our religion like a load. It does not grow
in us, it is not part of ourselves. When we want to know what it is we go to the

library. Any religion that is kept on the bookshelves can be stolen. Lay up for
yourselves faith where thieves cannot break through nor steal. Have an experience
of your own; compare it with the experience of others, either for its confirmation or
its expansion, or for its possible adaptation to best uses. Prophet after prophet has
come before us in this People"s Bible, and each man has come to tell us not what
some other man saw, but what he himself beheld and handled of the word of life.
Habakkuk conducts a kind of dialogue, and if the paradox may be allowed it seems
to be a dialogue mainly on his own side. To call it a monologue would be hardly
correct. He talks to God; he has it out with God; he plies God with sharp questions.
He will have practical matters attended to; he says, Lord, this is evil; how did it
come to be in thy universe, thou fair One, whose face is beauty, whose voice is
music? He could not write a long prophecy in that strain. Jesus Christ could not be
a minister more than three years; Habakkuk can only write his three chapters. He
was no magician in the elaboration of sentences; every sentence in Habakkuk was
itself a Bible. There is no such book in all the canon as Habakkuk. The very word
means strong embrace. He gets hold of God, and throws him in the gracious wrestle.
He will not let God go. On the one side he represents pessimism or despair as it
never was represented before, and on the other he rises to heights of faith which
even David did not attain with all his music. We shall find sentences in Habakkuk
that leave all the prophets and minstrels of the Old Testament far away down in the
clouds, whilst Habakkuk himself is up beyond the cloud-line, revelling in morning
light.
He begins with the dark outlook:—"O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not
hear? even cry unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!" He apparently forgot
that other men had been crying. When a man is praying he must pray all out of his
own heart; if he adopt the words of others he must so adopt them as to make them
part of himself. We are afraid of egotism; the prophets were not; we are little men,
they were great men. "O Lord, how long shall I cry?"—not how long shall Moses
and all the great prophets of after ages cry, but how long shall I be kept praying
when I might receive an answer instantaneously? Why delay the reply? I have cried
until my eyes are tears, and my voice is but a hoarse whisper; I can hardly cry any
more. This is natural impatience; this is man as he is in his true estate. Man wants to
be getting on; the Lord rests in eternity. We cannot tell why he delays, but his delay
is goodness. We have lived long enough ourselves to see some outline of that fact.
Habakkuk saw only the outside; he saw the violence and the iniquity and the
grievance, the strife and the contention, saw only the foam at the top; he did not
know why the water boiled Song of Solomon , he did not understand the ministry of
conflict; it lay beyond his ken to see how disinfection requires certain processes, and
how we have to outgrow ourselves by continual war within and without. There must
be an interior view. Even if we had no revelation upon this point, we must, if we
receive the first notion of God, come to the conclusion that there is another view
than that which is external. John Stuart Mill was right there. He said, If there is a
God, he is not almighty, or he would put an end to war and pain and death and
trouble of every kind. How difficult it is for a man to be both a logician and a
philosopher; how difficult to be both an edge and a point, or a point and an edge. If

one view only could be taken of the circumstances which we sum up under the name
of providence, and if that view were wholly an external one, such criticism would be
just. We can but say to all such young men, Your eyes are blind; and say of them,
Lord, open their eyes that they may see. The Lord opened the eyes of the young
Prayer of Manasseh , and he came to the old prophet, and he saw that within the
range that was occupied by horses and chariots and men of war there was a cordon
of angels, a circumference of light. If we can only see the outside, what right have we
to pronounce upon the interior? It is enough for us to know that there is an interior
view, that God takes it, and that all things are working according to a fixed and
unchangeable plan, and that in reality, however much we may be appearing to do,
we are doing nothing; we cannot finally resist or turn aside the purpose of heaven.
Habakkuk had a good understanding of his own times. That is precisely what the
Church has not; that Isaiah , I am afraid, precisely what ministers have not. They
have a wonderful understanding about the early centuries; they could discuss
themselves into exhaustion by talking over the fourth century. We have nothing to
do with the fourth century; to all intents and purposes that century is dead and
gone; we want to know about our own century, our own immediate tragedies and
necessities. He is not a learned man who lives in the fourth century. I want a learned
ministry, but it must be learned in the human heart, learned in human sorrow,
learned in the arts and wiles of the devil. I do not want the learning that is archaic
and mouldy, but the learning that seeks to illumine and liberate souls this day.
How did Habakkuk state his case?—"Therefore the law is slacked"; literally,
Therefore the law is chilled. Derivatively, Therefore the law is paralysed. To this
condition hast thou brought society, thou deified Indifference! Such would be the
apostrophe of ignorance, bordering on blasphemy. Yet from the eternal point of
view there is no other criticism to be pronounced. Things do look dark as against
the idea of providence. Facts seem to contradict the proposition that there is a God,
there is a government, there is a throne, there is a Cross, there is a Spirit of
Righteousness, there is a Holy Ghost. Look those facts in the face; but always
beware of the sophistry of facts. Wise men handle facts very charily, because they
have had every reason to distrust them in the past. As we have often seen, facts are
little anecdotes, small occurrences, things that really were, taking the word in its
Latin derivation, done; but when looked at in their isolation give false impressions,
and false scents to the inquisitive mind, and mislead the Church, and betray its best
wisdom into the most inexcusable folly. Have nothing to do with facts, until you
have set them in such a relation that they enlighten one another, explain one
another, and get into the right perspective and colour; then they pass from the
region of fact into the larger region of truth. Truth is larger than fact; parable is
larger than occurrence. He only knows the history of his country aright who has
read it in the pages of philosophical fiction. We want atmosphere, colour, relation,
apocalyptic intermingling of things; and then, without being able to cite the Song of
Solomon -called fact, we atmospherically and sympathetically know all that has
occurred. It is true that the law in the days of the prophet was chilled or paralysed;
is it any better to-day? ot a bit. The law is chilled still—slack, chilled, paralysed, in
many instances. The law has been turned into a beast of burden; the law has been

hired by the long purse; the law has been kept at bay by social dignity and social
influence. But by the force of Christian ministry and Christian teaching the law in
this country is gradually claiming its proper sovereignty, and it will crush with
perfect quietness, with perfect dignity, the plutocratic devils that have sought to
pervert it to their own uses. We shall see God in many an event; we shall see the far-
spreading wickedness of some cut down, and levelled with the dust; meantime, let
prophets cry, and shout out in prayer as if in agony; they disturb not God"s
eternity, nor does their impatience turn his righteousness into impotent clamour.
Stand still, and see the salvation of God. If you are yourself right you shall come out
of your difficulties triumphant. ot if you meddle, and unlawfully and foolishly
interfere, but if you hide yourselves in the pavilion of God, if you are half-dead you
shall live, and if you have one foot in ruin it shall be taken out, and both your feet
shall stand on the rock of prosperity. Let us recognise facts, and also let us recognise
truth, history, experience, and abide in the sanctuary of God.
ow the cry is: "Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder
marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, when ye will not believe, though
it be told you." The word "believe" is a keyword in this prophecy. Habakkuk is the
prophet of faith; at last he will sing a song that David would have paused in his
harp-playing to have heard; he will entrance the heavens by his triumphant music.
The people will not believe the miracles that are being worked in their own day.
There are men who would almost die for miracles that were wrought thousands of
years ago; there are other men who work themselves up into great perfervidness,
amazing distress of mind, in defence of miracles that occurred twenty centuries
before they were born. The one thing the Lord cannot get men to do is to believe in
the miracles of their own day. There are miracles being worked to-day in
abundance, and yet we are standing antagonistically in reference to one another,
and calling one another heretics because of a certain relation to miracles that
occurred five thousand years ago. O blind men! stupid minds! fools to let the King
pass by whilst we are talking about his appearances a millennium since! Who has
eyes to see, let him see; who has ears to hear, let him hear. Every day is a new Bible;
every event is a new miracle. The ages roll on to the music of miracles. We will be
literalists instead of spiritualists; we will bind ourselves down to things that seem to
be wrought for us, instead of taking paper and pen, and writing swiftly the things
that God is now doing. By this time the Bible would have been larger than the
world, if we had recorded the interpositions of God, the miracles of Christ, the
triumphs of the Cross.
What is this wonderful work that God is going to do in the days of the prophet? He
is going to "raise up the Chaldeans." Read the description:—
"For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march
through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of
themselves" ( Habakkuk 1:6-7).
See what they do in Habakkuk 1:9 and Habakkuk 1:10 :—

"They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they
shall gather the captivity as the sand. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the
princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they
shall heap dust, and take it."
God raises up the enemy; Gods sends the pestilence; God tells the wolf to go out and
bite the flock; God fills the air with destruction. He is not afraid to say so. All this
means that we are governed upon central principles, that conduct is the touchstone,
and that by our life we make the world what it is even from the divine standpoint.
Blessed be God for opposition. We are made by conflict; we are chastened and
perfected by depletion and sorrow. Thank God for all the unanswered questions in
the mind. There are those who would have no questions unanswered. What a world
it would be to live in if there were no interrogatories that lay beyond our
imagination. Questions—serious, profound, practical—are as the shore-line; they
mark the termination of the land. We would have them answered, and we can only
answer them by drowning ourselves in the great ocean. Questions are inspirations;
questions are humiliations; questions are invitations. We should die without
questions—hard questions, insoluble, obstinate, mocking questions; they keep us at
the right point, subdue us into the right spiritual condition, and yet promise us that
by-and-by all that is necessary for us to know shall be revealed. We shall have
questions under our review, when our time is no longer broken up by sin and pain
and sorrow and night; for in the higher school there is no night, it is all working
time, and as for sorrow and sighing, they will have fled away. When we ask God to
account for the mysteries of his providence he turns away from us as we would turn
away from impertinent inquirers. Life is so made, account for it as we may, that it
can only be developed, strengthened, chastened, purified, perfected by daily
suffering.
How does Habakkuk get rest? He gets rest by a right view of God:—"Art thou not
from everlasting?" The very word soothes and comforts the troubled soul. Given a
life seventy years long, and oh the trouble, the disquiet, the discomfort, the unrest,
the questioning, the practical atheism; but given a conception of eternity, and the
billows roll themselves into harmonic peace, and become elements of controlled
strength. What time we are afraid we should hide ourselves in the years of the Most
High. When we think everything is going to ruin we should invoke the genius of
eternity. This brings us to an illustration often employed, but always useful. The
earth lies on one side within the limits of geography, on the other it enters into the
mystery of astronomy. As a measurable globe it is full of inequalities; it has great
warts upon its face called mountains, it has great delvings in its side called valleys, it
is punctured with immense caves. othing can be more irregular than the surface of
the earth; but taken up into astronomic motion, where are the great mountains,
caverns, valleys, inequalities? Where are they? Lost, when the world is swung like a
censer around the central fire. So it is with us. What mountainous difficulties we
have, what cavernous troubles, what beatings of the sea upon our little shore, what
shakings of the hills! That is the geographical view: but caught up in the wider
gravitation, and made part of a grand solar system, inequalities there are none,

velocity smooths them all out, and the higher relations settle into unity and beauty
and music, things that were aberrant, eccentric, and unmanageable. Blessed God, so
it shall be in the winding up of all this little scheme of things. We talk of Chaldeans,
invasions, wars, troubles, commotions, earthquakes, pestilences,—forgive the babble
of thy nursery children. When we are men, and clothed with light, we shall look
down upon this elementary criticism as almost bordering upon profanity; but we
shall recover ourselves, and say, In the days of our ignorance God winked at our
folly, but now in the days of our manhood we will say, He hath done all things well.
PETT, "Verse 1
‘The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.’
This description of a prophecy as a ‘burden’ occurs regularly. This was firstly
because it burdened the prophet’s soul. He could not forebear to speak because the
message lay heavily on him. And, secondly, it was a burden because he found it very
difficult to deliver. It was rarely a happy message, even though usually containing
comfort for the future of God’s people. And yet he had to deliver it because God had
told him to, we may assume in the face of fierce opposition. Being a true prophet
was by no means an easy task.
This designation as "the prophet" as an opening designation is found in two other
prophetic books, Haggai and Zechariah. This is probably because they were official
prophets, belonging to the recognised order of prophets and connected with the
central sanctuary (see Zechariah 11:12 where Zechariah is due his wages).
BE SO , "Habakkuk 1:1. The burden — The grievous calamities, or heavy
judgments; which Habakkuk did see — That is, foresee, and was commissioned to
foretel. This burden, or prophetic vision, communicated to Habakkuk, was against
the Chaldeans as well as the Jews. For while the prophet was complaining of
iniquity among the Jews, 1st, God foreshows him the desolations which the
Chaldeans would make in Judea and the neighbouring countries, as the ministers of
divine vengeance: and, 2d, Upon the prophet’s falling into an expostulation with
God about these proceedings, moved thereto probably by his compassion for his
own people, God shows him the judgments which he would execute upon the
Chaldeans.
PULPIT, "§ 1. The inscription of the book. The burden (see note on ahum 1:1).
The prophet (Habakkuk 3:1). This title, which is added in the inscriptions only to
the names of Haggai and Zechariah, and cursorily to that of Jeremiah (46, 47; 50.),
implies that he exercised the practical office of prophet, and was well known; and,
as Pusey thinks, Habakkuk appended it hero on account of the form in which his
prophecy is cast, as being addressed almost entirely to God or the Chaldeans, not to
his own people. Did see. In prophetic vision (see note on Amos 1:1).
BI 1-4, "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
Responsibilities
We can see how appropriate is the word “burden” used by the prophets to describe their

gift and duty. The obligation laid on them often involved strain and danger. And yet it
was a glorious privilege to be commissioned by God, to act for Him, to be His
mouthpiece to the people. Habakkuk’s burden was the sight of the general evil and
corruption prevalent in the Holy Land, among the chosen people. What burden can be
heavier than this, to see evil prevail among God’s people, and to be unable to remedy it?
Two lessons—
1. Every privilege entails suffering.
2. Do not lose heart.
The burden is laid on you by the Lord who gave you your glorious privilege. Look at the
vocation, not at the burden. (S. Baring-Gould.)
The burden of enlightenment
The light of Divine favour bestowed upon Habakkuk was the source of much perplexity
of mind and distress of soul to him. This paradox is common in Christian experience.
The prophet’s mission of mercy was a burden to himself.
I. A burden of enlightenment. He was—
1. A spectator of evil; looking upon the great and terrible disorders that devastated
his country.
2. An inspired spectator of evil. “God showed him iniquity,” etc. To see, in the light
of heaven the fearful ramifications of evil in society is an essential condition of
Christian service.
3. A troubled spectator of evil. His heart strings vibrated with jarring discords at the
touch of the workers of iniquity.
II. A burden of prayer. With a vivid consciousness of God’s almighty power the prophet
called upon Him to interpose and save His people. But days rolled on and lengthened
into months, and still evil abounded. Oh, the burden of prayers unheard! Oh, the burden
of unanswered prayers l Oh, the burden of delay! The heart grows sick with hope
deferred.
III. A burden of discipline. Designed—
1. As a test to see if they will continue to work and witness for God.
2. Still trust in the Lord, even in the presence of the great mystery of iniquity. The
burden is—
3. For training, that God’s servants may become strong in faith, giving glory to God.
(Joseph Willcox)
Habakkuk’s Complaint

2 How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
BAR ES, "O Lord, how long shall I cry - Literally, “how long have I cried so
intensely to Thee?” Because it is always the cry of the creature to the One who alone can
hear or help - its God. Of this cry the Prophet expresses that it had already lasted long. In
that long past he had cried out to God but no change had come. There is an undefined
past, and this still continues.
How long - as Asaph cries, “how long hast Thou been,” and, it is implied, wilt Thou
be “wroth against the prayer of Thy people?” as we should say,” how long shall Thy
wrath continue?” The words which the prophet uses relate to domestic strife and wrong
between man and man; violence, iniquity, strife, contention Hab_1:3, nor are any of
them used only of the oppression of a foreign enemy. Also, Habakkuk complains of
injustice too strong for the law, and the perversion of justice Hab_1:4. And upon this,
the sentence is pronounced. The enemy is to be sent for judgment and correction Hab_
1:12. They are then the sins of Judah which the prophet rehearses before God, in fellow-
suffering with the oppressed. God answers that they shall be removed, but by the
punishment of the sinners.
Punishment does not come without sin, nor does sin endure without punishment. It is
one object of the Old Testament to exhibit the connection between sin and punishment.
Other prophets, as commissioned by God, first denounced the sins and then foretold the
punishment of the impenitent. Habakkuk appeals to God’s justice, as requiring its
infliction. On this ground too this opening of the prophecy cannot be a complaint against
the Chaldees, because their wrong would be no ground of the punishment which the
prophet denounced, but the punishment itself, requiting wrong to man through human
wrong.
Cyril: “The prophet considers the person of the oppressed, enduring the intolerable
insolence and contumely of those accustomed to do wrong, and very skillfully doth he
attest the unutterable lovingkindness of God, for he exhibits Him as very forbearing,
though accustomed to hate wickedness, but that He doth not immediately bring
judgment upon the offenders, he showed clearly, saying that so great is His silence and
long-suffering, that there needeth a strong cry, in that some practice intolerable
covetousness against others, and use an unbridled insolence against the weak, for his
very complaints of God’s endurance of evil attest the immeasurable loving kindness of
God.”
Cyril: “You may judge hence of the hatred of evil among the saints. For they speak of
the woes of others as their own. So saith the most wise Paul 2Co_11:29, who is weak and

I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? and bade us Rom_12:15 weep with
those who weep, showing that sympathy and mutual love are especially becoming to the
saints.”
The prophet, through sympathy or fellow-suffering with the sufferers, is as one of
them. He cries for help, as himself needing it, and being in the misery, in behalf of which
he prays. He says, “How long shall I cry?” standing, as it were, in the place of all, and
gathering all their cries into one, and presenting them before God. It is the cry, in one, of
all which is wronged to the God of Justice, of all suffering to the God of love. “When shall
this scene of sin, and confusion, and wrong be at an end, and the harmony of God’s
creation be restored? How long shall evil not exist only, but prevail?” It is the cry of the
souls under the altar Rev_6:10, “How long, O Lord, Holy and True, dost Thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” It is the voice of the oppressed
against the oppressor; of the Church against the world; weary of hearing the Lord’s
Name blasphemed, of seeing wrong set up on high, of holiness trampled underfoot. It is
in its highest sense His Voice, who, to sanctify our longings for deliverance, said in the
days of His Flesh Psa_22:2, “I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not.”
Even cry out - aloud (it is the cry of anguish) Dion.: “We cry the louder, the more we
cry from the heart, even without words; for not the moving of the lips, but the love of the
heart sounds in the ears of God.”
Even cry out unto Thee. - Whether as an exclamation or a continuance of the
question, How long? The prophet gathered in one the prolonged cry of past and future.
He had cried out; he should cry on, “Violence.” He speaks as if the one word, jerked out,
as it were, wrung forth from his inmost soul, was, “Violence,” as if he said this one word
to the God of justice and love.
CLARKE, "O Lord, how long shall I cry - The prophet feels himself strongly
excited against the vices which he beheld; and which, it appears from this verse, he had
often declaimed against, but in vain; the people continued in their vices, and God in his
longsuffering.
Habakkuk begins his prophecy under a similar feeling, and nearly in similar words, as
Juvenal did his Satires: -
Semper ego auditor tantum?
Nunquamne reponam?
Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri?
Sat. 1:1.
“Shall I always be a hearer only?
Shall I never reply?
So often vexed?”
Of violence - The most unlawful and outrageous acts.
GILL, "O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!.... The prophet
having long observed the sins and iniquities of the people among whom he lived, and
being greatly distressed in his mind on account of them, had frequently and
importunately cried unto the Lord to put a stop to the abounding of them, that the

people might be brought to a sense of their sins, and reform from them; but nothing of
this kind appearing, he concludes his prayers were not heard, and therefore expostulates
with the Lord upon this head:
even cry unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! either of violence done to
himself in the discharge of his office, or of one man to another, of the rich to the poor;
and yet, though he cried again and again to the Lord, to check this growing evil, and
deliver the oppressed out of the hands of their oppressors, it was not done; which was
matter of grief and trouble to him.
JAMISO , "violence ... Why dost thou show me iniquity? — Similar language
is used of the Chaldeans (Hab_1:9, Hab_1:13), 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 (Pro_1:31). Jehoiakim’s reign was marked by injustice, treachery, and
bloodshed (Jer_22:3, Jer_22:13-17). Therefore the Chaldeans should be sent to deal
with him and his nobles according to their dealings with others (Hab_1:6, Hab_1:10,
Hab_1:11, Hab_1:17). Compare Jeremiah’s expostulation with Jehovah, Jer_12:1; Jer_
20:8; and Job_19:7, Job_19:8.
K&D 2-4, "The prophet's lamentation. Hab_1:2. “How long, Jehovah, have I cried,
and Thou hearest not? I cry to Thee, Violence; and Thou helpest not! Hab_1:3. Why
dost Thou let me see mischief, and Thou lookest upon distress? devastation and violence
are before me: there arises strife, and contention lifts itself up. Hab_1:4. Therefore the
law is benumbed, and justice comes not forth for ever: for sinners encircle the righteous
man; therefore justice goes forth perverted.” This complaint, which involves a petition
for help, is not merely an expression of the prophet's personal desire for the removal of
the prevailing unrighteousness; but the prophet laments, in the name of the righteous,
i.e., the believers in the nation, who had to suffer under the oppression of the wicked;
not, however, as Rosenmüller and Ewald, with many of the Rabbins, suppose, over the
acts of wickedness and violence which the Chaldaeans performed in the land, but over
the wicked conduct of the ungodly of his own nation. For it is obvious that these verses
refer to the moral depravity of Judah, from the fact that God announced His purpose to
raise up the Chaldaeans to punish it (Hab_1:5.). It is true that, in Hab_1:9 and Hab_
1:13, wickedness and violence are attributed to the Chaldaeans also; but all that can be
inferred from this is, that “in the punishment of the Jewish people a divine talio prevails,
which will eventually fall upon the Chaldaeans also” (Delitzsch). The calling for help ( ַ‫ע‬ֵ‫וּ‬ ִ‫שׁ‬
is described, in the second clause, as crying over wickedness. ‫ס‬ ָ‫מ‬ ָ‫ח‬ is an accusative,
denoting what he cries, as in Job_19:7 and Jer_20:8, viz., the evil that is done. Not
hearing is equivalent to not helping. The question ‫ה‬ָ‫נ‬ፎ‫ד־‬ ַ‫ע‬ indicates that the wicked
conduct has continued a long time, without God having put a stop to it. This appears
irreconcilable with the holiness of God. Hence the question in Hab_1:3 : Wherefore dost
Thou cause me to see mischief, and lookest upon it Thyself? which points to Num_23:21,
viz., to the words of Balaam, “God hath not beheld iniquity ('âven) in Jacob, neither hath
He seen perverseness (‛âmâl) in Israel.” This word of God, in which Balaam expresses the
holiness of Israel, which remains true to the idea of its divine election, is put before the
Lord in the form of a question, not only to give prominence to the falling away of the

people from their divine calling, and their degeneracy into the very opposite of what they
ought to be, but chiefly to point to the contradiction involved in the fact, that God the
Holy One does now behold the evil in Israel and leave it unpunished. God not only lets
the prophet see iniquity, but even looks at Himself. This is at variance with His holiness.
ֶ‫ן‬‫ו‬ፎ, nothingness, then worthlessness, wickedness (cf. Isa_1:13). ‫ל‬ ָ‫מ‬ ָ‫,ע‬ labour, then distress
which a man experiences or causes to others (cf. Isa_10:1). ‫יט‬ ִ ִ‫,ה‬ to see, not to cause to
see. Ewald has revoked the opinion, that we have here a fresh hiphil, derived from a
hiphil. With ‫וגו‬ ‫ּד‬‫שׁ‬ the address is continued in the form of a simple picture. Shōd ve
châmâs
are often connected (e.g., Amo_3:10; Jer_6:7; Jer_20:8; Eze_45:9). Shōd is violent
treatment causing desolation. Châmâs is malicious conduct intended to injure another.
‫י‬ ִ‫ה‬ְ‫ו‬ַ‫,ו‬ it comes to pass, there arises strife (rıbh) in consequence of the violent and wicked
conduct. ‫א‬ ָ ִ‫,י‬ to rise up, as in Hos_13:1; Psa_89:10. The consequences of this are
relaxation of the law, etc. ‫ן‬ ֵⅴ‫ל־‬ ַ‫,ע‬ therefore, because God does not interpose to stop the
wicked conduct. ‫וּג‬ , to relax, to stiffen, i.e., to lose one's vital strength, or energy. Tōrâh
is “the revealed law in all its substance, which was meant to be the soul, the heart of
political, religious, and domestic life” (Delitzsch). Right does not come forth, i.e., does
not manifest itself, lânetsach, lit., for a permanence, i.e., for ever, as in many other
passages, e.g., Psa_13:2; Isa_13:20. ‫ח‬ ַ‫צ‬ֶ‫נ‬ ָ‫ל‬ belongs to ‫ּא‬‫ל‬, not for ever, i.e., never more.
Mishpât is not merely a righteous verdict, however; in which case the meaning would be:
There is no more any righteous verdict given, but a righteous state of things, objective
right in the civil and political life. For godless men (‫ע‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ ָ‫,ר‬ without an article, is used with
indefinite generality or in a collective sense) encircle the righteous man, so that the
righteous cannot cause right to prevail. Therefore right comes forth perverted. The
second clause, commencing with ‫ן‬ ֵⅴ‫ל־‬ ַ‫,ע‬ completes the first, adding a positive assertion to
the negative. The right, which does still come to the light, is ‫ל‬ ָ ֻ‫ע‬ ְ‫,מ‬ twisted, perverted, the
opposite of right. To this complaint Jehovah answers in Hab_1:5-11 that He will do a
marvellous work, inflict a judgment corresponding in magnitude to the prevailing
injustice.
CALVI , "As I have already reminded you, interpreters think that the Prophet
speaks here of future things, as though he had in his view the calamity which he
afterwards mentions; but this is too strained a meaning; I therefore doubt not but
that the Prophet expostulates here with God for so patiently indulging a reprobate
people. For though the Prophets felt a real concern for the safety of the people, there
is yet no doubt but that they burned with zeal for the glory of God; and when they
saw that they had to contend with refractory men, they were then inflamed with a
holy displeasure, and undertook the cause of God; and they implored His aid to
bring a remedy when the state of things had become desperate. I therefore consider
that the Prophet here solicits God to visit these many sins in which the people had
hardened themselves. And hence we conclude that he had previously exercised his
office of a teacher; for it would have been otherwise improper for him to begin his

work with such a complaint and expostulation. He had then by experience found
that the people were extremely perverse. When he saw that there was no hope of
amendment, and that the state of things was becoming daily worse, burning with
zeal for God, he gave full vent to his feelings. Before, then, he threatens the people
with the future vengeance of God, he withdraws himself, as it were, from
intercourse with men, and in private addresses God himself.
We must bear this first in mind, that the Prophet relates here the secret colloquy he
had with God: but it ought not to be ascribed to an unfeeling disposition, that in
these words he wished to hasten God’s vengeance against his own kindred; for it
behaved the Prophet not only to be solicitous for the salvation of the people, but also
to feel a concern for the glory of God, yea, to burn with a holy zeal. As, then, he had
in vain labored for a length of time, I doubt not but that, being as it were far
removed from the presence of all witnesses, he here asks God, how long he purposed
thus to bear with the wickedness of the people. We now apprehend the design of the
Prophet and the import of his words.
But he says first, How long, Jehovah, shall I cry, and thou hearest not? How long
shall I cry to thee for violence, that is, on account of violence, and thou savest not?
We hence learn, that the Prophet had often prayed God to correct the people for
their wickedness, or to contrive some means to prevent so much licentiousness in
sinning. It is indeed probable that the Prophet had prayed as long as there was any
hope; but when he saw that things were past recovery, he then prayed more
earnestly that God would undertake the office of a judge, and chastise the people.
For though the Prophet really condoled with those who perished, and was touched,
as I have said, with a serious concern for their public safety, he yet preferred the
glory of God: when, therefore, he saw that boldness in sin increased through
impunity, and that the Jews in a manlier mocked God when they found that they
could sin without being punished, he could not endure such unbridled wantonness.
Besides, the Prophet may have spoken thus, not only as expressing his own feeling,
but what he felt in common with all the godly; as though he had undertaken here a
public duty, and utters a complaint common to all the faithful: for it is probable
that all the godly, in so disordered a state of things, mourned alike. How long, then,
shall I cry? How long, he says, shall I cry on account of violence? that is, When all
things are in disorder, when there is now no regard for equity and justice, but men
abandon themselves, as it were with loose reins, unto all kinds of wickedness, how
long, Lord, wilt thou take no notice? But in these words the Prophet not only
egresses his own feelings, but makes this kind of preface, that the Jews might better
understand that the time of vengeance was come; for they were become not only
altogether intolerable to God, but also to his servants. God indeed had suspended
his judgement, though he had been often solicited to execute it by his Prophet. It
hence appears, that their wickedness had made such advances that it would be no
wonder if they were now severely chastised by the Lord; for they had by their sins
not only provoked him against them, but also all the godly and the faithful.
COFFMA , "Verse 2

Habakkuk 1 commentary

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Habakkuk 1 commentary