1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear! even cry out to you of violence, and you will not save!

3 Why do you 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.

4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment does never go forth: for the wicked does compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds.

5 Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told you.

6 For, see, 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 their's.

7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

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 hastens to eat.

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.

10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.

11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god.

12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity: why look you on them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?

14 And make men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

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.

16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?

The Prophet’s burden. The Answer of Jehovah

1. Burden] RM ’oracle’: see on Isa 13:1.

2, 3. How long?.. Why?] Even a prophet ( Hab 1:1) can ask such questions. He never denies the existence of God, but he cannot understand His seeming failure to interpose in human affairs. In the end, however, the despondency merges into a faith which can believe where it cannot see ( Hab 2:3; Hab 3:17.).

5. Behold ye among the heathen] For this we ought to read, ’Behold, ye treacherous’ (as in the quotation in Act 13:41, ’ye despisers’). The despisers are those in Hab 1:1-4 who trample upon moral and social law, thinking Jehovah will never intervene. In your days] The profounder solution in Hab 2:3 contemplates the possibility of a long postponement of the issue.

6. The Chaldeans] possibly written after the battle of Carchemish, in 605 b.c., with reference to Nebuchadrezzar and his army, so graphically described in Hab 2:6-10.

7. The last clause means that the Chaldean recognises no master or judge: he is a law to himself.

9. RM ’Their faces are set eagerly forwards, and they gather captives as the sand.’

10. They shall heap dust] i.e. they shall throw up an enlargement of earth, to take the fortress.

11. The correct translation should probably be: Then he sweeps by as a wind, and passes on and makes his might his God—an admirable climax to the description of the Chaldeans.

12-17. A new riddle.

12. Habakkuk’s faith is staggered by the conduct of the Chaldeans. He had welcomed them as ministers of the divine judgment, and 10!they had shown themselves to be cruel and haughty, working out not God’s will, but their own. How was this consistent with the holiness of God?

13. The cry of a perplexed heart: Thou art too pure to look upon evil, why then dost Thou look upon it? God looks on in silence: He does nothing, says nothing! The wicked (i.e. the Chaldean) swallows up one who is more righteous than himself (i.e. Judah).

14. And makest] probably this should be ’and makes.’ It is, as Hab 1:15-16 show, the Chaldean who makes men like fish, sweeping them into his net.

16. He sacrifices to his net] i.e. to his weapons of destruction, as to a god: for was not might his god? cp. Hab 1:11.

17. This v. should probably read, ’Will he draw the sword for ever, slaying nations mercilessly evermore?’.