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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Habakkuk 1:12 - 1:17
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The Prophet's Prayer
v. 12. Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, mine Holy One? To this certainty the prophet clings; from it he derives consoling confidence. We shall not die, the people of the Lord would not be wholly exterminated. O Lord, Thou hast ordained them, the children of Israel, the Lord's people, for judgment, to carry out His judgment of punishment upon them; and, O mighty God, literally, "Thou Rock,". Thou hast established them for correction, to be chastised and thus brought to the realization of their sins.
v. 13. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, too pure to endure to behold it, and canst not look on iniquity, the wickedness and distress which men inflict upon others; wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, the violent Babylonian conquerors, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he, for the children of God in the midst of Israel gave them a higher moral standing than that which the Chaldeans possessed,
v. 14. and makest men as the fishes of the sea, helpless in the face of the fisherman's net, as the creeping things that have no ruler over them, one who might act as their protector and defender in times of peril?
v. 15. They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag, in the largest kind of fishnet; therefore they rejoice and are glad, the enemies being pleased with the ease with which they overcame the Lord's people.
v. 16. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net and burn incense unto their drag, a custom which was actually found among some heathen nations; because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous, present in rich and great quantities.
v. 17. Shall they therefore empty their net, namely, with the intention of casting it out again for a new draught, and not spare continually to slay the nations? or, "and always strangle nations without sparing?" The enemies angles, or hooks, nets, and drags are clearly his great and powerful armies, with which he has conquered nations and brought the treasures of the world to Babylon. Mark: He who puts his trust in anything on earth and glories in it to the exclusion of God makes this creature his idol.