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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Habakkuk 1:6 - 1:6
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Announcement of this work. - Hab 1:6. “For, behold, I cause the Chaldaeans to rise up, the fierce and vehement nation, which marches along the breadths of the earth, to take possession of dwelling-places that are not its own. Hab 1:7. It is alarming and fearful: its right and its eminence go forth from it. Hab 1:8. And its horses are swifter than leopards, and more sudden than evening wolves: and its horsemen spring along; and its horsemen, they come from afar; they fly hither, hastening like an eagle to devour. Hab 1:9. It comes all at once for wickedness; the endeavour of their faces is directed forwards, and it gathers prisoners together like sand. Hab 1:10. And it, kings it scoffs at, and princes are laughter to it; it laughs at every stronghold, and heaps up sand, and takes it. Hab 1:11. Then it passes along, a wind, and comes hither and offends: this its strength is its god.” הִנְנִי מֵקִים, ecce suscitaturus sum. הִנֵּה before the participle always refers to the future. הֵקִים, to cause to stand up or appear, does not apply to the elevation of the Chaldaeans into a nation or a conquering people, - for the picture which follows and is defined by the article הַגּוֹיו וגו presupposes that it already exists as a conquering people, - but to its being raised up against Judah, so that it is equivalent to מֵקִים עֲלֵיכֶם in Amo 6:14 (cf. Mic 5:4; 2Sa 12:11, etc.). Hakkasdı̄m, the Chaldaeans, sprang, according to Gen 22:22, from Kesed the son of Nahor, the brother of Abraham; so that they were a Semitic race. They dwelt from time immemorial in Babylonia or Mesopotamia, and are called a primeval people, gōI mē‛ōlâm, in Jer 5:15. Abram migrated to Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees, from the other side of the river (Euphrates: Gen 11:28, Gen 11:31, compared with Jos 24:2); and the Kasdı̄m in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are inhabitants of Babel or Babylonia (Isa 43:14; Isa 47:1; Isa 48:14, Isa 48:20; Jer 21:9; Jer 32:4, Jer 32:24, etc.; Eze 23:23). Babylonia is called 'erets Kasdı̄m (Jer 24:5; Jer 25:12; Eze 12:13), or simply Kasdı̄m (Jer 50:10; Jer 51:24, Jer 51:35; Ezekiel 26:29; Eze 23:16). The modern hypothesis, that the Chaldaeans were first of all transplanted by the Assyrians from the northern border mountains of Armenia, Media, and Assyria to Babylonia, and that having settled there, they afterwards grew into a cultivated people, and as a conquering nation exerted great influence in the history of the world, simply rests upon a most precarious interpretation of an obscure passage in Isaiah (Isa 23:18), and has no higher value than the opinion of the latest Assyriologists that the Chaldaeans are a people of Tatar origin, who mingled with the Shemites of the countries bordering upon the Euphrates and Tigris (see Delitzsch on Isa 23:13). Habakkuk describes this people as mar, bitter, or rough, and, when used to denote a disposition, fierce (mar nephesh, Jdg 18:25; 2Sa 17:8); and nimhâr, heedless or rash (Isa 32:4), here violent, and as moving along the breadths of the earth (ἑπὶ τὰ πλάτη τῆς γῆς, lxx: cf. Rev 20:9), i.e., marching through the whole extent of the earth (Isa 8:8): terram quam late patet (Ros.). לְ is not used here to denote the direction or the goal, but the space, as in Gen 13:17 (Hitzig, Delitzsch). To take possession of dwelling-laces that are not his own (לֹא־לֹו = אֲשֶׁר לֹא־לֹו), i.e., to take possession of foreign lands that do not belong to him. In Hab 1:7 the fierce disposition of this people is still further depicted, and in Hab 1:8 the violence with which it advances. אָיֹם, formidabilis, exciting terror; נוֹרָא, metuendus, creating alarm. מִמֶּנּוּ וגו, from it, not from God (cf. Psa 17:2), does its right proceed, i.e., it determines right, and the rule of its conduct, according to its own standard; and שְׂאֵתוֹ, its eminence (Gen 49:3; Hos 13:1), “its δόξα (1Co 11:7) above all other nations” (Hitzig), making itself lord through the might of its arms. Its horses are lighter, i.e., swifter of foot, than panthers, which spring with the greatest rapidity upon their prey (for proofs of the swiftness of the panther, see Bochart, Hieroz. ii. p. 104, ed. Ros.), and חַדּוּ, lit., sharper, i.e., shooting sharply upon it. As qâlal represents swiftness as a light rapid movement, which hardly touches the ground, so châda, ὀξὺν εἶναι, describes it as a hasty precipitate dash upon a certain object (Delitzsch). The first clause of this verse has been repeated by Jeremiah (Jer 4:13), with the alteration of one letter (viz., מִנְּשָׁרִים for מִנְּמֵרִים). Wolves of the evening (cf. Zep 3:3) are wolves which go out in the evening in search of prey, after having fasted through the day, not “wolves of Arabia (עֶרֶב = עֲרָב, lxx) or of the desert” (עֲרָבָה Kimchi).
Pâshū from pūsh, after the Arabic fâš, med. Ye, to strut proudly; when used of a horse and its rider, to spring along, to gallop; or of a calf, to hop or jump (Jer 50:11; Mal 4:2). The connection between this and pūsh (Nah 3:18), niphal to disperse or scatter one's self, is questionable. Delitzsch (on Job 35:15) derives pūsh in this verse and the passage cited from Arab. fâš, med. Vav, in the sense of swimming upon the top, and apparently traces pūsh in Nahum 3, as well as pash in Job 35:15, to Arab. fšš (when used of water: to overflow its dam); whilst Freytag (in the Lexicon) gives, as the meaning of Arab. fšš II, dissolvit, dissipavit. Pârâshı̄m are horsemen, not riding-horses. The repetition of פָּרָשָׁיו does not warrant our erasing the words וּפָשׁוּ פָּרָשָׁיו as a gloss, as Hitzig proposes. 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. מֵרָחוֹק , 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. Jeremiah frequently uses the same comparison when speaking of the Chaldaeans, viz., in Jer 4:13; Jer 48:40; Jer 49:22, and Lam 4:19 (cf. 2Sa 1:23). The ἁπ. λεγ. מְגַמָּה may mean a horde or crowd, after the Hebrew גם werbeH , and the Arabic jammah, or snorting, endeavouring, striving, after Arab. jmm and jâm, appetivit, in which case גמם would be connected with גמא, to swallow. But the first meaning does not suit פְּנֵיהֶם קָדִימָה, whereas the second does. קָדִימָה, not eastwards, but according to the primary meaning of קֶדֶם, to the front, forwards. Ewald renders it incorrectly: “the striving of their face is to storm, i.e., to mischief;” for qâdı̄m, the east wind, when used in the sense of storm, is a figurative expression for that which is vain and worthless (Hos 12:2; cf. Job 15:2), but not for mischief. For וַיֶּאֱסֹף, compare Gen 41:49 and Zec 9:3; and for כַּחוֹל, like sand of the sea, Hos 2:1. In Hab 1:10 וְהוּא and הוּא are introduced, that the words בַּמְּלָכִים and לְכָל־מִבְצָר, upon which the emphasis lies, may be placed first. It, the Chaldaean nation, scoffs at kings and princes, and every stronghold, i.e., it ridicules all the resistance that kings and princes offer to its advance, by putting forth their strength, as a perfectly fruitless attempt. Mischâq, the object of laughter. The words, it heaps up dust and takes it (the fortress), express the facility with which every fortress is conquered by it. To heap up dust: denoting the casting up an embankment for attack (2Sa 20:15, etc.). The feminine suffix attached to יִלְכְּדָהּ refers ad sensum to the idea of a city (עִיר), implied in מִבְצָר, the latter being equivalent to עִיר מִבְצָר in 1Sa 6:18; 2Ki 3:19, etc. Thus will the Chaldaean continue incessantly to overthrow kings and conquer kingdoms with tempestuous rapidity, till he offends, by deifying his own power. With this gentle hint at the termination of his tyranny, the announcement of the judgment closes in Hab 1:11. אָז, there, i.e., in this appearance of his, as depicted in Hab 1:6-10 : not “then,” in which case Hab 1:11 would affirm to what further enterprises the Chaldaeans would proceed after their rapidly and easily effected conquests. The perfects חָלַף and וַיַּעֲבוֹר are used prophetically, representing the future as occurring already. חָלַף and עָבַר are used synonymously: to pass along and go further, used of the wind or tempest, as in Isa 21:1; here, as in Isa 8:8, of the hostile army overflowing the land; with this difference, however, that in Isaiah it is thought of as a stream of water, whereas here it is thought of as a tempest sweeping over the land. The subject to châlaph is not rūăch, but the Chaldaean (הוּא, Hab 1:10); and rūăch is used appositionally, to denote the manner in which it passes along, viz., “like a tempestuous wind” (rūăch as in Job 30:15; Isa 7:2). וְאָשֵׁם is not a participle, but a perfect with Vav rel., expressing the consequence, “and so he offends.” In what way is stated in the last clause, in which זוּ does not answer to the relative אֲשֶׁר, in the sense of “he whose power,” but is placed demonstratively before the noun כֹּחוֹ, like זֶה in Exo 32:1; Jos 9:12-13, and Isa 23:13 (cf. Ewald, §293, b), pointing back to the strength of the Chaldaean, which has been previously depicted in its intensive and extensive greatness (Delitzsch). This its power is god to it, i.e., it makes it into its god (for the thought, compare Job 12:6, and the words of the Assyrian in Isa 10:13). The ordinary explanation of the first hemistich is, on the other hand, untenable (then its courage becomes young again, or grows), since רוּחַ cannot stand for רוּחוֹ, and עָבַר without an object given in the context cannot mean to overstep, i.e., to go beyond the proper measure.