Habakkuk

“ Then, to his amazement, he recognized the man as Jake Golcher, the Tory, who had wrought all this ruin and sorrow; though Habakkuk was far from suspecting the whole result of the shot of the renegade.
"By the great Cæsar! it's him," gasped Habakkuk, trembling with excitement; "and that gives me a chance to win some laurels with the other folks, especially with pretty Maggie."
Assuming a kneeling position, he took the most careful aim of his life at the unsuspecting ingrate, and when certain there could be no miss, pulled the trigger. ”

“ From that time Babylon became greater and more terrible than Nineveh, whose power it inherited. Habakkuk (ii. 1-19) paints the rapacity, the selfishness, the inflated ambition, the cruelty, the drunkenness, the idolatry of the Chaldæans. He calls them (i. 5-11) a rough and restless nation, frightful and terrible, whose horsemen were swifter than leopards, fiercer than evening wolves, flying to gorge on prey like the vultures, mocking at kings and princes, and flinging dust over strongholds. ”

“ 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 [Pg 136] heathen power, [375] be it Assyrian, Egyptian or Chaldean. The prophet’s horizon is filled with wrong: [376] Israel thrown into disorder, revelation paralysed, justice perverted. [377] But, like Nahum, Habakkuk feels not for Israel alone. The Tyrant has outraged humanity. ”

“ When the time drew nigh for him to die he called his kinsfolk, and told them that he was going to die. And he continued to gaze upwards for the space of an hour, and behold a great arm, like the hand [and arm] of a man, opened the roof of the house, and came down from above, and reached itself out to his mouth, and took his soul. And when Anastasius, the Christian emperor, read the story of the strife of Habakkuk, he built a church in his honor in the city of Kartas, in the north of Egypt, and it was consecrated as on this day. Salutation to Habakkuk. ”

“ The righteous mentioned there are Israel as a whole, the wicked their heathen oppressors. So Hitzig, Ewald, König 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 [Pg 119] 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. ”

“ Habakkuk, on receiving the mission to announce the Casdim as the executors of the Divine decree, is at a loss to understand why these wicked and cruel people should be chosen to chastise those who are far less wicked; why the evil-doer should swallow him who is more righteous. The answer he receives is, “But the just shall live by his faith.” The evil-doer will in due time receive his full punishment. Habakkuk then gives expression to his implicit faith in the justice of God, in a hymn which is superscribed, “Prayer (‏תפלה‎) of the prophet Habakkuk on account of errors;” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leaving out of sight the opinions of those who deny the supernatural character of prophecy, and therefore maintain that the prophet did not prophesy till the Chaldaeans were coming against Jerusalem after the defeat of Necho, or had already arrived there, the only question that can arise is, whether Habakkuk lived and laboured in the reign of Josiah or in the closing years of Manasseh. ”

“ Assyria. Nahum exults in the destruction of Niniveh; Habakkuk sees in the Chaldeans nothing but the avengers of the peoples whom Assyria [48] had oppressed. For both these events are the close of an epoch: neither prophet looks beyond this. Nahum (not on behalf of Israel alone) gives expression to the epoch’s long thirst for vengeance on the tyrant; Habakkuk (if Budde’s reading of him be right [49] ) states the problems with which its victorious cruelties had filled the pious mind—states the problem and beholds the solution in the Chaldeans. ”

“ And Zabud let call for tables, and Solomon the King played at the chess with Habakkuk the Son of the Desert, and Solomon’s men were of the white and Habakkuk’s of the black. And Habakkuk played without thought as one that could but little of the chess, so that in a brief space King Solomon had taken prisoner both his elephants and a knight of the right hand and a camel of the left, besides four of his foot soldiers, while Habakkuk had taken but one foot soldier of King Solomon. And Solomon said within himself, “What glory is it to win at the chess of a dog of the desert such as this? ”

“ It is very likely that he lived after the destruction of Nineveh, as he speaks of the Chaldeans, but makes no mention of the Assyrians. And he appears also to have prophesied before the Jewish captivity, see [5] ; [6] ; [7] , [8] ; and therefore Abp. Newcome thinks he may be placed in the reign of Jehoiakim, between the years 606 b.c. and 598 b.c.
As a poet, Habakkuk holds a high rank among the Hebrew prophets. The beautiful connection between the parts of his prophecy, its diction, imagery, spirit, and sublimity, cannot be too much admired ”

“ The earth is then full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the peace throughout all nature which has already been promised is one fruit of that knowledge. In Habakkuk, on the other hand, this knowledge is only secured through the overthrow of the kingdom of the world, and consequently only thereby will the earth be filled with it, and that not with the knowledge of Jehovah (as in Isaiah) , but with the knowledge of His glory (כּבוד יי) , which is manifested in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (Isa 2:12-21; Isa 6:3, compared with the primary passage, Num 14:21) . ”

“ It can be explained very simply from the fact, that in the second hemistich Habakkuk passes from the general description of the Chaldaeans to a picture of their invasion of Judah. מרחוק , from afar, i.e., from Babylonia (cf. Isa 39:3) . Their coming from afar, and the comparison of the rushing along of the Chaldaean horsemen to the flight of an eagle, points to the threat in Deu 28:49, “Jehovah shall bring against thee a nation from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth,” which is now about to be fulfilled. ”

“ Paul quotes an illustration of his doctrine of justification by faith from Habakkuk ii. 4—"The soul of the proud man is not upright, but the just man shall live by his steadfastness"; a passage which originally applied to the Chaldeans and the Jews, predicting that the former should enjoy no stable prosperity, but that the Jews, ideally represented as the just or upright man, should live securely because of their fidelity ”

“ The poet wishes to describe how all the powers of nature became the servants of the majestic revelation of Jahve, when He executed judgment on Egypt and delivered Israel. זרם, Poel of זרם (cognate זרב, זרף, Aethiopic זנם, to rain) , signifies intensively: to stream forth in full torrents. Instead of this line, Habakkuk, with a change of the letters of the primary passage, which is usual in Jeremiah more especially, has זרם מים עבר. The rumbling which the שׁחקים [15] cause to sound forth (נתנוּ, cf. Psa 68:34) is the thunder. The arrows of God (חצציך, in Habakkuk חצּיך) are the lightnings. ”

“ Brainerd impressed this fact on the other two men, and, at his suggestion, they helped guard the point.
"It won't do for all of us to fire simultaneously," he said, "for then nothing could prevent the Indians charging across, and before we knew it, the whole place would be swarming with them."
"How will we know which is to fire?" asked Habakkuk.
"I'll take the first, Gravity the second, and you the third; they are not likely to make a rush, though, if they did, they would be certain to succeed after losing one or two of their number." ”

“ I guess gold-hunting, in those days, was not the pleasantest of occupations,” remarked Habakkuk, in conclusion.
“The Ingins, too, was troublesome in these parts, I’ve heard say,” observed Stalker.
“I guess they was,” answered Mr Gaby. “Can’t say, however, but what our people—that is, the whites—often brought it on themselves by shooting a red man without provocation; making them work against their will, beating them when they wouldn’t, and carrying off their squaws. Flesh and blood, whether it’s red or black, or white, don’t like that sort of treatment. ”

“ It is more simple to consider that which occurred about 600 as a first attempt at rebellion which was punished lightly by the Chaldæans.
Jehoiakim, left to himself, resisted with such determination that Nebuchadrezzar was obliged to bring up his Chaldæan forces to assist in the attack. Judah trembled with fear at the mere description which her prophet Habakkuk gave of this fierce and sturdy people, “which march through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling-places which are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ”

“ They heaped treasure together for the last days, and it was a heaping together by fraud, dishonesty in keeping back the hire of the laborers. They lived in pleasure (luxuriously) and been wanton. Indeed, here is that burning question of the day, capital and labor, and its final outcome, misery and judgment upon commercialism, riches heaped up, and all in wickedness. In Habakkuk ii: 12 the woe of judgment of that coming glory of the Lord is pronounced upon him that buildeth a town with blood and establisheth a city by iniquity! ”

“ Etheridge states that only fragments of this book are extant (p. 406) . Delitzsch (de Habacuci Proph. vita atque ætate, Lips. 1842, p. 34) also defends Martini's sincerity, and says "Non dubito fore, ut fragmentum a Raymundo nobiscum communicatum aliquando in antiquis Genesis Rabba Codd., qui sane rarissimi sunt, inveniatur."
The fact incidentally brought out in the story that Habakkuk was not engaged in reaping, but was occupied in taking out food for the reapers, fits in well with the idea of his advanced age. ”

“ They are not decisive. They tell with varying force upon varying minds; but they distinctly tend, in the writer's opinion, to increase the probability of the Greek having been grounded upon a Hebrew or an Aramaic form of the story, the likelihood of the latter being slightly the stronger.
In view of the introduction of Habakkuk into the story of the Dragon, Delitzsch's opinion as to the similarity of Daniel's Hebrew to the Hebrew of that prophet (see Streane, Age of Macc. p. 262) becomes of importance. ”

“ Did not Rabha say, referring to the passage [Habakkuk iii. 4] : "And (his) brightness was like the sunlight; rays streamed forth out of his hand unto them: and there was the hiding of his power." "The righteous as compared with the Shekhina appear as the light of a candle to a bright flame; and concerning the benediction to be made at the close of the Sabbath-day which is pronounced over a light, he said, that a bright flame is more conducive to the efficient fulfilment of that duty?" (Why then should a flame not be permitted for the search?) ”

“ Heb. day of cold.
[312] ישכנו, dwell, is the Heb. reading. But LXX. ישנו, ἐκοίμισεν. Sleep must be taken in the sense of death: cf. Jer. li. 39, 57; Isa. xiv. 18.
[313] Except one or two critics who place it in Manasseh’s reign. See below.
[314] See next note.
[315] So Pusey. Delitzsch in his commentary on Habakkuk, 1843, preferred Josiah’s reign, but in his O. T. Hist. of Redemption, 1881, p. 226, Manasseh’s. Volck (in Herzog, Real Encyc.,2 art. “Habakkuk,” 1879) , assuming that Habakkuk is quoted both by Zephaniah (see above, p. 39, n.) and Jeremiah, places him before these. ”

“ All that is mentioned of the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a perfect proof that Divine Providence extends to every man individually. But the condition of the individual beings of other living creatures is undoubtedly the same as has been stated by Aristotle. On that account it is allowed, even commanded, to kill animals; we are permitted to use them according to our pleasure. The view that other living beings are only governed by Divine Providence in the way described by Aristotle, is supported by the words of the Prophet Habakkuk. ”

“ You may return to tell of God's greatness, which you have seen in Eastern lands. Perhaps they will be more ready to believe in God when they hear what you have to say. Ten years after you reach home I will visit you, as I visited Habakkuk and Daniel, whom I took over many lands. I will then bring you to this place, chosen of God, that your bones may be guarded here till the Judgment-Day. Remain here for seven days, then take with you food for your journey, and return to the North."
In the morning, when Eric awoke, he thanked God, and did all the angel had told him. ”

“ The composition of Nahum is placed between 720 and 698 B.C. Nineveh was destroyed 606 B.C., a century later.
The first verse of Zephaniah declares that the book was written “in the days of Josiah,” in the seventh century B.C.; the last verse shows that it was written in the days of Cyrus, in the sixth century B.C. Every chapter of Habakkuk and Obadiah’s single chapter show that these books were written after the dates assigned.
The book of Haggai is ascribed to Haggai, the last person in the world to whom it can reasonably be ascribed. It is not a book of Haggai, but about Haggai. ”