Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 465. Habakkuk
Subjects in this Topic:
Literature
Clark, H. W., Meanings and Methods of the Spiritual Life (1906), 161.
Davidson, A. B., Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Cambridge Bible) (1896), 45.
Douglas, G. C. M., The Six Intermediate Minor Prophets, 111.
Driver, S. R., Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1913), 337.
Driver, S. R., The Minor Prophets (Century Bible), ii. (1906) 47.
Duhm, B., The Twelve Prophets (1912), 42, 221.
Elmslie, W. G., Expository Lectures and Sermons (1892), 95.
Elmslie, W. G., in Book by Book (1892), 307.
Farrar, F. W., The Minor Prophets (Men of the Bible), 159.
Fraser, J., Parochial Sermons (1887), 199.
Geikie, C., Hours with the Bible, v. (1883) 353.
Jordan, W. G., Prophetic Ideas and Ideals (1902), 129.
Kirkpatrick, A. F., The Doctrine of the Prophets (1892), 264.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: Ezekiel to Malachi (1908), 238.
McWilliam, T., Speakers for God (1902), 153.
Mantle, J. G., According to the Pattern (1898), 191.
Maurice, F. D., The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament (1892), 370.
Peabody, F. G., Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. (1908) 136.
Peake, A. S., The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament (1904), 151.
Sanders, F. K., and Kent, C. F., The Messages of the Earlier Prophets (1899), 219.
Smith, G. A., The Book of the Twelve Prophets (Expositor's Bible), ii. (1898) 113.
Stonehouse, G. G. V., The Book of Habakkuk (1911).
Wade, G. W., Old Testament History (1901), 441.
Wallace, D., The Secret of Serenity, 83.
Ward, W. H., Habakkuk (International Critical Commentary) (1912).
Wiles, J. P., Half-Hours with the Minor Prophets (1908), 103.
Woods, F. H., and Powell, F. E., The Hebrew Prophets, ii. (1910) 25.
Christian World Pulpit, lxxiv. (1908) 321 (T. Yates); lxxix. (1911) 401 (G. C. Morgan); lxxxii. (1912) 234 (D. E. Auty).
Dictionary of the Bible, ii. (1899) 269 (S. R. Driver).
Homiletic Review, liii. (1907) 145 (J. Moffatt).
The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.- Hab_1:1.
1. Habakkuk prophesied most probably about 600 b.c. The times were anxious ones; and the perplexities and questionings to which they gave rise are reflected in his prophecy. Twenty-one years had elapsed since the discovery of Deuteronomy in the Temple in the eighteenth year of Josiah, and nine since the death of Josiah at Megiddo, when he went to oppose Pharaoh-Necho in his effort to annex all Syria as far as the Euphrates to his dominion. Jehoahaz, Josiah's third son, upon whom the popular choice fell as his successor, after a three months' reign-in the course of which, it may be presumed, he had pursued an anti-Egyptian policy-was summoned by Necho to appear before him at Riblah (on the Orontes), only to be thrown there into chains, and carried away into Egypt, while a heavy fine was imposed upon Judah. His elder brother Eliakim was then put on the throne, his name being changed by the Pharaoh to Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim was a selfish and tyrannical ruler. At a time when the country was impoverished by the collection of the tribute imposed by Necho, he developed a passion for regal magnificence; as Jeremiah tells us, he built by the forced, but unpaid, labour of his subjects a spacious palace “cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion”; he moreover abused his position to indulge in the common vices of an Oriental despot-his eyes and his heart were set only “upon dishonest gain, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression and for violence, for to do it.” Nor were such crimes confined to the king. As allusions in Jeremiah show clearly, the reformation of Josiah had affected the masses only superficially: though there were still faithful souls left, lawlessness, injustice, dishonesty, and oppression were only too rife in the nation at large, and idolatry was widely and openly practised.
Meanwhile, political movements of importance had been taking place in the East. In 625 Nabopolassar, a man of enterprise and energy, had become ruler of Babylon; and, though at first nominally viceroy under the suzerainty of Assyria, he had in 612 or 611, if not before, declared his independence. A year or two afterwards Sin-shar-ishkun, the last king of Nineveh, invaded Babylonia for the purpose of recovering his supremacy; but the Ummanmanda, called in by Nabopolassar to assist him, overran Assyria and laid Nineveh in ruins. In 605 Necho, again endeavouring to assert his claim to the country west of the Euphrates, sustained a crushing defeat at Carchemish, on the upper course of the Euphrates, at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, acting as general for his father Nabopolassar. This victory of Nebuchadnezzar was the turning-point in the history of the age. It meant that the Chaldæans were destined to acquire supremacy over the whole of Western Asia. Jeremiah, especially, quickly perceived that this was inevitable; he accepted it at once as providentially intended, and counselled his people to accommodate themselves to circumstances, and acquiesce in a position of dependence upon the Chaldæans. In point of fact, the countries west of the Euphrates probably at once submitted. Jehoiakim, it is expressly stated, became Nebuchadnezzar's servant for “three years”-though which three years these were between 605 and his death in 597 is not known-then he “turned and rebelled against him.” The consequences of Jehoiakim's revolt were: first, the guerilla war mentioned in 2Ki_24:2; next, almost immediately after Jehoiachin's accession in 597, a siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldæans, resulting, in the third month of Jehoiachin's reign, in the deportation of the king and the élite of the capital to Babylon; and finally-in consequence of Zedekiah's pursuing the same anti-Chaldæan policy as Jehoiachin, and refusing to listen to Jeremiah's counsels-the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, and second deportation of captives to Babylonia.
It is to be regretted that we have not further particulars of Nabopolassar's rule. Did we know more of the military expeditions in which he was engaged, we might be better able to appreciate Habakkuk's allusions to the prowess and conquests of the Chaldæans. As it is, almost the only exploit of the Chaldæans, prior to the two sieges of Jerusalem, of which we have actual information, is the victory over Necho at Carchemish. To judge from 2Ki_24:1, the Chaldæan arms were not seen in Judah itself before 602 b.c.-possibly, indeed, not before 598-according to the date at which the three years' vassalage mentioned in that verse terminated. Our knowledge of the times is not minute enough to enable us to fix dates with precision; but Hab_1:5-11, it is natural to suppose, was written shortly after the battle of Carchemish in 605 (so Davidson), when the first rumours of the character and military capacities of the Chaldæans reached Judah, but before the formidable dimensions which their power would shortly (“in your days,” v. 5) assume had yet been realized. Hab_1:12; Hab_2:1-20, presupposing a time when the Chaldæans had made more conquests, and when men had become familiarized with their tyrannical treatment of subject nations, may have been written some years later, though before the end of the Chaldæan rule could be regarded as at all immediate, on account of Hab_2:3.
2. Tradition has much to tell of Habakkuk the prophet, but history has nothing. There are many legends, and few facts. Later Judaism wove many curious apocryphal incidents around his name, but not one has a vestige of warrant, and they are not even interesting, because, in spite of the lack of biographical detail, the personality of this prophet, as it emerges from the pages he has left, is so vivid and arresting as to need no retouching. His utterances do more than lift a veil of history to show us a dark and perplexed period: they do more than plunge us into age-long questions raised over particular problems; they lift a veil from the prophet himself, and to understand the few pages of this Hebrew pamphlet is to know the essentials of a remarkable mind and character. These chapters are eloquent with personal revelation. If character can be told by hand-writing, much more is it told by heart-writing, and Habakkuk's utterances are of this order; vivid things flung out of a strong man's mind wrestling with problems too great for it. The man is in the manuscript, and among the many revelations of Habakkuk the prophet, his chief revelation is the revelation of himself.
Habakkuk was not a preacher like Jeremiah and Zephaniah. His prophecy shows no indications of having been delivered orally before it was committed to writing. He does not bear a message of warning to his guilty countrymen in the hope that even at the eleventh hour they may amend their ways and avert the impending punishment. It is possible indeed that, like Isaiah, he may have inscribed the oracle of consolation on a tablet, and exposed it in public, and explained its enigmatic utterance to any one who cared to inquire. But as a whole his book is the fruit of religious reflection; it exhibits the communing and questioning of his soul-representative no doubt of many other pious spirits of the time-with God; and records the answers which the Spirit of God taught him for his own sake and for the sake of tried souls in every age. These communings and questionings, these wrestlings of his spirit with God, were doubtless spread over some considerable time. It is not to be supposed that light was given at once. The book seems rather to be the result of a prolonged mental struggle. Through pain and perplexity, through wrestling with the actual problems of life around him, through the use of his intellect, but infinitely more through the use of his conscience, and best of all through purity of heart guiding a soul made true to God's great purposes in this world, the Hebrew prophet received those Divine intuitions concerning the world's course and God's designs that mark out the Old Testament as a supernatural, inspired book.
3. The distinction of Habakkuk is not primarily in what he says, but in the direction he faces, the way he is looking. He is the earliest who is known to us of a new school of religion in Israel. He is called “prophet,” but at first he does not adopt the attitude which is characteristic of the prophets. His face is set in an opposite direction to theirs. They address the nation Israel on behalf of God; he rather speaks to God on behalf of Israel. Their task was Israel's sin, the proclamation of God's doom and the offer of His grace to their penitence. Habakkuk's task is God Himself, the effort to find out what He means by permitting tyranny and wrong. They attack the sins, he is the first to state the problems, of life. This is the beginning of speculation in Israel.