The precise interpretation of the book of Habakkuk presents unusual
difficulties; but, brief and difficult as it is, it is clear that
Habakkuk was a great prophet, of earnest, candid soul, and he has
left us one of the noblest and most penetrating words in the history
of religion, ii. 4_b_. The prophecy may be placed about the
year 600 B.C. The Assyrian empire had fallen, and by the battle of
Carchemish in 605 B.C., Babylonian supremacy was practically
established over Western Asia. Josiah's reformation, whose effects
had been transient and superficial, lay more than twenty years
behind. The reckless Jehoiakim was upon the throne of Judah, a king
who regarded neither the claims of justice (Jer. xxii. 13-19) nor
the words of the prophet (Jer. xxxvi. 23), and his rebellion drew
upon him and his land the terrible vengeance of Babylon, first in
601 B.C., then in 597.
The prophet begins by asking his God how long the lamentable
disorder and wrong are to continue, i. 1-4. For answer, he is
assured that the Chaldeans are to be raised up in chastisement, who,
with their terrible army, will mockingly defy every attempt to check
their advance, i. 5-11, But in i. 12-17 the prophet appears to be
confounded by their impiety; they have been guilty of barbarous
cruelty--how can Jehovah reconcile this with His own holiness and
purity? The prophet finds the answer to his question when he climbs
his tower of faith; there he learns that the proud shall perish and
the righteous live. The solution may be long delayed, but faith sees
and grasps it already: "The just shall live by his faithfulness,"
ii. 1-4. Then follows a series of woes, ii. 5-20, which expand the
thought of ii. 4_a_--the sure destruction of the proud. Woes
are denounced upon the cruel rapacity of the conquerors, their
unjust accumulation of treasure, their futile ambitions, their
unfeeling treatment of the land, beasts and people, and finally
their idolatry. In contrast to the stupid and impotent gods
worshipped by the oppressor is the great God of Israel, whose temple
is in the heavens, and before whom the earth is summoned to silence,
ii. 20. For He is on His way to take vengeance upon the enemies of
His people, as He did in the ancient days of the exodus, when He
came in the terrors of the storm and overthrew the Egyptians. His
coming is described in terms of older theophanies (Jud. v., Deut.
xxxiii.); and this "prayer," as it is called in the superscription,
concludes with an expression of unbounded confidence and joy in
Jehovah, even when all customary and visible signs of His love fail
(iii.).
Simple and coherent as this sequence seems to be, it is, in reality,
on closer inspection, very perplexing. Ch. i. 1-4 reveals a picture
of confusion within Judah, but it is impossible to say whether it is
foreigners who are oppressing Judah as a whole, or powerful classes
within Judah itself that are oppressing the poor. Perhaps the latter
is the more natural interpretation. In that case, the Chaldeans are
raised up to chastise the native oppressor, i. 5-11. This section,
however, has fresh difficulties of its own; _vv_. 5, 6 suggest
that the Chaldeans are not yet known to be a formidable power, they
are only about to be raised up, _v_. 6, and what they will do
is as yet incredible, _v_. 5. The minute description which
follows, however, looks as if their military appearance and methods
were thoroughly familiar. Assuming that i. 12-17 is the continuation
of i. 5-ll--and the descriptions are very similar--the Chaldeans,
whose coming was the answer to the prophet's prayer, now constitute
a fresh problem; they swallow up those who are more righteous than
themselves, _v_. 13, i.e. Judah. It cannot be denied that such
a characterization of Judah sounds strange after the charge levelled
at her in i. 1-4, unless we assume an interval of time between the
sections, or at least that in i. 12-17, Judah is regarded as
relatively righteous, i.e. in comparison with the Chaldeans.
The situation is further complicated by the very close resemblance
that prevails between i. 1-4 and i. 12-17. The very same words for
_righteous_ and _wicked_ occur in i. 13 as in i. 4; do they
or do they not designate the same persons? If they do, then, as in
i. 12-17, the wicked oppressor is almost certainly the Chaldean and
the righteous is Judah, and we shall have to interpret the confusion
pictured in i. 2-4 as due to the Chaldean suzerainty, and perhaps to
assign the section to a period after the first capture of Jerusalem
in 597 B.C. In that case, as it is obvious that the Chaldeans could
not be raised up to execute divine judgment upon themselves, the
section, i. 5-11, would have to be regarded as an independent piece,
whether Habakkuk's or not, announcing the rise of the Chaldeans, and
not inappropriately placed here, considering that the sections on both
sides of it have the Chaldeans for their theme. On the other hand,
however, it may be urged that the identification of the righteous and
wicked in i. 13 with i. 4, though natural,[1] is not necessary; and by
denying it the prophecy becomes distinctly more coherent. The wrong done
by Judah, i. 1-4, is avenged by the coming of the Chaldeans, i. 5-11;
they, however, having overstepped the limits of their divine commission,
only aggravate the prophet's problem, i. 12-17, and he finally finds the
solution on his watch-tower, in the assurance that somehow, despite all
seeming delay, the purpose of God is hastening on to its fulfilment, and
that the moral constitution of the world is such as to spell the ultimate
ruin of cruelty and pride and the ultimate triumph of righteousness,
ii. 1-4. His faith was historically justified by the fall of the
Babylonian empire in 538 B.C.
[Footnote 1: Some scholars feel so strongly that the historical
background of i. 1-4 and i. 12-17 is the same, that they regard the
latter section as the direct continuation of the former. Budde,
followed by Cornill, ingeniously supposes that the oppressor in
these two sections is the Assyrian (about 615 B.C.), and it is this
power that the Chaldeans, i. 5-11, are raised up to chastise. These
scholars put i. 5-11 after ii. 4 as a historical amplification of
its moral and more indefinite statement. But the strength of
Habakkuk rather seems to lie in this, that he abandons the immediate
historical solution, i. 5, and is content with the moral one, ii. 4,
though no doubt he believes that the moral solution will realize
itself in history.]
The authenticity[1] of some of the woes in ch. ii. may be contested,
e.g. _vv._ 12-14, which appears to be a partial reproduction of
Jer. li. 58, Isa. xi. 9. It is very improbable that ch. iii. is
Habakkuk's: it is not even certain that the poem is a unity. The
situation in _vv._ 17-19 (especially _v._ 17) seems
different from that in the rest of the chapter: there an enemy was
feared, here rather infertility. Again the general temper of the ode
is hardly that of ii. 3, 4. There the vision was to be delayed, here
the interposition seems to be impatiently awaited and expected soon.
If "thine anointed" in iii. 13 refers to the people--and the
parallelism makes this almost certain--then the days of the monarchy
are over and the poem cannot be earlier than the exile. Probably, as
the superscription, subscription, and threefold _Selah_
suggest, we have here a post-exilic psalm. The psalm, however, is
fittingly enough associated with the prophecy of Habakkuk. Its
belief in the accomplishment of the divine purpose and its emphasis
on a faith independent of the things of sight, are akin in spirit,
though not in form to ii. 4.
[Footnote 1: Marti explains the book thus: (_a_) i. 2-4,
12_a_, 13, ii. 1-4, a psalm, belonging to the fifth or perhaps
the second century, giving the divine answer to the plaint that
judgment is delayed; (_b_) i. 5-11, 12_b_, 14-17, a
prophecy about 605 B.C. dealing with the effect of the battle of
Carchemish; (_c_) ii. 5-19, the woes: about 540, when the
Chaldean empire is nearing its end; (_d_) iii., a post-exilic
psalm.]
Patience and faith are the watch-words of Habakkuk, ii. 3, 4. There
was a time when he had expected an adequate historical solution to
his doubts in his own day, i. 5; but, as he contemplates the immoral
progress of the Chaldeans, he recognizes his difficulty to be only
aggravated by this solution, and he is content to commit the future
to God. He is comforted and strengthened by a larger vision of the
divine purpose and its inevitable triumph--if not now, then
hereafter. "Though it tarry, wait for it, for it is sure to come, it
will not lag behind." That purpose wills the triumph of justice, and
though the righteous may seem to perish, in reality he lives, and
shall continue to live, by his faithfulness.