Habakkuk 1:2

It is not as though bringing a censure against God that the prophet says this. Rather, he speaks this way as it is the custom with people who are in some sort of trouble or who are righteously indignant with those responsible to present the …

O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!....

Note, Doing wrong to harmless people, as it is an iniquity in itself, so it is a great grievance to all that are concerned for God's Jerusalem, who sigh and cry for abominations of this kind.

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?

O Lord, how long shall I cry - Literally, “how long have I cried so intensely to Thee?” Because it is always the cry of the creature to the One who alone can hear or help - its God. Of this cry the Prophet expresses that it had already lasted long. In that long past he had cried out to God but no change had come. There is an undefined past, and this still continues. How long - as Asaph cries, “how long hast Thou been,” and, it is implied, wilt Thou be “wroth against the prayer of Thy people?” as we should say,” how long shall Thy wrath continue?” The words which the prophet uses relate to domestic strife and wrong between man and man; violence, iniquity, strife, contention Hab 1:3, nor are any of them used only of the oppression of a foreign enemy. Also, Habakkuk complains of injustice too strong for the law, and the perversion of justice Hab 1:4. And upon this, the sentence is pronounced. The enemy is to be sent for judgment and correction Hab 1:12. They are then the sins of Judah which the prophet rehearses before God, in fellow-suffering with the oppressed. God answers that they shall be removed, but by the punishment of the sinners. Punishment does not come without sin, nor does sin endure without punishment. It is one object of the Old Testament to exhibit the connection between sin and punishment. Other prophets, as commissioned by God, first denounced the sins and then foretold the punishment of the impenitent. Habakkuk appeals to God’s justice, as requiring its infliction. […]