Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
They shall come all for violence - " Violence" had been the sin of Judah Habakkuk 1:3-4, and now violence shall be her punishment. It had been ever before the prophet; all were full of it. Now should violence be the very end, one by one, of all the savage horde poured out upon them; they all, each one of them come for violence.
Their faces shall sup up as the east wind - occurs else only in Ezekiel 11:1, and Ezekiel 11:16 times in Ezek. 40-48 of the ideal city and temple as "Eastwards." But except in the far-fetched explanation of Abarb (mentioned also by Tanchum) that they ravaged, not to settle but to return home with their booty, "Eastwards" would have no meaning. Yet "forwards" is just as insulated a rendering as that adopted by John and D. Kimchi, A. E. Rashi, Oh. Sip., Sal. B. Mel. Arab Tr. (following Jonathan) "the East-wind; standing as a metaphor instead of a simile the being regarded as paragogic, as in . So also Symmachus ̓́ ́ anemos kausōn . Jerome: " ventus urens ." ) "As at the breath of the burning wind all green things dry up, so at sight of these all shall be wasted." They shall sweep over everything impetuously, like the east wind, scorching, blackening, blasting, swallowing up all, as they pass over, as the East wind, especially in the Holy Land, sucks up all moisture and freshness.
And they shall gather the captivity - i. e., the captives
As the sand - countless, as the particles which the East wind raises, sweeping over the sand-wastes, where it buries whole caravans in one death.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Habakkuk 1:9:
2 Kings 20:14
Job 29:18
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