And justice never goes forth.
For the awicked surround the righteous;
Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
The Lord’s Reply
Be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days
Which you would not believe, though it were told you.
A bitter and hasty bnation
Which marches through the breadth of the earth,
To possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
And more fierce than evening wolves.
Their chargers2 charge ahead;
Their cavalry comes from afar;
They fly as the beagle that hastens to eat.
Their faces are set like the east wind.
They gather captives like sand.
And princes are scorned by them.
They deride every stronghold,
For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
He commits offense,
aAscribing this power to his god.”
The Prophet’s Second Question
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, bYou have appointed them for judgment;
O Rock, You have marked them for ccorrection.
And cannot look on wickedness.
Why do You look on those who deal treacherously,
And hold Your tongue when the wicked devours
A person more righteous than he?
They catch them in their net,
And gather them in their dragnet.
Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
And burn incense to their dragnet;
Because by them their share is1 sumptuous
And their food plentiful.
And continue to slay nations without pity?
Habakkuk
HABAKKUK, from a Hebrew root meaning to "embrace," denoting a "favorite" (namely, of God) and a "struggler" (for his country's good). Some ancient authors represent him as belonging to the tribe of Levi; others [PSEUDO EPIPHANIUS], to that of Simeon. The inscription to Bel and the dragon in the Septuagint asserts the former; and Habakkuk 3:19 perhaps favors this. EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 7.29] states that in his time Habakkuk's tomb was shown at Ceila in Palestine.
The time seems to have been about 610 BC For the Chaldeans attacked Jerusalem in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim, 605 BC (II Kings 24:1; II Chronicles 36:6; Jeremiah 46:2; Jeremiah 36:9). And Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:5-6, etc.) speaks of the Chaldeans as about to invade Judah, but not as having actually done so. In the second chapter he proceeds to comfort his people by foretelling the humiliation of their conquerors, and that the vision will soon have its fulfilment. In the third chapter the prophet in a sublime ode celebrates the deliverances wrought by Jehovah for His people in times past, as the ground of assurance, notwithstanding all their existing calamities, that He will deliver them again. Habakkuk 3:16 shows that the invader is still coming, and not yet arrived; so that the whole refers to the invasion in Jehoiakim's times, not those under Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. The Apocryphal appendix to Daniel states that he lived to see the Babylonian exile (588 BC), which accords with his prophesying early in Jehoiakim's reign, about 610 BC
The position of the book immediately after Nahum is appropriate; as Nahum treated of the judgments of the Lord on Assyria, for its violence against Israel, so Habakkuk, those inflicted by, and on, the Chaldeans for the same reason.
The style is poetical and sublime. The parallelisms are generally regular. Borrowed ideas occur (compare Habakkuk 3:19, with Psalms 18:33; Habakkuk 2:6, with Isaiah 14:4; Habakkuk 2:14, with Isaiah 11:9). The ancient catalogues imply that his book is part of the canon of Scripture. In the New Testament, Romans 1:17 quotes Habakkuk 2:4 (though not naming him); compare also Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38. Acts 13:40-41 quotes Habakkuk 1:5. One or two Hebrew words peculiar to Habakkuk occur (Habakkuk 1:9; Habakkuk 2:6, Habakkuk 2:16).
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