The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. Habakkuk 1:1-4 Responsibilities S. Baring-Gould. : — 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 Joseph Willcox 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 ) O Lord! how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear? Habakkuk 1:2 The crisis of prayer National Preacher. The question to be answered is this: How long will God suffer His people to pray, and still neglect to hear? Answer — 1. Till they see the plague of their own hearts — till each one sees his own. individual iniquities, and lies in the dust before God. 2. Till the Church feels that she stands in the gap between God and a sin destroyed world. 3. Till they are willing to do whatever of duty He requires, in addition to praying. 4. Till they move the stumbling-blocks out of the way of a revival of His work. 5. If God sees in His people any disposition to withhold from Him the glory of the work He does. We see from this subject —(1) Why so many prayers seem to be offered in vain.(2) We see some of the causes of spiritual declension in the Church.(3) The subject shows how we should set about raising the Church from her low estate.(4) We see the duty of every Christian to search well his own heart. The hindrances to revivals are the sins of individuals. Each Christian, therefore, must search and purify himself.(5) How fearful is the Church's responsibility; and how great should be her watchfulness, lest by her apathy, her selfishness, or her unbelief, she hinder the work of the Lord. ( National Preacher. ) The cry of a good man under the perplexing procedure of God Homilist. I. GOD'S APPARENT DISREGARD TO HIS EARNEST PRAYER. Under the pressure of that "burden" which was resting on his heart, namely, the moral corruption and the coming doom of his country; it would seem that he had often cried unto the Almighty and implored His interposition; but no answer had come. Why are not the prayers of good men immediately answered? In reply to this question three undoubted facts should be borne in mind. 1. That importunity of soul is necessary to qualify for the appreciation of the mercies sought. It is not until a man is made to feel the deep necessity of a thing that he values it when it comes. "How long shall I cry?" Until the sense of need is so intensified as to qualify for the reception and due appreciation of the blessing. Another fact that should be borne in mind is — 2. That the exercise of true prayer is in itself the best means of spiritual culture. Conscious contact with God is essential to moral excellence. You must bring the sunbeam to the seed you have sown, if you would have the seed quickened and developed; and you must bring God into conscious contact with your powers, if you would have them vivified and brought forth into strength and perfection. True prayer does this; it is the soul realising itself in the presence of Him "who quickeneth all things." 3. That prayers are answered where there is no bestowment of the blessing invoked. "Not my will, but Thine be done." This is all we want. Acquiescence in the Divine will is the moral perfection, dignity, and blessedness of all creatures in the universe. With these facts let us not be anxious about the apparent disregard of God to our prayers. II. GOD'S APPARENT DISREGARD TO THE MORAL CONDITION OF SOCIETY. "Why dost Thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked cloth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth." The substance of this is the old complaint, "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?" Two facts should be set against this complaint. 1. The good have the best of it, even in this life. 2. The evil will have the worst of it in the next life. ( Homilist. ) The expostulation of faith P. Barclay, M. A. The prophet is deeply afflicted, for there is little religion in the land, and as little of the true service of God. The one in reality is the measure of the other, although there may often seem more religion than righteousness. He does not, however, begin with attacking vice and irreligion and sin. He knows better than to do this. He carries his complaint to God, and in this way he would find some relief from his perplexity. The prophet expostulates with his God. His work seems almost hopeless, but he is a godly man, and he turns instinctively from man to God. Assuredly there is an expostulation of faith as well as of presumption. It may be good for the prophet, and for those in like circumstances, that at times God is silent. It is not that the prophet distrusts the justice or the mercy of God; it is rather, that in his impatience he would set times and seasons for His working. The times in which the prophet lived were times of ungodliness, of violence, and of misrule. Every one did that which was right in his own eyes. To correct this, the merely human sense of right is powerless. In such times, righteous men, such as wished to "lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity," must go to the wall. Even thus they cannot escape injustice and violence, scorn and oppression, from the many who have no belief in the Unseen, and who act accordingly. And so they are compassed about with wickedness. The mercy of God may be compassing them about, but for the time they can hardly see any evidences of it, and they are almost in despair. They are tempted to think that "all the foundations of the earth are moved," and to say, "God hath forsaken the earth." ( P. Barclay, M. A. ) Freedom allowed in prayer The prophet does not here teach the Jews, but prepares them for a coming judgment, as they could not but see that they were justly condemned, since they were proved guilty by the cry and complaints made by all the godly. .Now this passage teaches us that all who really serve and love God, ought, according to the prophet s example, to burn with holy indignation whenever they see wickedness reigning without restraint among men, and especially in the Church of God. There is indeed nothing which ought to cause us more grief than to see men raging with profane contempt for God, and aa regard had for His law and for Divine truth, and all order trodden under foot. When therefore such a confusion appears to us, we must feel roused, if we have in us any spark of religion. If it be objected that the prophet exceeded moderation, the obvious answer is this, — that though he freely pours forth his feelings, there was nothing wrong in this before God, at least nothing wrong is imputed to him: for wherefore do we pray, but that each of us may unburden his cares, his griefs, and anxieties, by pouring them into me bosom of God? Since then God allows us to deal so familiarly with Him, nothing wrong ought to be ascribed to our prayers, when we thus freely pour forth our feelings, provided the bridle of obedience keeps us always within due limits, as was the case with the prophet; for it is certain that he was retained under the influence of real kindness. Our prophet here undertakes the defence of justice; for he could not endure the law of God to be made a sport, and men to allow themselves every liberty in sinning. He can be justly excused, though he expostulates here with God, for God does not condemn this freedom in our prayers. The end of praying is, that every one of us pour forth his heart before God. ( John Calvin . ) The deeper plan in human events Christian Age. In listening to a great organ, played by the hand of a master, there is often an undertone that controls the whole piece. Sometimes it is scarcely audible, and a careless listener would miss it altogether. The lighter play goes on, ebbing and flowing, rising and sinking, now softly gliding on the gentler stops, and now swelling out to the full power of the great organ. But amid all the changes and transpositions this undertone may be heard, steadily pursuing its own thought. The careless listener thinks the lighter play the main thing; but he that can appreciate musical ideas, as well as sounds, follows the quiet undertone of the piece, and finds in it the leading thought of the artist. So men see the outward events of life, the actions, the words, the wars, famines, sins; but underneath all God is carrying out His own plans, and compelling all outward things to aid the music He would make in this world. ( Christian Age. ) I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you . Habakkuk 1:5-10 The doom of a nation of conventional religionists Homilist. The Jews were such a nation. They prided themselves in the orthodoxy of their faith, in the ceremonials of their worship, in the polity of their Church. The doom threatened was terrible in many respects. I. IT WAS TO BE WROUGHT BY THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF A WICKED NATION. "I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs." "Nabopolassar had already destroyed the mighty empire of Assyria, and founded the Chaldeo-Babylonian rule. He had made himself so formidable that Necho found it necessary to march an army against him, in order to check his progress; and though defeated at Megiddo, he had, in conjunction with his son Nebuchadnezzar, gained a complete victory over the Egyptians at Carchemish. These events were calculated to alarm the Jews, whose country lay between the dominions of the two contending powers; but, accustomed as they were to confide in Egypt and in the sacred localities of their own capital ( Isaiah 31:1 ; Jeremiah 7:4 ), and being in alliance with the Chaldeans, they were indisposed to listen to, and treated with the utmost incredulity, any predictions which described their overthrow by that people" (Henderson). God employs wicked nations as His instruments. "I will work a work." He says, but how? By the Chaldeans. How does He raise up wicked nations to do His work? 1. Not instigatingly. He does not inspire them with wicked passions necessary to qualify them for the infernal work of violence, war, rapine, bloodshed. God could not do this. 2. Not coercively. He does not force them to it, in no way does He interfere with them. They are the responsible party. How then does He "raise" them up? He permits them. He could prevent them; but He allows them. He gives them life, capacity, and opportunities. Now, would not the fact that their destruction would come upon them from a heathen nation, a nation which they despised, make it all the more terrible? II. IT WAS TO BE WROUGHT WITH RESISTLESS VIOLENCE. 1. The violence would be uncontrolled. "Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves." They recognise no authority, and proudly spurn the dictates of others. "They recognise no judge save themselves, and they get for themselves in their own dignity, without needing others' help." 2. The violence would be rapid and fierce. "Swifter than the leopard." "Evening wolves." III. IT WAS TO BE WROUGHT WITH IMMENSE HAVOC. In the east wind, or simoom; spreading destruction everywhere. ( Homilist. ) The Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation The Chaldeans A. C. Thiselton. Very graphic is the description of this new and formidable enemy. Gather four lessons for ourselves. I. THE EVIL OF SIN. It separates the soul from God. Wherever sin is it makes the prophet's roll to be written within and without. "Lamentation, and weeping, and woe." "All unrighteousness is sin." II. NATIONAL SINS LEAD TO NATIONAL JUDGMENTS. They are said to "defile" a land, and to be a "reproach" to any people. Direct judgments come on a nation for its sin; as on Sodom and Gomorrah, Egypt, Israel, etc. Then let our nation take heed. III. THE POWER OF LITTLE THINGS. "He heapeth up dust, and taketh it." That is, the king of Babylon, by means of mounds of dust, would put himself on a level with the besieged, and rapidly overcome them. It needs no great means when God is using the instrument. IV. THE DANGER OF FALSE SECURITY. "They shall deride every stronghold." When the Lord God is not there, the defence is vain. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth in, and is safe." Every false hiding-place will be swept away in the coining storm. Last year I saw in Pompeii a cellar where eighteen persons had fled for safety in the time of the great overthrow, but it was a false refuge. They were all lost. There is something like that in spiritual things. Many souls are hiding in a refuge of lies. They are trusting to their own merits, or to God's uncovenanted goodness apart from Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Without Christ, the God man, you are defenceless and exposed to storm and tempest. ( A. C. Thiselton. ) Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. Habakkuk 1:12 The Christian conception of immortality John Thomas, M. A. We know" that this prophet was inspired, from the profound moral insight and far-reaching spiritual vision revealed in his utterance. His words are his only credentials, but they are amply sufficient. The prophecy dates near the close of the seventh or the beginning of the sixth century, B.C. The circumstances of Habakkuk's time largely determined the contents as well as the form of his prophecy. What were these circumstances? On the one hand grave disappointment in the development of his own nation. The hope centring in Josiah was dispelled by his death in ill-advised battle. Simultaneously the power of Assyria waned, and the power of Babylon grew. The politician's despair is the prophet's opportunity, and grandly does Habakkuk rise to the occasion. The prophet saw that though Babylon was a hindrance to Judah's political emancipation, yet it was one of the necessary agents of its moral deliverance. Chaldea is to this extent God's agent, that it will compel Judah to fall back upon its religion and its God. Because the Eternal God is holy, Judah cannot die. The argument deals, strictly speaking, only with the persistence and decay of earthly societies and kingdoms. The life which is inferred from ethical kinship with God is victorious national life. The individual counterpart of the prophet's argument is given by our Saviour in His inspiring words, "Because I live, ye shall live also." The relation of the principle to the individual, and individual immortality is, no doubt, more subtle and complicated, especially with regard to the negative results of the principle; but there is a wide field of positive conclusions, where the argument is quite as strong and clear and inspiring in the case of the individual as of the nation, and this profounder and richer application has been fully made in the New Testament. Indeed the whole progress of revelation has been the unfolding of old principles into ampler significance rather than the addition of new ones. In the New Testament the individual is emphasised, and all ethical and religions considerations are first of all studied in reference to the individual. There is a little danger nowadays of losing sight of the individual again, of going back to the old world immature conceptions of society, in which the individual lay latent in the mass. This is a mistake. We shall not create an ideal society by accomplishing superficial reformations in the mass; we must be ever searching through the mass for the individual. The religion of Christ is primarily for the individual. Primarily, therefore, in the application of the Divine message, we have to deal with the spirit of man in its individual relation to God. I. THE SPIRITUAL MAN'S CONVICTION OF IMMORTALITY. The Scriptures nowhere assert the general principle of human immortality. There is certainly no clear indication of conditional immortality. The biblical revelation of immortality is in part bright and clear as the noonday, in part obscure and shadowy. We must not confound the method of Plato and Butler with the biblical method. One thing is clear. As man is, like God, an essentially ethical being, he cannot be destroyed by a merely physical change like death. The sense of spiritual kinship with God gradually compelled the personal conviction of immortality. The revelation has always come in the intense individual conviction, "I live in God, and so live for ever." The manifest aim of revelation has been to develop the Christian consciousness, not to satisfy all our curiosity about the eternal future. It is sometimes said that the only certain proof of immortality is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is correct, if it is carefully stated. It is correct, when the resurrection of Christ completes the Christian consciousness, and is vitally related to it. Paid argues thus, "If the resurrection of Christ be not a historic fact, then the deepest and noblest spiritual consciousness of men is a vanity and a falsehood, for that depends upon and demands a risen Christ." The Christ within me is the final assurance of life and immortality. II. THE CHRISTIAN CONTENTS OF THIS CONVICTION. It is a conviction, not of mere continued existence, but of eternal life, rich and varied in its content, a life filled to overflowing with the fulness of the Eternal. 1. The Christian conviction of immortality involves the assurance of a great increase and expansion of life after death. This assurance of expansion of life does not imply a breach of continuity between this life and the next. 2. The contents of this conviction include the resurrection of the body. Scepticism on this subject has arisen from supposed intellectual difficulties which have been allowed to obscure the utterance of the living voice of the Christ-spirit within. The denial of the resurrection of the body is virtually a denial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Are there then no difficulties? None at all, except those created by superficial theories of the resurrection. The continuity and redemption of our wonderful complex life will be complete. ( John Thomas, M. A. ) The eternity, providence, and holiness of Jehovah Homilist. I. THE PROPHET REGARDS THE ETERNITY OF JEHOVAH AS AN ARGUMENT FOR THEIR PRESERVATION. "Art Thou not from everlasting?" The interrogatory does not imply doubt on his part. The true God is essentially eternal, He "inhabiteth eternity." From His eternity the prophet argues that His people will not perish, — "we shall not die." There is force in this argument. His people live in Him. Christ said to His disciples, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Man's immortality is not in himself, but in God. II. HE REGARDS HIS PROVIDENCE AS A SOURCE OF COMFORT. "O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O Mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction." "Jehovah, for judgment Thou hast appointed it, and, O Rock, Thou hast founded it for chastisement" (Delitzsch). Whatever evil of any kind, from any quarter, comes upon the loyal servants of God, comes not by accident: it is under the direction of the All-wise and the All-beneficent. These Chaldeans could not move without Him, nor could they strike one blow without His permission; they were but the rod in His hand. All the most furious fiends in the universe are under His direction. Whatever mischief men design to inflict upon His people, He purposes to bring good out of it; and His counsel shall stand. II. HE REGARDS HIS HOLINESS AS AN OCCASION FOR PERPLEXITY. "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?" Jehovah is the Holy One. As if he had said, Since Thou art holy, why allow such abominations to take place? why permit wicked men to work such iniquities, and to inflict such suffering upon the righteous? This has always been a source of perplexity to good men. ( Homilist. ) Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look upon iniquity. Habakkuk 1:13 The holiness of God H. Raikes, A. M. There is in our Maker a purity of nature, and an essential sort of holiness which render Him incapable of enduring sin in any person, or under any circumstances. I believe this is the very foundation of all religious feeling whatever. The true fear of God is the fear of His holiness. 1. This is no contradiction to the character in which God is exhibited to us in the Gospel, as a God of love. But we must notice the limits under which the love of God must be taken in application to ourselves. Only in the Gospel is it revealed. 2. God has always shown a sort of instinctive abhorrence of sin, which no worth of the individual sinner could induce Him to overcome. This holiness of God is opposed to sin in every form and degree. There is nothing in man which can reconcile the nature of God to sin. Is sin regarded by us, as we must know and believe it is regarded by God? ( H. Raikes, A. M. ) The holiness of God Homilist. I. HIS HOLINESS IS UNIVERSALLY MANIFEST. 1. It is manifest to man.(1) In law. The principles of His moral law are holy, just, and good.(2) In providence. Justice is but holiness in action, and through all ages God has expressed His abhorrence of sin in the judgments He has inflicted.(3) In Christ. He sent His Son into the world. What for? "To put away sin." To cleanse humanity by His self-sacrificing life.(4) In conscience. The moral constitution of man, which recoils from the wrong and sympathises with the right, manifests God's holiness. There is no room for man, then, to doubt God's holiness. 2. It is manifest to angels. They live in its light. They are adorned with its beauties, they are inspired with its glories, and their anthem is, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." 3. It is manifest to the lost. They are bound to exclaim, "Just and right are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." II. HIS HOLINESS IS ETERNALLY ORIGINAL. The holiness of all holy intelligences is derived from Him. III. HIS HOLINESS IS GLORIOUSLY EFFULGENT. "He is glorious in holiness." He is light, in Him there is no darkness at all. IV. HIS HOLINESS IS ABSOLUTELY STANDARD. It is that to which the holiness of all other beings must come, and by which it must be tested. The law is, we are " to be holy as He is holy." But how can fallen man be raised to this standard of holiness? Here is the answer, and the only satisfactory answer: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men," etc. ( Homilist. ) Wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously? Things that suggest mistrust of God W. Talbot, D. D. St. Hierom's opinion is that the name Habakkuk is derived from a word that signifies embracing, and may imply the embraces of a wrestler, who clasps his arms about the person he contends with. In this chapter we have the prophet contending with no less an antagonist than the great God, and upon no lower subject than His holiness, justice, and goodness. Is it not a very bold and daring thing for a creature thus to arraign the justice of His Creator? The father fore-mentioned explains that the prophet in his own person represents the frailty and impatience of man. We understand Habakkuk to be really saying, "True it is, O Lord, we are a very wicked and sinful people; but yet not so bad as the tyrannous Nebuchadnezzar, and his idolatrous Chaldeans. How then can it be consistent with Thy justice and hatred to sin, to permit the greater sinners to prosper in their oppression of the less, of those that are better than themselves?" "Why dost Thou favour them in their treacherous enterprises?" The words of the text contain an expostulation with God, concerning that seemingly strange dispensation of His providence in suffering the wicked to prosper and thrive, and that by the afflictions and oppressions of the righteous. I. THE GROUND AND OCCASION OF THIS EXPOSTULATION OF THE TEXT. Good men cannot oppress, or take indirect methods to thrive; they have a God above, and a conscience within, which overawe them, and will not suffer them to do it. Nor can they be supposed to use such means as may effectually secure them from the violences and oppressions of others; for the good man, charitably measuring others by himself, does not stand upon a constant guard, nor use preventive methods to keep off those injuries that he is not apprehensive of. But a bad man has none of those restraints of God, or conscience, or charity, to hinder him from falling upon the prey that lies exposed to him. It is not then to be wondered at that "those who deal treacherously prosper," or "that the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he." II. INQUIRE INTO THE OBJECTIONS THAT ARE MADE AGAINST GOD'S PERMISSION HEREOF. How comes it to pass that God does not interpose, that He does not hinder the evil and defend the good? This has been a stumbling-block in all ages. It was to holy Job; to Jeremiah; and to Asaph. It is a great argument of the atheists to banish the belief of a God and His providence out of the world. They say, If God would hinder them but cannot, then is He not omnipotent; if He can, but will not, then is He not just and good; so that either His power, or His justice and goodness, must be given up; or else those attributes must be salved by the imperfection of His knowledge. But the true notion of God is a Being infinite in all perfections, and therefore he that is defective in knowledge can no more be God than he that is not infinite in power, justice, or goodness. And so they would dispute God out of being. III. VINDICATE THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE BY SHOWING THE WEAKNESS OF THESE OBJECTIONS. It may be very consistent with the justice and goodness of God to permit these things. The objection is built upon the contrary supposition. 1. It is not inconsistent with God's justice and goodness to suffer good men to be afflicted in this world, because —(1) Afflictions are not always punishments, but means whereby God does a great deal of good and benefit to them that are exercised with them. He weans them from the world, reduces them (leads them back) when they are going astray, tries and proves their faith, patience, submission, resignation, etc. 2. Supposing afflictions to be punishments, the best men will find failings and sins enough in themselves to make the punishment reasonable. They may well think God good and merciful in thus chastising them. 3. He has appointed a day wherein He will abundantly recompense all the troubles and sorrows and sufferings of pious men with joys unspeakable. 4. It is not inconsistent with God's justice and goodness to suffer bad men to be prosperous here.(1) Prosperity is not always a blessing. If the impunity of the wicked be their hardening and judgment, it is certainly not unjust with God to suffer it.(2) There is hardly any man so bad but has something of good in him, by which he is useful and serviceable to the world. For God to reward the natural or moral goodness of otherwise bad men, with outward temporal blessings, is agreeable to His rule of rewarding every one according to his works.(3) It cannot argue want of justice or goodness in God to try all means to reduce wholly wicked men and make them better.(4) There is a day of retribution coming. 5. It is not inconsistent with God's justice and goodness to suffer bad men to be the instruments whereby good men are afflicted. If a thing has to be done, and is right to do, it cannot matter whether the agent employed is good or bad, so long as he is efficient for the work. And can the good be employed in many of these judgments, or calamities, or wrongs? If God may work by such things, He must use the sort of people who can do them. Inferences — 1. This subject gives us an irrefragable assurance of a future judgment and state. 2. Learn not to "love the world, nor the things of the world." 3. The facts dwelt on should excite and inflame our desires and longings after the other world, where the wicked shall be made miserable, and the good man happy. 4. Learn not to think hardly of God, nor to envy wicked men when He permits them to persecute His Church, and to triumph in the miseries and ruin of His best servants. ( W. Talbot, D. D. ) "Wait, and you will see" Gates of Imagery. Linnell, the artist, had a commission to paint a picture, for which he was to receive £1000. Not wishing any one to inspect it until perfected, he veiled it when not working at it, and wrote over it in Latin, "Wait, and you will see." The final issue of much of God's work is now hidden from us, but assured that, even in times of affliction, God is acting wisely, we must wait until He is pleased to let us see the finished glory of His work. ( Gates of Imagery. ) And makest men as the fishes of the sea Habakkuk 1:14-17 Rapacious selfishness in power Homilist. Illustrated in Nebuchadnezzar. Selfishness is the root and essence of sin. All unregenerate men are therefore more or less selfish, and rapacity is an instinct of selfishness. Selfishness hungers for the things of others. I. IT PRACTICALLY IGNORES THE RIGHTS OF MAN AS MAN. "And makest man as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them." The Babylonian tyrant did not see in the population of Judea men possessing natural endowments, sustaining moral relationships, invested with rights and responsibilities similar to his own fellow-men; but merely "fishes"; — his object was, to catch them and turn them to his own use. It is ever so with selfishness: it blinds man to the claims of his brother. What does the selfish employer care for the man in those who work in his service and build up his fortune? He treats them rather as fishes to be used, than as brethren to be respected. What does the selfish despot care for the moral humanity of the people over whom he sways his sceptre? He values them only as they can fight his battles, enrich his exchequer, and contribute to his pageantry and pomp. What were men to Napoleon? etc. II. IT ASSIDUOUSLY WORKS TO TURN MEN TO ITS OWN USE. "They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag; therefore they rejoice and are glad." Ah me! Human life is like a sea — deep, unresting, treacherous; and the teaming millions of men are but as fishes, the weaker devoured by the stronger. The mighty ones use the hook to oppress individuals one by one, the net and the drag to carry multitudes away. As the fisherman works by various expedients to catch the fish, the selfish man in power is ever active in devising the best expedients to turn human flesh to his own

Benson Commentary Habakkuk 1:1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. 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. Habakkuk 1:2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! Habakkuk 1:2-4 . O Lord, how long shall I cry, &c. — How long shall I complain unto thee of might overcoming right, and thou wilt not save or prevent it? The prophet here proposes the common objection against Providence, taken from the prosperity of the wicked, and their oppression of the righteous, which has often been a stumbling-block even to good men: see Jeremiah 12:1 ; Job 12:6 ; and Job 21:7 ; Psalm 37., 73. Why dost thou show me iniquity? — Why hast thou caused me to live in such times of iniquity? for I see nothing but scenes of rapine, and the most unjust oppression. And there are that raise up strife, &c. — Or, there is strife, and contention carries it. There is much cause for complaining, but those best skilled in the arts of contention carry the cause. Therefore the law is slacked — The divine law, given us for the regulation of our conduct, hath lost its force. And judgment doth never go forth — Causes remain undetermined, and justice is not duly administered. For the wicked, &c. — For the wicked, by their deceitful arts, prevail against the righteous, and overpower them; therefore [rather, moreover ] wrong judgment proceedeth — Not only judgment is delayed, but, what is still worse, unjust judgment is given, and causes are evidently decided in a manner quite contrary to what is equitable and just. Habakkuk 1:3 Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. Habakkuk 1:4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth. Habakkuk 1:5 Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you . Habakkuk 1:5 . Behold, &c. — For a punishment of such exorbitant practices, behold, God is about to make the heathen the instruments of his vengeance. Ye among the heathen, and regard — Consider and weigh it well, in its nature and consequences; for it is intended as a warning to you, and assures you that judgment will overtake you also. And wonder marvellously — As astonished at judgments too great to be described, and so strange that they will appear to many, even of God’s professing people, to be incredible. For I will work a work, &c., which ye will not believe — The judgment shall be such, as you despisers of God’s word will not believe to be coming upon you. These words are referred to, and indeed quoted, by St. Paul, Acts 13:41 ; not, however, according to the Hebrew text, but the translation of the LXX., who, instead of ????? , begoim, among the heathen, seem to have read ????? , begadim, despisers, or perfidious persons. This reading of the LXX. is preferred by Grotius, because, he observes, “God addresses the Jews who were despisers of his deity.” Habakkuk 1:6 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. Habakkuk 1:6 . For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans — This is spoken of as a matter of great wonder and astonishment, because the Chaldeans, in the times of Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Josiah, were allies of the Jewish nation, and seemed linked to them in the greatest friendship; so that they had no fear on that side, but all their fear was from the Egyptians. Therefore the coming of the Chaldeans into the country is spoken of here as a thing entirely new, and as if that people had been called into existence for the very purpose of punishing the Jewish nation. There is a prophecy similar to this in Isaiah, with regard to the Assyrians, in whom the Jewish nation then placed their chief confidence, and thought of nothing less than of the evils which Isaiah threatened should be brought upon them by that nation: so weak and short-sighted often is human policy! see Isaiah 7. That bitter and hasty nation — That people cruel, in their disposition, quick in executing their purposes, and hasty in their marches, Isaiah 5:26-27 ; Jeremiah 5:16-17 . Which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess, &c. — This is spoken of the Chaldeans extending their conquests to a vast distance from the original seat of their empire. Habakkuk 1:7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. Habakkuk 1:7-9 . Their judgment, &c., shall proceed of themselves — They will judge themselves of what they shall do, without paying regard to any thing but their own will, and shall have power to put in execution whatever they resolve upon. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards — “Leopards tamed and taught to hunt are, it is said, made use of [in Palestine] for hunting, and seize the prey with surprising agility. When the leopard leaps, he throws himself seventeen or eighteen feet at a time.” — Harmer, 2:438. And are more fierce than the evening wolves — Which, having fasted in the day, were wont to come forth in the evening fierce and ravenous. And their horsemen shall spread themselves — Namely, all over the land; that is, they shall be very numerous. They shall come all for violence — To enrich themselves by making a prey of all. Their faces shall sup up as the east wind — They shall destroy every thing where they march, as the east wind blasts the fruits of the earth. And they shall gather the captivity [or, captives ] as the sand — Not only in Judea, but in all the neighbouring countries which they conquer. Houbigant renders the clause, A burning wind goes before them, and gathers captives as the sand. They shall carry desolation, destruction, and fire, everywhere before them. The winds which blew from Arabia the Desert were extremely hot, and very dangerous, not only on account of their own heat, but on account of the dust and sand which they brought with them. Habakkuk 1:8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. Habakkuk 1:9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. Habakkuk 1:10 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. Habakkuk 1:10-11 . And they shall scoff at the kings, &c. — The Hebrew use the singular number here, ( He shall scoff, &c.,) as well as in the following verse, and it is to be understood of the king of Babylon, who treated the kings he conquered with scorn and contempt: so he used Zedekiah and his princes. They shall deride every strong hold — They shall contemn, or count as nothing, the most strongly fortified places. They shall heap dust and take it — They shall cast up mounds against them, and so take them. Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over — Rather, And shall pass over, (without the personal pronoun he, ) that is, his mind shall change, and pass beyond the bounds of moderation. By this and the next clause, imputing this his power unto his god, was foretold that the king of Babylon should be made arrogant by his victories, and should impute them to the power of the false gods he worshipped. This was remarkably true of Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s successor, who, with his thousand lords, when he was drinking wine in the golden and silver vessels taken out of God’s temple, and was thereby triumphing over Jehovah and his people, praised the gods of gold and silver, &c., as the authors of their successes and victories. It was also remarkably verified in Nebuchadnezzar himself, who, as we find from Daniel 3., cast three otherwise innocent persons, and faithful to him, into a furnace of fire, because they would not fall down before the idol which he had set up. But Grotius, and many others, interpret the latter part of the verse thus: Saying this his strength is his god; that is, imputing all his success to his own skill and prowess; a sense of the words which answers remarkably to the character of Nebuchadnezzar, as given in the book of Daniel: see chapter Daniel 3:17 , and Daniel 4:30 , and Daniel 5:20 . Probably the extraordinary insanity which befell Nebuchadnezzar, as the punishment of his pride and arrogance, might be also here intended in the first clause of this verse, which in the Hebrew is, Then shall his spirit change and pass over, &c. Here, then, is a remarkable proof of what the psalmist says, namely, that God understandeth our thoughts afar off: for here the alteration that should in after times be made in Nebuchadnezzar’s mind by his prosperity is expressly foretold, together with the punishment that should follow upon it. Habakkuk 1:11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god. Habakkuk 1:12 Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Habakkuk 1:12 . Art thou not, &c. — Here the prophet, upon being made sensible that the king of Babylon should attribute all his victories to some false or fictitious deity, or to his own abilities, breaks out into a passionate exclamation to Jehovah, Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God? — Art not thou he, who only hath been from everlasting; while all others that are called gods have had a beginning, and there was a time when neither they nor the men that set them up had any being? Thou, therefore, art infinitely superior, both to the most powerful men, and to all that are called gods. We shall not die — We shall not utterly perish by the Chaldeans, though we shall suffer severely from them. Or, as Secker renders it, Let us not die. Thou hast ordained them for judgment — Thou hast appointed the Chaldeans to execute thy judgments on sinners. And, O mighty God — Whose sovereignty is unquestionable, and power irresistible; thou hast established them for correction — The Hebrew is, thou hast founded them as a rock for correction, namely, of the Jewish people. Habakkuk 1:13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? Habakkuk 1:13-17 . Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil — Thou art of too just and pure a nature to approve of wickedness: it must ever be an abomination to thee. Thou canst not look upon iniquity — Except with infinite abhorrence. Wherefore lookest thou upon them — Seemest to connive at, or dost not show any particular dislike at the violence of those idolatrous Chaldeans? And makest men as the fishes of the sea, &c. — By delivering them to Nebuchadnezzar, who takes them in his net, as a fisherman takes fishes; which creatures suffer themselves to be taken without resistance, because they have no power to defend themselves. As the creeping things that have no ruler, &c. — No chief to conduct or guard them. The Hebrews give the common name of reptiles to all fishes. They take up all of them with the angle — The prophet, having in the preceding verse compared men to fishes, continues here, by way of metaphor, to describe the advantages which the Chaldeans gained over other nations, by the several ways used by fishermen in taking fishes, as by catching them with the angle, enclosing them in nets, and gathering them in drags. Therefore they rejoice and are glad — On account of the prey they take; that is, the Chaldeans rejoice in taking a great number of captives, and gathering rich spoils, as fishermen rejoice when they catch a great number of fishes. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, &c. — They impute all their victories to their own strength and skill, or to idols of their own making, and render no acknowledgments to God for their success. Because by them their portion is fat, &c. — Because by means of their victories they get abundance of rich spoil. Shall they therefore empty their net — Carry away the riches and spoils of their conquests, (see 2 Kings 24:13 ,) in order to undertake more; just as fishermen empty their nets to fill them again. But the words may be properly rendered, Shall he therefore spread his net? in which sense the Vulgate, as also the Greek and Chaldee, here interpret the Hebrew verb ???? , a word often used of drawing or unsheathing a sword or spear. And not spare continually to slay the nations — Wilt thou suffer them to go on to make havoc continually of all other nations? Shall they never be stopped in their career? Habakkuk 1:14 And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? Habakkuk 1:15 They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad. Habakkuk 1:16 Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. Habakkuk 1:17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations? Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Habakkuk 1:1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. Habakkuk 1:1-17 Hab 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 Nebuchadrezzar 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 Nabopolassar 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 NOTE ON Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4 Since this chapter was in print Nowack’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. Nevertheless 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 Nahum, 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 New Testament language, "the good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck." Nor 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." The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.