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?

Hab 1:1. Title. On the seeing of an oracle, cf. Isa 2:1, etc.

Complaint against Yahweh for His Tolerance of Wrong-doing. In bitter remonstrance with Yahweh, the prophet asks how long he must cry Violence! and look on wretchedness and trouble, robbery, strife and contention, the failure of justice and the general paralysis of law, while Yahweh remains silent, indifferent, or powerless.

Hab 1:2. violence: probably the burden of the cry.

Hab 1:3. iniquity. perverseness: rather wretchedness or misery..·. trouble.

Hab 1:4. law: moral direction or instruction from Yahweh. slacked: lit. benumbed, paralysed. compass about: i.e. circumvent in his plans, and impede in his rights.

The Chaldeans as Ministers of Divine Justice. In His answer Yahweh directly addresses the evil-doers, warning them that He is about to work a work in their days they would never have believed: He is raising against them the fierce and dreaded power of the Chaldeans, who are already carrying destruction to the ends of the earth, swooping from afar like eagles on the prey, gathering captives like the sand, scoffing at kings and princes, carrying fortresses with a rush, and making their strength a god.

Hab 1:5. For baggoyim, among the nations, read bog dim, ye evil-doers (LXX). I work (ptcp.): i.e. I am just about to work.

Hab 1:6. bitter and hasty: rather, fierce and impetuous (vehement).

Hab 1:7. Omitting mishpaṭ? o (their judgment) as explanatory gloss, and reading she-' th, destruction, for s e etho, his dignity, translate out of him (them) goeth destruction.

Hab 1:8. evening wolves: with their hunger whetted to its keenest edge.

Hab 1:8 b. Render perhaps, Onward their horsemen bound; they come from afar (cf. Jer 50:11).

Hab 1:9. The middle clause is untranslateable, and its sense wholly uncertain.

Hab 1:10. heapeth up dust: for a siege-mound.

Hab 1:11. With a slight change in the verb read, Then he sweepeth along like the wind, and maketh his strength a god. The prophet here seems to combine features drawn from current report of the Chaldeans with others suggested by the Scythian invaders of Josiah's reign (cf. Jeremiah's Scythian songs).

Remonstrance over the Inhumanity of the Chaldeans. The execution of Divine judgment raises fresh questions: Why should the Holy One, whose eyes are too pure to look on evil, appoint as minister of justice a people still more faithless and corrupt than its victim? And why should He make the nations like leaderless swarms of fish, to be swept into the net, and gathered up in the seine (drag-net), then emptied out and slaughtered, while the oppressor in brutal joy offers sacrifice to his nets?

Hab 1:12. Read probably, Yahweh, my Holy God, that diest not? (cf. mg.). The second part of the verse should also perhaps be taken interrogatively, Was it thou that didst ordain (appoint) him. for judgment? For tsur, Rock (which reads very awkwardly), Duhm suggests tsir, messenger or minister: thus, and established him as a minister of chastisement.

Hab 1:14. creeping things: rather, swarming things ( Gen 1:20 *).

Hab 1:16. The conqueror deifies his weapons of war (cf. Herodotus-' account of Scythian sacrifices to the scimitar, iv. 59f.)

Hab 1:17. The word tamid, continually, should probably go with the first clause, Shall he be ever emptying his net, to slaughter nations unpitying?