Habakkukchapter 1
17 verses · Habakkuk · 609 to 605 BC · The Twelve
“Look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you.
Introduction
Habakkuk, The Twelve, Habakkuk Overview.
Habakkuk is a prophet of Judah known to us only from this book, and he wrote in the last years before Babylon took Jerusalem. Most prophets carry the word of God to the people. This one carries the trouble of the people to God. The chapter is an argument between a faithful man and the Lord he serves, written down without softening. Listen for who is speaking at each turn, and for the moment the answer troubles the prophet more than his first question did. It gives a reader leave to bring an honest complaint to God.
Context
- Who
- People watching their own society rot while a worse nation gathered strength
- What
- A prophet's complaint to God about injustice in Judah, the LORD's answer that He is raising up the Chaldeans, and the prophet's second complaint about that answer.
- Where
- Judah, where the courts had stopped working while Babylon was rising in the east.
- When
- The book gives no date, and the most likely setting is 609 to 605 BC, in the reign of Jehoiakim, around the time Babylon defeated Egypt at Carchemish.
- Why
- To record a faithful man bringing his hardest question about God's justice to God Himself, and the answer that judgment on Judah was coming through Babylon.
Historical context
Josiah's reforms had been the last good thing to happen to Judah, and they died with him at Megiddo in 609 BC. His son Jehoiakim was installed by Egypt, then had to switch loyalty to Babylon, and Jeremiah accuses him of building himself a paneled palace with unpaid labor. Habakkuk's opening complaint about violence, strife, and a paralyzed law matches that reign exactly.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
In 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Egyptian army at Carchemish and the whole corridor changed hands. The Chaldeans, the Babylonian ruling group, went from a rebel province of Assyria to the great power of the world in about twenty years.
God's answer to Habakkuk's first complaint is the shock of the chapter: I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation. The description that follows is a portrait of a professional army, horses swifter than leopards, faces set to advance, gathering captives like sand, scoffing at kings, heaping up earth ramps to take fortified cities. Siege ramps are exactly what Babylon built, and one survives at Lachish from an earlier Assyrian siege.
So Habakkuk asks the harder question. He can accept judgment; what he cannot accept is that God would use a nation more wicked than Judah to do it. "Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?"
This book is unusual for a prophet: it is not addressed to the people at all. It is an argument with God, written down.
Significance
For Judeans, this chapter said out loud what everyone was thinking and nobody was praying. How long? Why don't you save? Why is your answer worse than my problem?
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
That the complaint made it into Scripture, unedited, told them something about the God they were complaining to. He did not require them to pretend.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter has no reading in the site's synagogue table. Probed for this lane, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed 0 weekly portions and no Haftarah use for Habakkuk 1, and no festival reading for the book. The same probe printed 54 weekly portions and 6 festival readings in the table as a whole.
The chapter is met in the study of other books instead, and the corpus shows the joins. Under the seventh verse it carries three passages of Midrash Tanchuma Buber on the portion Tazria. Under the sixteenth it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Yitro 16:5 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 10:3.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern.
He reads the whole chapter as a complaint about Babylon. At the opening cry he says the prophet "foresaw with the Holy Spirit that Nebuchadnezzar was destined to be the ruler of the world and to cause trouble for Israel" (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:2:1). The burden of the first verse is "what he bore and received by the Holy Spirit" (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:1:1).
The slackened law of the fourth verse is read as the cost of that success to Israel. Rashi says "the Torah will slacken and leave them," and he names the idol in the valley of Dura (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:4:1). The justice that never goes out is "the true decision of the Law" (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:4:2).
At the fifth verse Rashi reads the unbelievable work as the raising of the Chaldeans. He calls them "the people that did not deserve to be created," and joins them to Isaiah 23:13 (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:5:1). The Christian reader should mark this verse. Paul quotes it in Acts 13:41 as a warning to the people listening to him. Rashi reads it of Babylon in Habakkuk's day, and the two readings stand apart.
The twelfth verse carries the chapter's one note on the text itself. Rashi says the words "we shall not die" are "one of the emendations of the scribes in Scripture, by which Scripture euphemizes" (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:12:1). He points to Sifre on Numbers 10:35 for the list of them. The prophet's plea, read that way, is that God not hand Israel over to die.
The fishing images close the chapter. Men are made "free as the fish of the sea, which anyone who wishes may catch" (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:14:1). The Babylonian sacrifices to his net because he takes it for his god (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:16:1). At the last verse Rashi reads the question as a statement, on the pattern of questions in 1 Samuel 2:27 and 2 Samuel 15:27 (Rashi on Habakkuk 1:17:1).
The corpus carries five further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Habakkuk 1:1:1, 1:5:1 and 1:6:1, Radak on Habakkuk 1:6:1 and Rashi on Habakkuk 1:7:2.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 40 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 4 that it files under Talmud and 36 under Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased.
On verse 2 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 82:3, Midrash Aggadah, Deuteronomy 3:23:7 and Midrash Tehillim 7:19. It also holds Pesikta DeRav Kahana 16:8. On verse 3 it holds Midrash Tehillim 90:1. On verse 4 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 2:18:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 3:49:1.
On verse 6 it holds Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Chapter of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 7. It also holds Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Prayer of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 6. On verse 7 it holds Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 13:2:7, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 36:24:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 10:1. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 10:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 10:3.
On verse 8 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 20:2, Bereshit Rabbah 16:4 and Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 2:11:1. It also holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 4:19:1 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:35:5. On verse 10 it holds Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version II 1:14. On verse 11 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Esther 1:12:2.
On verse 12 it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 44:6, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 6:3 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 1:1:29. It also holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:21:18 and Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 16:2. On verse 13 it holds Bava Metzia 71a:7, Berakhot 7b:21 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 1:38. It also holds Ein Yaakov, Bava Metzia 5:8 and Ein Yaakov, Megillah 1:8.
On verse 14 it holds Avodah Zarah 3b:16, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Avodah Zarah 1:5 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:1:1. It also holds Pesikta Rabbati 21:1 and Sifrei Devarim 306:1. On verse 15 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 11:7:1. On verse 16 it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 10:3, Midrash Tanchuma, Yitro 16:5 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 302:2.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Habakkuk 1:1:1 to 1:17:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY, with 1:7:2 cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text for it; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Habakkuk 1:1:1, 1:5:1 and 1:6:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Habakkuk 1:6:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/habakkuk/1.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Habakkuk 1: no weekly portion, no Haftarah use and no festival reading; The Berean Standard Bible, Acts 13:41, the New Testament use of Habakkuk 1:5, read from the store.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
How long shall I cry and you will not hear?
Habakkuk 1:1-2
received in a vision: The book is a burden that Habakkuk "received in a vision," so what follows was seen before it was spoken. His first words ask "How long, O LORD, must I call for help". The book that opens in this complaint ends in worship at 3:18.
Habakkuk 1:1
“The burden - On the word “burden” see the note at Nah 1:1. Which Habakkuk the prophet did see - The prophet’s name signifies “strong embrace.” The word in its intensive form is used both of God’s enfolding the soul within His tender supporting love , and of man clinging and holding fast to divine wisdom Pro 4:8. It fits in with the subject of his prophecy, faith, cleaving fast to God amid the perplexities of things seen.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Habakkuk 1:1
“Onus quod vidit Chabakuk Propheta. The greater part of interpreters refer this burden to the Chaldeans and the monarchy of Babylon; but of this view I do not approve, and a good reason compels me to dissent from their opinion: for as the Prophet addresses the Jews, and without any addition calls his prophecy a burden, there is no doubt but that he refers to them.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
How long, O LORD: Albert Barnes renders the opening as how long have I cried, so the prayer has gone on a long time before the book begins. Adam Clarke reads the cry as the grief of a prophet who had preached against these sins and seen no change.
Habakkuk 1:2
“O Lord, how long shall I cry - The prophet feels himself strongly excited against the vices which he beheld; and which, it appears from this verse, he had often declaimed against, but in vain; the people continued in their vices, and God in his longsuffering. Habakkuk begins his prophecy under a similar feeling, and nearly in similar words, as Juvenal did his Satires: - Semper ego auditor tantum? Nunquamne reponam? Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri? Sat. 1:1. “Shall I always be a hearer only? Shall I never reply?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Habakkuk 1:3-4
Why do You make me see iniquity?: Habakkuk names what fills his sight, "iniquity," "wrongdoing," "Destruction and violence". So "the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth," because "the wicked hem in the righteous" in verse 4. John Gill and Adam Clarke set this in Judah under a wicked king, most likely Jehoiakim.
Habakkuk 1:3
“Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold - , or rather, “Why beholdest Thou grievance?” God seemed to reverse what He had said by Balaam Num 23:21, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, and hath not seen grievousness in Israel”; and in the Psalms Psa 10:14, “Thou hast seen, for thou (emphatic) beholdest grievousness and wrong, to put it in Thy hand,” i. e., Thou layest it up in Thy hand, to cast it back on the head of the evildoer.”
the law is paralyzed: Therefore ties this verse to the delay of verse 2. Albert Barnes explains that when God seemed not to act, people promised themselves they could sin without penalty. Adam Clarke adds that the law lost its power to restrain because the courts no longer carried it out.
Habakkuk 1:4
“Therefore--because Thou dost suffer such crimes to go unpunished. law is slacked--is chilled. It has no authority and secures no respect. judgment--justice. wrong judgment proceedeth--Decisions are given contrary to right.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3 more voices on this verse
Habakkuk 1:4
“Therefore - Because the wicked go on with impunity. The law - The whole law, moral, ceremonial, and judicial. Is slacked - Is slighted, and not observed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Habakkuk 1:4
“The law is slacked - They pay no attention to it; it has lost all its vigor, its restraining and correcting power, it is not executed; right judgment is never pronounced; and the poor righteous man complains in vain that he is grievously oppressed by the wicked, and by those in power and authority. That the utmost depravity prevailed in the land of Judah is evident from these verses; and can we wonder, then, that God poured out such signal judgments upon them?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Habakkuk 1:4
“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 hasteth to eat.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I am raising up the Chaldeans, bitter and hasty
Habakkuk 1:5-6
God answers with a work "that you would never believe even if someone told you," raising up "that ruthless and impetuous nation". The remedy for Judah's injustice is a nation more violent than Judah. Paul takes up these words at Acts 13:41, while the verse itself speaks of Babylon's rise.
Habakkuk 1:5
“The Israelite unbelievers would not credit the prophecy as to the fearfulness of the destruction to be wrought by the Chaldeans, nor afterwards the deliverance promised from that nation. So analogously, in Paul's day, the Jews would not credit the judgment coming on them by the Romans, nor the salvation proclaimed through Jesus.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:5
“Behold ye among the heathen - The whole tone of the words suddenly changes. The Jews flattered themselves that, being the people of God, He would not fulfill His threats upon them. They had become like the pagan in wickedness; God bids them look out among them for the instrument of His displeasure. It was an aggravation of their punishment, that God, who had once chosen them, would now choose these whom He had not chosen, to chasten them.”
Cross references
Habakkuk 1:5
- Quoted inActs 13:41‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’”
'Behold, ye despisers, and wonder' (warning, 'that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets')
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the Chaldeans held power for some twenty years, so the verb speaks of God raising them as His instrument. Albert Barnes explains that God uses the free will and even the evil passions of nations for His own ends.
Habakkuk 1:6
“I raise up--not referring to God's having brought the Chaldeans from their original seats to Babylonia (see on Isa 23:13), for they had already been upwards of twenty years (since Nabopolassar's era) in political power there; but to His being about now to raise them up as the instruments of God's "work" of judgment on the Jews (2Ch 36:6).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Habakkuk 1:7-8
They are dreaded and feared: The Chaldeans answer to no law above their own will, since "from themselves they derive justice and sovereignty". Verse 8 draws them from the beasts of prey, horses "swifter than leopards". Every image is a creature that kills to eat, so the invasion is pictured as appetite.
Habakkuk 1:7
“They are terrible - איום 'âyôm occurs here only and Son 6:4, Son 6:10, compared with the “bannered host,” but the root is common in אימה 'ēymâh. And dreadful - He describes them, first in themselves, then in act. They are terrible, and strike fear through their very being, their known character, before they put it forth in act.”
swifter than leopards: The comparisons come from the animals a shepherd feared most. Albert Barnes identifies the leopard as the panther, the swiftest and fiercest beast of prey the first hearers knew. Adam Clarke cites Jeremiah 4:13, where the horses of the same invader are called swifter than eagles.
Habakkuk 1:8
“Their horses also are swifter than the leopards - The Chaldean cavalry are proverbial for swiftness, courage, etc. In Jeremiah, Jer 4:13, it is said, speaking of Nebuchadnezzar, “His chariots are as a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles.” Oppian, speaking of the horses bred about the Euphrates, says, “They are by nature warhorses, and so intrepid that neither the sight nor the roaring of the lion appals them; and, besides, they are astonishingly fleet.” The leopard, of all quadrupeds, is allowed to be the swiftest. The evening wolves - The wolf is remarkable for his quick sight.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:8
“Their horses also are swifter than the leopards,.... Creatures remarkable for their swiftness: these are creatures born of the mating of a he panther and a lioness, and not of a lion and a she panther, as some have affirmed; and which adultery is highly resented by the lion; nor will he suffer it to go unrevenged, as Pliny (u) and Philostratus (w) observe: those thus begotten differ from common lions in this, that they have no manes: the panthers are the creatures here meant, which are very swift, as Bochart (x) from various authors has observed.”
Habakkuk 1:9-11
All of them come bent on violence: The army comes "bent on violence" and gathers "prisoners like sand". Verse 11 turns from description to charge, "They are guilty; their own strength is their god," and names the sin. The nation God raised up as His instrument becomes guilty when it credits its victories to its own power.
Habakkuk 1:9
“They shall come all for violence - “Violence” had been the sin of Judah Hab 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.”
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:9
“HENDERSON, with SYMMACHUS and Syriac, translates, "the aspect." as the east wind--the simoon, which spreads devastation wherever it passes (Isa 27:8). GESENIUS translates, "(is) forwards." The rendering proposed, eastward, as if it referred to the Chaldeans' return home eastward from Judea, laden with spoils, is improbable.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
build up siege ramps: Adam Clarke explains the ramp as earth heaped against a wall until the attackers could walk over it, so the strongest fortress is sport. Matthew Henry notes that the Hebrew verb is singular and reads the scoffing at kings as the pride of Nebuchadnezzar himself. One man mocks every throne.
God's first answer closes on a charge. The invader credits his victories to his own power, and so his strength becomes his god. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call it sacrilege and compare verse 16, where the same pride turns into worship of the net.
Habakkuk 1:11
“Sacrilegious arrogance, in ascribing to his idol Bel the glory that belongs to God [CALVIN]. GROTIUS explains, "(saying that) his power is his own as one who is a god to himself" (compare Hab 1:16, and Da 3:1-30). So MAURER, "He shall offend as one to whom his power is his god" (Job 12:6; see on Mic 2:1).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Why do you look on treachery and hold your peace?
Habakkuk 1:12-13
Are You not from everlasting, O LORD: Habakkuk answers the vision by confessing God as "from everlasting" and "my Holy One," and he grants that God has set the Chaldeans "for correction". Then he argues from God's own character, "Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil," and asks why God tolerates the faithless.
Habakkuk 1:12
“Art thou not frown everlasting - The idols change, and their worshippers change and fail: but thou, Jehovah, art eternal; thou canst not change, and they who trust in thee are safe. Thou art infinite in thy mercy; therefore, “we shall not die,” shall not be totally exterminated. Thou hast ordained them for judgment - Thou hast raised up the Chaldeans to correct and punish us; but thou hast not given them a commission to destroy us totally.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:12
“But not that they may deify their own power (Hab 1:11, for their power is from Thee, and but for a time); nor that they may destroy utterly Thy people. The Hebrew for "mighty God" is Rock (De 32:4). However the world is shaken, or man's faith wavers, God remains unshaken as the Rock of Ages (Isa 26:4, Margin).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil: Habakkuk argues from what he knows of God. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that he takes his perplexity to God Himself, as Asaph does in Psalm 73. They also explain the comparison at the end: Judah, with all its faults, is more righteous than its conqueror.
Habakkuk 1:13
“Instead of speaking evil against God, he goes to God Himself for the remedy for his perplexity (Ps 73:11-17). devoureth the man that is more righteous--The Chaldean oppresses the Jew, who with all his faults, is better than his oppressor (compare Eze 16:51, 52).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Habakkuk 1:14-17
You have made men like the fish of the sea: The chapter closes with men made "like the fish of the sea," hooked and netted by a foe who rejoices over the catch. The charge follows, "he sacrifices to his dragnet and burns incense to his fishing net". At 2:1 the prophet takes his post to wait for the answer.
Habakkuk 1:14
“And makest - Not infusing cruel appetites, but permitting them to act according to such appetite which was already in them. As the fishes - Of which the greater greedily devour the smaller. Creeping things - Which in the waters are food for the lesser fry; so the world, like the sea, is wholly oppression.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:14
“And--that is, And so, by suffering oppressors to go unpunished, "Thou makest men as the fishes . . . that have no ruler"; that is, no defender. All may fish in the sea with impunity; so the Chaldeans with impunity afflict Thy people, as these have no longer the God of the theocracy, their King, to defend them.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
he catches them in his dragnet: The fish of verse 14 have a fisherman. Albert Barnes notes that the Hebrew runs in the singular, so one conqueror sweeps the whole race of men as a single catch. He reads the hook as cunning and the net as force, the two ways an empire takes its prey.
Habakkuk 1:15
“They take up all of them - (literally “he taketh up all of it”) the whole race as though it were one, With an angle; they catch them - literally, he sweepeth it away In their (his) net - One fisherman is singled out who partly by wiles (as by the bait of “an angle”), partly by violence (the net or drag) sweeps away and gathers as his own the whole kind.”
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:15
“Note, There is a proneness in us to take the glory of our outward prosperity to ourselves, and to say, My might, and the power of my hands, have gotten me this wealth, Deut. viii. This is idolizing ourselves, sacrificing to the dragnet, because it is our own, which is as absurd a piece of idolatry as sacrificing to Neptune or Dagon.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he sacrifices to his dragnet: The net stands for the army and its skill in war. Albert Barnes states the principle behind the verse, that whatever a man trusts in is his god. Matthew Henry calls it idolizing oneself, since the conqueror credits his own power with what God allowed.
Habakkuk 1:16
“Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag,.... Either to their idols, to fortune and the stars, as Aben Ezra; imagining they gave them success, and prospered them in the arts and methods they used: or to their arms, as the Targum; nor was it unusual with the Heathens to worship their spears, sacrifice to them, and swear by them (g). So Justin says (h), originally the ancients worshipped spears for gods, in memory of whose religion spears are still added to the images of the gods.”
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:16
“They sacrifice unto their net - He had no God; he cared for none; and worshipped only his armor and himself. King Mezentius, one of the worst characters in the Aeneid of Virgil, is represented as invoking his own right hand and his spear in battle. Aen. 10:773. Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro, Nunc adsint. “My strong right hand and sword, assert my stroke. Those only gods Mezentius will invoke.” Dryden. And Capaneus, in Statius, gives us a more decisive proof of this self-idolatry. Thebaid, lib. x.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
continue to slay nations without mercy?: The chapter ends on a question. Adam Clarke reads this last line as the key to the picture: the fisherman casts again, and Nebuchadnezzar takes one nation after another. Chapter 2 opens with the prophet at his post, waiting for God's reply.
Habakkuk 1:17
“Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations? - The prophet, like Isaiah Isa 18:4-5, stands at the very last point, before the fury and desire of the enemy was fulfilled. People, like fish, were gathered together for a prey; he who had taken them was rejoicing and exulting beforehand in his booty; his portion and meat were the choice of the earth; the prophet leeks on, as it were, and beholds the net full; there is but one step more; “Shall he empty it?”
1 more voice on this verse
Habakkuk 1:17
“Must the numbers and wealth of nations be sacrificed to their net? As if it were a small thing to rob men of their estates, shall they rob God of his glory? Is not God the king of nations, and will he not assert their injured rights?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: A dialogue in three speeches, the prophet's complaint at 1:2 to 4, the LORD's answer at 1:5 to 11 and the prophet's second complaint at 1:12 to 17, as the site's Habakkuk exposition, notes on 1:1 to 17 classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The question asked twice | The prophet's two speeches open alike. At verse 3 he asks why God makes him see iniquity and tolerates wrongdoing, and at verse 13 he asks why God tolerates the faithless and stays silent. The Berean text uses the word tolerate in both, so the second complaint is the first one asked again of God's answer.the Berean Standard Bible text, read in the store, Habakkuk 1:3 and 1:13, where the Berean text reads tolerate in both questions. | Habakkuk 1:3, Habakkuk 1:13 |
| The fisherman and his net | The last four verses draw one picture. Men are fish with no ruler, the conqueror pulls them up with hook and net, he worships the net that feeds him, and the chapter closes by asking whether he will empty it and cast again forever.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Habakkuk 1:17, where the last line explains the allegory of the net. | Habakkuk 1:14, Habakkuk 1:15, Habakkuk 1:16, Habakkuk 1:17 |
How this chapter is built
3 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter is a conversation in three speeches. The prophet speaks first, the LORD answers, and the prophet speaks again, so the chapter ends on his question and chapter 2 opens with him waiting for the reply. The LORD's answer at verses 5 to 11 describes the Chaldean army as a hunter, and the prophet's second speech at verses 14 to 17 describes it as a fisherman. Both pictures end on the same charge, that the conqueror makes his own strength his god (verse 11) and worships the net that feeds him (verse 16).
Sources:
- The Berean text of Habakkuk 1 in the store.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1:17.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on 1:11 and 1:16.
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People and groups1
Words12
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
the site's Habakkuk exposition, notes on 1:1 to 17, citing Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets, 1866.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.