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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Habakkuk 3:11 - 3:11
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The chaotic condition into which the earth has been brought is heightened by the darkness in which the heaven clothes itself. Sun and moon, which give light to day and night, have put themselves, or entered, into their habitation. זְבוּל with ה local, a dwelling-place, is, according to oriental view, the place from which the stars come out when they rise, and to which they return when they set. Nevertheless it is not actual setting that is spoken of here, but simply their obscuration, which is not the effect of heavy clouds that pour out their water in showers of rain, but is caused by the shining of the arrows of God (לְ in לְאוֹר and לְנֹגַהּ denoting the outward cause or occasion). It is not, however, that they “turn pale in consequence of the surpassing brilliancy of the lightnings” (Ewald), but that they “withdraw altogether, from the fear and horror which pervade all nature, and which are expressed in the mountains by trembling, in the waters by roaring, and in the sun and moon by obscuration” (Delitzsch). The idea that this verse refers to the standing still of the sun and moon at the believing word of Joshua (Jos 10:12.), in which nearly all the earlier commentators agreed, is quite untenable, inasmuch as עָמַד זְבוּלָה cannot mean to stand still in the sky. The arrows and spear (chănı̄th) of God are not lightnings, as in Psa 77:18-19; Psa 18:15, etc., because this theophany is not founded upon the idea of a storm, but the darts with which God as a warrior smites down His foes, as the instruments and effects of the wrath of God. A brilliant splendour is attributed to them, because they emanate from Him whose coming, like the sunlight, pours out its rays on both sides (Hab 3:4). בְּרַק חֲנִית has the same meaning here as in Nah 3:3 : the flashing, because naked and sharpened, spear. And just as we cannot understand the “bright sword” of Nah 3:3 as signifying flashes of lightning, so here we cannot take the arrows as lightnings. יְהַלֵּכוּ is to be taken relatively, “which pass alone, or shoot by.”