Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Ver. 1 contains the heading not only to ch. i. and ii, but to the whole book, of which ch. ili. forms an integral part. On the special heading in ch. i. 1, see the comm. on that verse. The prophet calls his writing a massa’, or burden (see at Nahum i. 1), because it announces heavy judgments upon the covenant nation and the imperial power.

Vers. 2-4. The prophet’s lamentation. Ver. 2. “ How long, Jehovah, have I cried, and Thow hearest not? TI cry to Thee, Violence; and Thou helpest not! Ver.3. Why dost Thou let me see mischief, and Thou lookest upon distress? devastation and violence are before me: there arises strife, and contention lifts itself up. Ver. 4. Therefore the law is benumbed, and justice comes not forth for ever: for sinners encircle the righteous man; therefore justice goes forth perverted.” ‘This complaint, which involves a petition for help, is not merely an expression of the prophet’s personal desire for the removal of the prevailing unrighteousness; but the prophet laments, in the name of the righteous, 7.e. the believers in the nation, who had to suffer under the oppression of the wicked; not, however, as Rosenmiiller and Ewald, with many of the Rabbins, suppose, over the acts of wickedness and violence which the Chaldzeans performed in the land, but over the wicked conduct of the ungodly of his own nation. For it is obvious that these verses refer to the moral depravity of Judah, from the fact that God announces His purpose to raise up the Chaldeans to punish it (vers. 5 sqq.). It is true that, in vers. 9 and 13, wickedness and violence are attributed to the Chaldeans also; but all that can be inferred from this is, that “‘in the punishment of the Jewish people a divine talio prevails, which will eventually fall upon the Chaldzans also” (Delitzsch). The calling for help (38) is described, in the second clause, as crying over wickedness. D2 is an accusative, denoting what he cries, as in Job xix. 7 and Jer. xx. 8, viz. the evil that isdone. Not hearing is equivalent to not helping. The question 12N7TY indicates that the wicked conduct has continued a long time, without God having put a stop to it. This appears irreconcilable with the holiness of God. Hence the question in ver. 83: Wherefore dost Thou cause me to see mischief, and lookest upon it Thyself? which points to Num. xxii. 21, viz. to the words of Balaam, “ God hath not beheld iniquity (aven) in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness (‘dmdl) in Israel.” This word of God, in which Balaam expresses the holiness of Israel, which remains true to the idea of its divine election, is put before the Lord in the form of a question, not only to give prominence to the falling away of the people from their divine calling, and their degeneracy into the very opposite of what they ought to be, but chiefly to point to the contradiction involved in the fact, that God the Holy One does now behold the evil in Israel and leave it unpunished. God not only lets the prophet see iniquity, but even looks at Himself. This is at variance with His holiness. NS, nothingness, then worthlessness, wickedness (cf. Isa. i. 18). 2DY, labour, then distress which a man experiences or causes to others (cf. Isa. x.1), 34, to see, not to cause to see. Ewald has revoked the opinion, that we have here a fresh hiphil, derived from a hiphil. With ‘ss 18 the address is continued in the form of a simple picture. Shdd v’chdémds are often connected (¢.g. Amos iii. 10; Jer. vi. 7, xx. 8; Ezek. xlv. 9). Shod is violent treatment causing desolation. Chdmds is mali- cious conduct intended to injure another. ‘1, it comes to pass, there arises strife (ribh) in consequence of the violent and wicked conduct. %”, to rise up, as in Hos. xiii. 1, Ps. Ixxxix. 10. The consequences of this are relaxation of the law, etc. 1BoOY, therefore, because God does not interpose to stop the wicked conduct. 38, to relax, to stiffen, ze. to lose one’s vital strength, or energy. Torah is “the revealed law in all its substance, which was meant to be the soul, the heart of political, religious, and domestic life” (Delitzsch). Right does not come forth, z.e. does not manifest itself, ddnetsach, lit. for a permanence, i.e. for ever, as in many other passages, e.g. Ps. xiii. 2, Isa. xiii. 20. nyip belongs to xb, not for ever, z.e. never more. Adishpdat is not merely a Tae verdict, however; in which case the meaning would be: There is no more any righteous verdict given, but a righteous state of things, objective right in the civil and political life. For godless men (34, without an article, is used with indefinite generality or in a collective sense) encircle the righteous man, so that the righteous cannot cause right to prevail Therefore right comes forth perverted. The second clause, commencing ae {27 Y, completes the first, adding a positive assertion to the negative. The right, aes does still come to the light, is bay, twisted, perverted, the opposite of right. To this complaint J acta answers in vers. 5-11 that He will do a marvellous work, inflict a judgment corresponding in magnitude to the prevailing injustice.

Ver. 5. © Look ye among the nations, and see, and be amazed, amazed! for I work a work in your days: ye would not believe it if it were told you.” The appeal to see and be amazed is addressed to the prophet and the people of Judah together. It is very evident from ver. 6 that Jehovah Himself is speaking here, and points by anticipation to the terrible nature of the approaching work of His punitive righteousness, although bye is written indefinitely, without any pronoun attached. “Moreover, as Delitzsch and Hitzig observe, the meaning of the appeal is not, “Look round among the nations, whether any such judgment has ever occurred;” but, “Look about among the nations, for it is thence that the terrible storm will burst that is about to come upon you” (cf. Jer. xxv. 32, xiii, 20). The first and ordinary view, in support of which Lam. i. 12,

Jer. ii. 10 and xviii. 18, are generally adduced, is precluded by the fact, (1) that it is not stated for what they are to look round, namely, whether anything of the kind has occurred here or there (Jer. ii. 10); (2) that the unparalleled occurrence has not been mentioned at all yet; and (3) that what they are to be astonished or terrified at is not their failure to discover an analogy, but the approaching judgment itself. The combination of the hal, tamdh, with the hiphil of the same verb serves to strengthen it, so as to express the highest degree of amazement (cf. Zeph. ii. 1, Ps. exviii. 11, and Ewald, § 318, c). ‘3, for, introduces the reason not only for the amazement, but also for the summons to look round. The two clauses of the second hemistich correspond to the two clauses of the first half of the verse. They are to look round, because Jehovah is about to perform a work; they are to be amazed, or terrified, because this work is an amazing or a terrible one. The participle Sys denotes that which is immediately at hand, and is used absolutely, without a pronoun. According to ver. 6, °28 is the pronoun we have to supply. For it is not practicable to supply sin, or to take the participle in the sense of the third person, since God, when speaking to the people, cannot speak of Himself in the third person, and even in that case 77° could not be omitted. Hitzig’s idea is still more untenable, namely, that po'al is the subject, and that po'él is used in an intransitive sense: the work produces its effect. We must assume, as Delitzsch does, that there is a proleptical ellipsis, ze. one in which the word immediately following is omitted (as in Isa. xviii. 11, Zech. ix. 17). The admissibility of this assumption is justified by the fact that there are other cases in which the participle is used and the pronoun omitted; and that not merely the pronoun of the third person (e.g. Isa. ii, 11, Jer. xxxviii. 23), but that of the second person also (1 Sam. ii. 24, vi. 3, and Ps. vii. 10). On the expression b2")°2a (in your days), see the Introduction, p. 51. ON NP, ye would not believe it if it were told you, namely, as having occurred in another place or at another time, if ye did not see it yourselves (Delitzsch and Hitzig). Compare Acts xiii. 41, where the Apostle Paul threatens the despisers of the gospel with judgment in the words of our verse.

behold, I cause the Chaldeans 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. Ver. 7. It is alarming and fearful: its right and its eminence go forth from it. Wer. 8. And tts horses are swifter than leopards, and more sudden than evening wolves: and its horsemen spring along; and ats horsemen, they come from afar; they fly hither, hastening like an eagle to devour. Ver. 9. It comes all at once for wickedness; the endeavour of their faces ts directed forwards, and it gathers prisoners together like sand. Ver. 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. Ver. 11. Then tt passes along, a wind, and comes hither and offends: this tts strength ts its god.” Optd “2373, ecce suscitaturus sum. 33 before the participle always refers to the future. OP, to cause to stand up or appear, does not apply to the elevation of the Chaldzeans into a nation or a conquering people,—for the picture which follows and is defined by the article ‘0 137 presupposes that it already exists as a conquering people,—but to its being raised up against Judah, so that it is equivalent to payoy O79 in Amos vi. 14 (cf. Mic. v. 4,2 Sam. xu. 11, etc.). Hakkasdim, the Chaldeans, sprang, according to Gen. xxii. 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, gdi méolam, in Jer. v.15. Abram migrated to Canaan from Up of the Chaldees, from the other side of the river (Kuphrates: Gen. xi. 28, 31, compared with Josh. xxiv. 2); and the Kasdim in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are inhabitants of Babel or Babylonia (Isa. xiii. 14, xlvii. 1, xlviii. 14, 20; Jer. xxi. 9, xxxii. 4, 24, ete.; Ezek. xxiii. 23). Babylonia is called ’erets Kasdim (Jer. xxiv. 5, xxv. 12; Ezek. xii. 13), or simply Kasdim (Jer. IO 24, 385:3)cEzeks xvi. 29, xxnieho).er The modern hypothesis, that the Chaldeans 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. xxiii, 18), and has no higher value than the opinion of the latest Assyriologists that the Chaldeans are a people of Tatar origin, who mingled with the Shemites of the countries bordering upon the Euphrates and Tigris (see Delitazsch on Isa. xxii. 13). Habakkuk describes this people as mar, bitter, or rough, and, when used to denote a disposition, fierce (mar nephesh, Judg. xviii. 25, 2 Sam. xvii. 8); and nimhar, heedless or rash (Isa. xxxii. 4), here violent, and as moving along the breadths of the earth (emt ta widtn THs yhs, LXX.: cf. Rev. xx. 9), i.e. marching through the whole extent of the earth (Isa. viii. 8): terram quam late patet (Ros.). ° is not used here to denote the direction or the goal, but the space, as in Gen. xiil. 17 (Hitzig, Delitzsch). To take possession of dwelling-places that are not his own (io-ND = Nd WW), ze. to take possession of foreign lands that do not belong to him. In ver. 7 the fierce disposition of this people is still further depicted, and in ver. 8 the violence with which it advances. O'8, formidabilis, exciting terror; 8113, metuendus, creating alarm. 03) 3313!2, from it, not from God (cf. Ps. xvii. 2), does its right proceed, 1.e. it determines right, and the rule of its conduct, according to its own standard; and inX¥, its eminence (Gen. xlix. 3; Hos. xiii. 1), “its do&a (1 Cor. xi. 7) above all other nations” (Hitzig), making itself lord through the might of its arms. Its horses are lighter, ze. 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 10, lit. sharper, i.e. shooting sharply upon it. As gélal represents swiftness as a light rapid movement, which hardly touches the ground, so chddad, o€vv etvat, describes it as a hasty precipitate dash upon a certain object (Delitzsch). The first clause of this verse has been repeated by Jeremiah (iv. 13), with the alteration of one letter (viz. OD W322 for 0139). Wolves of the evening (cf. Zeph. iii. 3) are wolves which go out in the evening in search of prey, after having fasted through the day, not “ wolves of Arabia (4 = Ny, L_XX.) or of the desert” ([22Y, Kimchi). Pdsha from push, after the

Arabic (sl, 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. 1. 11; Mal. iii. 20). The connection between this and push (Nah. iii. 18), niphal to disperse or scatter one’s self, is questionable. Delitzsch (on Job xxxv. 15) derives pash in this verse and the passage cited from (wl, med. Vav, in the sense of swimming upon the top, and apparently traces push in Nah. iii., as well as pash in Job xxxv. 15, to ee (when used of water: to overflow its dam); whilst Freytag (in the Lewicon) gives, as the meaning of wee II., dissolvit, dissipavit. Pdardshim are horsemen, not riding-horses. The repetition of "W712 does not warrant our erasing the words 175 W5} 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 Chaldeans to a picture of their invasion of Judah. pinv2, from afar, i.e. from Babylonia (cf. Isa. xxxix. 3). Their coming from afar, and the comparison of the rushing along of the Chaldean horsemen to the flight of an eagle, points to the threat in Deut. xxviii. 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 Chaldzans, viz. in Jer. iv. 13, xlviii. 40, xlix. 22, and Lam. iv. 19 (cf. 2 Sam.i. 23). The da. rey. mei may mean a horde or crowd, after the Hebrew a3, and the

Arabic 4#>, or snorting, endeavouring, striving, after em and ple, appetivit, in which case O13 would be connected with x13, to swallow. But the first meaning does not suit TOP OM, whereas the second does. 1P, not eastwards, but laceaddine to the primary meaning of Dip, ne the front, forwards. Wiad renders it incorrectly: ie the striving of dae face is to storm, i.e. to mischief;” for gddim, the east wind, when used in the sense of storm, is a figurative expression rie that which is vain and worthless (Hos. xii. 2; cf. Job xv. 2), but not for mischief. For §}D8", compare Gen. fp 49 and Zech. ix. 3; and for ving, like sand of the sea, Hos. ii. 1. In ver. 10 am) and Ni are introduced, that the words proba and ayipbzb, upon which the emphasis lies, may be placed first. It, the Chaldean 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. Mischdq, 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 (2 Sam. xx. 15, eto). The feminine suffix attached to ATBD" refers ad sensum to the idea of a city (Y), implied i in 7¥29, the latter being equivalent to 7929 YY in 1 Sam. vi. 18, 2 Biche i. 19, etc. Tithe will the Chaldzan continue incessantly to svertinte 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 ver. 11. 8, there, i.e. in this appearance of his, as depicted in vers. 6-10: not “ then,” in which case ver. 11 would affirm to what further enterprises the Chaldeans would proceed after their rapidly and easily effected conquests. The perfects pon and "iy" are used prophetically, representing the future as occurring already. Fon and 12Y are used synonymously: to pass along and go further, used of the wind or tempest, as in Isa. xxi. 1; here, as in Isa. viii. 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 thant The subject to chalaph is not radch, but the Chaldean (sin, ver. 10); and ridch is used appositionally, to denote the manner in which it passes along, viz. “ like a tempestuous wind” (radch as in Job xxx. 15, Isa. vii. 2). DWN) 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 % does ue answer to the relative Ws, in the sense of “ he whose power,’

but is placed demonstratively before the noun {n3, like 7? in Hix. xxxii/ 1, Josh. ix. 12, 13, and Isa. xxiii. 13 an Ewald, § 293, 6), pointing back to the strength of the Chalisan: 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 xii. 6, and the words of the Assyrian in Isa. x. 13). The ordinary explanation of the first hemistich is, on the other hand, untenable

(then its courage becomes young again, or grows), since 1 cannot stand for inn, and 73Y without an object given in the context cannot mean to overstep, z.e. to go beyond the proper measure.

Ver. 12. On this threatening announcement of the judgment by God, the prophet turns to the Lord in the name of believing Israel, and expresses the confident hope that He as the Holy One will not suffer His people to perish. Ver. 12. “ Art Thou not from olden time, O Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. Jehovah, for judgment hast Thou appointed it; and, O Rock, founded tt for chastisement.” THowever terrible and prostrating the divine threatening may sound, the prophet draws consolation and hope from the holiness of the faithful covenant God, that Israel will not perish, but that the judgment will be only a severe chastisement.' The supplicatory question with which he soars to this hope of faith is closely connected with the divine and threatening prophecy in ver. 11. The Chaldzean’s god is his own strength; but Israel’s God is Jehovah, the Holy One. On the interrogative form of the words (“art Thou not?”), which requires an affirmative reply, Luther has aptly observed that “he speaks to God interrogatively, asking whether He will do this and only punish; not that he has any doubt on the subject, but that he shows how faith is sustained in the midst of conflicts,—namely, that it appears as weak as if it did not believe, and would sink at once, and fall into despair on account of the great calamity which crushes it. For although faith stands firm, yet it cracks, and speaks in a very different tone when in the midst of the conflict from what it does when the victory is gained.” But as the question is sure to receive an affirmative reply, the prophet draws this inference from it: “we shall not die,’ we Thy people shall not perish. This hope rests upon two foundations: viz. (1) from time immemorial Jehovah is Israel’s God; and

1 “Therefore,” says Calvin, ‘‘ whoever desires to fight bravely with the ungodly, let him first settle the matter with God Himseif, and, as it were, confirm and ratify that treaty which God has set before us, namely, that we are His people, and He will be a God to usin return. And because God makes a covenant with us in this manner, it is necessary that our faith should be well established, that we may go forth to the conflict with all the ungodly.”

(2) He is the Holy One of Israel, who cannot leave wickedness unpunished either in Israel or in the foe. This leads to the further conclusion, that Jehovah has simply appointed the Chaldxan nation to execute the judgment, to chastise Israel, and not to destroy His people. The three predicates applied to God have equal weight in the question. The God to whom the prophet prays is Jehovah, the absolutely constant One, who is always the same in word and work (see at Gen. ii. 4); He is also Elohai, my, ¢.e. Israel’s, God, who from time immemorial has proved to the people whom He had chosen as His possession that He is their God; and WIP, the Holy One of Israel, the absolutely Pure One, who cannot look upon evil, and therefore cannot endure that the wicked should devour the righteous (ver. 13), M4103 N? is not a supplicatory wish: Let us not die therefore; but a confident assertion: “* We shall not die.” In the second half of the verse, Y*hovaéh and tsar (rock) are vocatives. Tswr, as an epithet applied to God, is taken from Deut. xxxii. 4, 15, 18, and 37, where God is first called the Rock of Israel, as the unchangeable refuge of His people’s trust. Lammishpdt, t.e. to accomplish the judgment: comp. Isa. x. 5, 6, where Asshur is called the rod of Jehovah’s wrath. In the parallel clause we have maine instead: “ to chastise,” namely Israel, not the Chaldeans, as Ewald supposes.

The believing confidence expressed in this verse does not appear to be borne out by what is actually done by God. The prophet proceeds to lay this enigma before God in vers. 13-17,

1 According to the Masora, nyio3 RS) stands as D35)D }PN, @.e. correctio seribarum for FAyDN 5, thou wilt not die. These tikkune sophrim, however, of which the Masora reckons eighteen, are not alterations of original readings proposed by the sophrim, but simply traditional definitions of what the sacred writers originally intended to write, though they afterwards avoided ib or gave a different turn. Thus the prophet intended to write here: ‘*Thou (God) wilt not die;” but in the consciousness that this was at variance with the divine decorum, he gave it this turn, ‘‘ We shall not die.” But this rabbinical conjecture rests upon the erroneous assumption that np is a predicate, and the thought of the question is this: ‘Thou art from of old, Thou Jehovah my God, my Holy One,” according to which nyon sb would be an exegesis of D7p0, which is evidently false. For further remarks on the tikkwne sophrim, see Delitzsch’s Commentary on Hab. l.c., and the Appendix, p. 206 sqq.

and to pray for his people to be spared during the period of the Chaldean affliction. Ver. 13. “Art Thow too pure of eye to behold evil, and canst Thou not look upon distress? Wherefore lookest Thou upon the treacherous? and art silent when the wicked devours one more righteous than he? Ver. 14. And Thou hast made men like fishes of the sea, like reptiles that have no ruler. Ver. 15. All of them hath he lifted up with the hook; he draws them into his net, and gathers them in his fishing net; he rejoices thereat, and is glad. Ver. 16. Therefore he sacri- Jices to his net, and burns incense to his landing net; for through them is his portion rich, and his food fat. Ver. 17. Shall he therefore empty his net, and always strangle nations without sparing?” In ver. 13, DY inv, with the two clauses dependent upon it, stands as a vocative, and ind followed by 2 as a comparative: purer of eyes than to be ‘able to see. This epithet is applied to God as the pure One, whose eyes cannot bear what is morally unclean, 7.e. cannot look upon evil. The purity of God is not measured here by His seeing evil, but is described as exalted above it, and not coming at all into comparison with it. On the relation in which these words stand to Num. xxiii. 21, see the remarks on ver. 3. In the second clause the infinitive construction passes over into the finite verb, as is frequently the case; so that 1W¥% must be supplied in thought: who canst not look upon, z.e. canst not tolerate, the distress which the wicked man prepares for others. Wherefore then lookest Thou upon treacherous ones, namely, the Chaldeans? They are called 0°32, from their faithlessly deceptive and unscrupulously rapacious Eenauee as in Isa. xxi. 2, xxiv. 16. That the seeing is a quiet Sieeeraied without interposing to punish, is evident from the parallel wnn; Thou art silent at the swallowing of the 123! py. The more righteous than he (the ungodly one) is not the nation of Israel as such, which, if not perfectly righteous, was relatively more righteous than the Chaldeans. This rabbinical view is proved to be erroneous, by the fact that in vers. 2 and 3 the prophet describes the moral depravity of Israel in the same words as those which he here applies to the conduct of the Chaldeans. The persons intended are rather the godly portion of Israel, who have to share in the expiation of the sins of the ungodly, and suffer when they are punished (Delitzsch). This fact, that the righteous is swallowed VOL. II. Eiges along with the unrighteous, appears irreconcilable with the holiness of God, and suggests the inquiry, how God can possibly let this be done. This strange fact is depicted still further in vers. 14-16 in figures taken from the life of a fisherman. The men are like fishes, whom the Chaldzean collects together in his net, and then pays divine honour to his net, by which he has been so enriched. nvyM) is not dependent upon ni39, but continues the address in a simple picture, in which the imperfect with Vav convers. represents the act as the natural consequence of the silence of God: and so Thou makest the men like fishes,” etc. The point of comparison lies in the relative clause 12 aS i “which has no ruler,’ which is indeed formally attached to inna alone, but in actual fact belongs to 8°37 also. “No ruler,” to take the defenceless under his protection, and shelter and defend them against enemies. Then will Judah be taken prisoner and swallowed up by the Chaldeans. God has given it helplessly up to the power of its foes, and has obviously ceased to be its king. Compare the similar lamentation in Isa. lxiii. 19: “ are even like those over whom Thou hast never ruled.” 07, the creeping thing, the smaller animals which exist in great multitudes, and move with great swiftness, refers here to the smaller water animals, to which the word vemes is also applied in Ps. civ. 25, and the verb rémas in Gen. i. 21 and Lev. xi. 46. D3, pointing back to the collective ’dddm, is the object, and is written first for the sake of emphasis. The form evn, instead of MeYN, is analogous to the hophal ney in Nahum u. 8 and Judg. vi. 28, and also to M73Y0 in Josh. vii. 7: to take up out of the water (see Ges. § 63, Anm. 4). 712 from 773, to pull, to draw together.. Chakkéh is the hook, cherem the net generally, mikhmereth the large fishing-net (caynvn), the lower part of which, when sunk, touches the bottom, whilst the upper part floats on the top of the water. These figures are not to be interpreted with such speciality as that the net and fishing net answer to the sword and bow; but the hook, the net, and the fishing net, as the things used for catching fish, refer to all the means which the Chaldeans employ in order to subdue and destroy the nations. Luther interprets it correctly. ‘These hooks, nets, and fishing nets,” he says, “ are nothing more than his great and powerful armies, by which he gained dominion over all lands and people, and —

CHAP. II. 1-3.; 67 brought home to Babylon the goods, jewels, silver, and gold, interest and rent of all the world.” He rejoices over the success of his enterprises, over this capture of men, and sacrifices and burns incense to his net, i.e. he attributes to the means which he has employed the honour due to God. There is no allusion in these words to the custom of the Scythians and Sauromatians, who are said by Herodotus (iv. 59, 60) to have offered sacrifices every year to a sabre, which was set up as a symbol of Mars. What the Chaldean made into his god, is expressed in ver. 11, namely, his own power. ‘“ He who boasts of a thing, and is glad and joyous on account of it, but does not thank the true God, makes himself into an idol, gives himself the glory, and does not rejoice in God, but in his own strength and work” (Luther). The Chaldean sacrifices to his net, for thereby (7972, by net and yarn) his portion (chelgé) is fat, 2.e. the portion of this booty which falls to him, and fat is his food (7873 is a neuter substantive). The meaning is, that he thereby attains to wealth and prosperity. In ver. 17 there is appended to this the question embracing the thought: Shall he therefore, because he rejoices over his rich booty, or offers sacrifice to his net, empty his net, sc. to throw it in afresh, and proceed continually to destroy nations in so unsparing a manner? In the last clause the figure passes over into a literal address. The place of the imperfect is now taken by a periphrastic construction with the infinitive: Shall he constantly be about to slay? On this construction, see Ges. § 132, 3, Anm. 1, and Ewald, § 237, c. rinm N? is a subordinate clause appended in an adverbial sense: unsparingly, without sparing.

After receiving an answer to this supplicatory cry, the prophet receives a command from God: to write the oracle in plain characters, because it is indeed certain, but will not be immediately fulfilled (vers. 1-3). Then follows the word of God, that the just will live through his faith, but he that is proud and not upright will not continue (vers. 4, 5); accompanied by a fivefold woe upon the Chaldzean, who gathers all nations to himself with insatiable greediness (vers. 6-20).

Vers. 1-3 form the introduction to the word of God, which the prophet receives in reply to his cry of lamentation addressed to the Lord in ch.i.12-17. Ver. 1. “Iwill stand upon my watchtower, and station myself upon the fortress, and will watch to see what He will say in me, and what I answer to my complaint. Ver. 2. Then Jehovah answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make tt plain upon the tables, that he may run who readsit. Ver. 3. For the vision is yet for the appointed end, and strives after the end, and does not lie: if it tarry, wait for it; for it will come, rt does not fail.” Ver. 1 contains the prophet’s conversation with himself. After he has poured out his trouble at the judgment announced, in a lamentation to the Lord (ch. i. 12-17), he encourages himself —after a pause, which we have to imagine after ch. i. 17—to wait for the answer from God. He resolves to place himself upon his observatory, and look out for the revelation which the Lord will give to his questions. Mishmereth, a place of waiting or observing; mdtsdr, a fortress, z.e. a watch-tower or spying-tower. Standing upon the watch, and stationing himself upon the fortification, are not to be understood as something external, as Hitzig supposes, implying that the prophet went up to a steep and lofty place, or to an actual tower, that he might be far away from the noise and bustle of men, and there turn his eyes towards heaven, and direct his collected mind towards God, to look out for a revelation. For nothing is known of any such custom as this, since the cases mentioned in Ex..xxxili. 21 and 1 Kings xix. 11, as extraordinary preparations for God to reveal Himself, are of a totally different kind from this; and the fact that Balaam the soothsayer went up to the top of a bare height, to look out for a revelation from God (Num. xxii. 3), furnishes no proof that the true prophets of Jehovah did the same, but is rather a heathenish feature, which shows that it was because Balaam did not rejoice in the possession of a firm pxophetic word, that he looked out for revelations from God in significant phenomena of nature (see at Num. xxiii. 3,4). The words of our verse are to be taken figuratively, or internally, like the appointment of the watchman in Isa. xxi. 6. The figure is taken from the custom of ascending hich places for the purpose of looking into the distance (2 Kings ix. 17; 2 Sam. xviii. 24), and simply expresses the spiritual preparation of the prophet’s soul for hearing the word of God within, z.e. the collecting of his mind by quietly entering into himself, and meditating upon the word and testimonies of God. Cyril and Calvin bring out the first idea. Thus the latter observes, that “the watch-tower is the recesses of the mind, where we withdraw ourselves from the world;” and then adds by way of explanation, “ The prophet, under the name of the watch-tower, implies that he extricates himself as it were from the thoughts of the flesh, because there would be no end or measure, if he wished to judge according to his own perception;” whilst others find in it nothing more than firm continuance in reliance upon the word of God. Tsippah, to spy or watch, to wait for the answer from God. “This watching was lively and assiduous diligence on the part of the prophet, in carefully observing everything that took place in the spirit of his mind, and presented itself either - to be seen or heard” (Burk). ‘AAT, to speak in me, not merely to or with me; since the pietline of God to the prophets was an internal speaking, and not one that was perceptible from without. What I shall answer to my complaint (‘al tokhachit), namely, first of all to myself and then to the rest. Zokhachath, lit. correction, contradiction. Habakkuk refers to the complaint which he raised against God in ch. i. 13-17, namely, that He let the wicked go on unpunished. He will wait for an answer from God to this complaint, to quiet his own heart, which is dissatisfied with the divine administration. Thus he draws a sharp distinction between his own speaking and the speaking of the Spirit of God within him. Jehovah gives the answer in what follows, first of all (vers. 2, 3) commanding him to write the vision (chdzon, the revelation from God to be received by inward intuition) upon tables, so clearly, that men may be able to read it in running, 7.¢. quite easily. 82 as in Deut. xxvii. 8; see at Deut. 1. 5. The article attached to “nina does not point to the tables set up in the market-places for public notices to be written upon (Ewald),

1 Theodoret very appropriately compares the words of Asaph in Ps. Ixxiii. 16 sqq., ‘‘ When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me, until I entered into the sanctuaries of God, and gave heed to their end;” and observes, ‘‘ And there, says the prophet, will I remain as appointed, and not leave my post, but, standing upon such a rock as that upon which God placed great Moses, watch with a prophet’s eyes for the solution of the things that I seek.”

but simply means, make it clear on the tables on which thou shalt write it, referring to the noun implied in 23 (write), though not expressed (Delitzsch). 12 81}? may be explained from 7£D2 87? in Jer. xxxvi. 13. The question is a disputed one, whether this command is to be understood literally or merely figuratively, “simply denoting the great importance of the prophecy, and the consequent necessity for it to be made accessible to the whole nation” (Hengstenberg, Dissertation, vol. i. p. 460). The passages quoted in support of the literal view,.c. of the actual writing of the prophecy which follows upon tables, viz. Isa. viii. 1, xxx. 8, and Jer. xxx. 2, are not decisive. In Jer. xxx. 2 the prophet is commanded to write all the words of the Lord in a book (sépher); and so again in Isa. xxx. 8, if mbrby MAND is synonymous with Apn MED>Y, But in Isa. viii. 1 there are only two significant words, which the prophet is to write upon a large table after having taken witnesses. It does not follow from either of these passages, that luchoth, tables, say wooden tables, had been already bound together into books among the Hebrews, so that we could be warranted in identifying the writing plainly upon tables with writing in a book. We therefore prefer the figurative view, just as in the case of the command issued to Daniel, to shut up his prophecy and seal it (Dan. xii. 4), inasmuch as the literal interpretation of the command, especially of the last words, would require that the table should be set up or hung out in some public place, and this cannot for a moment be thought of. The words simply express the thought, that the prophecy is to be laid to heart by all the people on account of its great importance, and that not merely in the present, but in the future also. This no doubt involved the obligation on the part of the prophet to take care, by committing it to writing, that it did not fall into oblivion. The reason for the writing is given in ver. 3. The prophecy is syinad, for the appointed time; i.e. it relates to the period fixed by God for its realization, which was then still (tiy) far off. denotes direction towards a certain point either of place or time. The vision had a direction towards a point, which, when looked at from the present, was still in the future. This goal was the end (29) towards which it hastened, i.e. the “last time” (/P Ti, Dan. viii. 19; and Y2 NY, Dan. vill. 17, xi. 35), the Messianic times, in which the judgment would fall upon the power of the world. }*P2 M5}, it pants for the end, inhiat fint, i.e. it strives to reach the end, to which it refers. ‘True prophecy is inspired, as it were, by an impulse to fulfil itself” (Hitzig). M5’ is not an adjective, as in Ps. xxvii. 12, but the third pers. imperf. hiphil of pudch; and the contracted form (N° for 5°), without a voluntative meaning, is the same as we frequently meet with in the loftier style of composition, 75. NO, “and does not deceive,” ze. will assuredly take place. If it (the vision) tarry, ¢.e. be not fulfilled immediately, wait for it, for it will surely take place (the inf. abs. xia to add force, and xia applying to the fulfilment of the prophecy, as in 1 Sam. ix. 6 and Jer. xxviii. 9), will not fail; IM, to remain behind, not to arrive (Judg. v. 28; 2 Sam. exii)t.

Vers. 4, 5. With these verses the prophecy itself commences; namely, with a statement of the fundamental thought, that the presumptuous and proud will not continue, but the just alone will live. Ver. 4. “ Behold, puffed up, his soul is not straight within him: but the just, through his faith will he live. Ver. 5. And moreover, the wine is treacherous: a boasting man, he continues not; he who has opened his soul as wide as hell, and ts like death, and is not satisfied, and gathered all nations to himself, and collected all peoples to himself.” These verses, although they contain the fundamental thought, or so to speak the heading of the following announcement of the judgment upon the Chaldzeans, are nevertheless not to be regarded as the sum and substance of what the prophet was to write upon the tables. For they do indeed give one characteristic of two classes of men, with a brief intimation of the fate of both, but they contain no formally rounded thought, which could constitute the motto of the whole; on the contrary, the description of the

1 The LXX. have rendered Ni) N32 93; ort epxomevos net, which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. x. 37) has still further defined by adding the article, and, connecting it with pixpev dooy éoov of Isa. xxvi. 20 (LXX.), has taken it as Messianic, and applied to the speedy coming of the Messiah to judgment; not, however, according to the exact meaning of the words, but according to the fundamental idea of the prophetic announcement. For the vision, the certain fulfilment of which is proclaimed by Habakkuk, predicts the’ judgment upon the power of the world, which the Messiah will bring to completion.

insatiable greediness of the Chaldzean is attached in ver. 5b to the picture of the haughty sinner, that the two cannot be separated. This picture is given in a subjective clause, which is only completed by the filling up in vers. 6 sqq. The sentence pronounced upon the Chaldean in vers. 4, 5, simply forms the preparatory introduction to the real answer to the prophet’s leading question. The subject is not mentioned in ver. 4a, but may be inferred from the prophet’s question in ch. i. 12-17. The Chaldzan is meant. His soul is puffed up. ney, perf. pual of 2BY, of which the hiphil only occurs in Num. xiv. 44, and that as synonymous with 77 in Deut. i. 43. From this, as well as from the noun By, a hill or swelling, we get the meaning, to be swollen up, puffed up, proud; and in the hiphil, to act haughtily or presumptuously. The thought is explained and strengthened by 71% N?, “his soul is not straight.” W*, to be straight, without turning and trickery, i.e. to be upright. ia does not belong to iW) (his soul in him, equivalent to his inmost soul), but to the verbs of the sentence. The early translators and commentators have taken this hemistich differently. They divide it into protasis and apodosis, and take nosy either as the predicate or as the subject. Luther also takes it in the latter sense: “ He who is stiff-necked will have no rest in his soul.” Burk renders it still more faithfully: ecce que effert se, non recta est anima ejus in eo. In either case we must supply ws we) after M2BY. But such an ellipsis as this, in which not only the relative word, but also the noun supporting the relative clause, would be omitted, is unparalleled and inadmissible, if only because of the tautology which would arise from supplying nephesh. This also applies to the hypothetical view of nay 437, upen which the Septuagint rendering, éav trocrei- Antal, oi« ebdoKed 7 vvyn pov év add, is founded. Even with this view nephesh could not be omitted as the subject of the protasis, and {2 would have no noun to which to refer. This rendering is altogether nothing more than a conjecture, Spy being confounded with nby, and i¥5) altered into W252. Nor is it proved to be correct, by the fact that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. x. 38) makes use of the words of our verse, according to this rendering, to support his admonitions to stedfastness. For he does not introduce the verse as a quotation to prove his words, but simply clothes his own thoughts in these words of the Bible which floated before his mind, and in so doing transposes the two hemistichs, and thereby gives the words a meaning quite in accordance with the Scriptures, which can hardly be obtained from the Alexandrian version, since we have there to take the subject to drootetdnrat from the preceding épyduevos, which gives no sense, whereas by transposing the clauses a very suitable subject can be supplied from 0 décatos.

The following clause, ‘4) P'13), is attached adversatively, and in forrn is subordinate to the sentence in the first hemistich in this sense, “whilst, on the contrary, the righteous lives through his faith,” notwithstanding the fact that it contains a very important thought, as ‘peat indirectly that pride and want of Pied: to MM, not fe ps. The tiphchah under the word. aca not og that it belongs to tsaddiq, but simply that it has the leading tone of the sentence, because it is placed with emphasis before the verb (Delitzsch). 2128 does not denote “an honourable character, or fidelity to conviction” (Hitzig), but (from ’dman, to be firm, to last) firmness (Ex. xvii. 12); then, as an attribute of God, trustworthiness, unchangeable fidelity in the fulfilment of His promises (Deut. xxxii. 4; Ps. xxxili, 4, Ixxxix. 34); and, as a personal attribute of man, fidelity in word and deed (Jer. vil. 28, ix. 2; Ps. xxxvil. 3); and, in his relation to God, firm attachment to God, an undisturbed confidence in the divine promises of grace, firma peaneea and fides, so that in -emunah the primary meanings of né’émdn and he émin are combined. This is also apparent from the fact that Abraham is called ne’émdn in Neh. ix. 8, with reference to the fact that it is affirmed of him in Gen. xv. 6 that 7172 PON, “he trusted, or believed, the Lord;” and still more indisputably from the passage: before eo since it is ea to mistake the Eee J betcha ‘and Ue reckoned it eS ie lits® digih.? It is also indisputably evident from the context that our passage treats of the relation between man and God, since the words themselves speak of a waiting (chikkdh) for the fulfilment of a promising oracle, which is to be preceded by a period of severe suffering.

“What is more natural than that life or deliverance from destruction should be promised to that faith which adheres

faithfully to God, holds fast by the word of promise, and confidently waits for its fulfilment in the midst of tribulation? It is not the sincerity, trustworthiness, or integrity of the righteous man, regarded as being virtues in themselves, which are in danger of being shaken and giving way in such times of tribulation, but, as we may see in the case of the prophet himself, his faith. To this, therefore, there is appended the great promise expressed in the one word 7” (Delitzsch). And in

addition to this, ’¢méandh is opposed to the pride of the Chaldeean, to his exaltation of himself above God; and for that very reason it cannot denote integrity in itself, but simply some quality which has for its leading feature humble submission to God, that is to say, faith, or firm reliance upon God. The Jewish expositors, therefore, have unanimously retained this meaning here, and the L.XX. have rendered the word quite correctly miotes, although by changing the suffix, and giving éx mlotews jou instead of avrod (or more properly éavtod: Aquila and the other Greek versions), they have missed, or rather perverted, the sense. The deep meaning of these words has been first fully brought out by the Apostle Paul (Rom. 1. 17; Gal. iii. 11: see also Heb. x. 38), who omits the erroneous jou of the LX X., and makes the declaration 0 Sixavos é« miotews Ejoetat the basis of the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith.—Ver. 5 is closely connected with ver. 4a, not only developing still further the thought which is there expressed, but applying it to the Chaldean. ‘2 9S does not mean “really if” (Hitzig and others), even in Job ix. 14, xxxv. 14, Ezek. xv. 5, or 1 Sam. xxi. 6 (see Delitzsch on Job xxxv. 14), but always means “still further,” or “yea also, that;” and different applications are given to it, so that, when used as an emphatic assurance, it signifies “to say nothing of the fact that,” or when it gives emphasis to the thing itself, “all the more because,” and in negative sentences “how much less” (e.g. 1 Kings viii. 27). In the present instance it adds a new and important feature to what is stated in ver. 4a, “ And add to this that wine is treacherous;” 7.e. to those who are addicted to it, it does not bring strength and life, but leads to the way to ruin (for the thought itself, see Prov. xxiii. 31, 32). The application to the Chaldean is evident from the context. The fact that the Babylonians were very much addicted to wine is at- tested by ancient writers. Curtius, for example (v. 1), says, “ Babylonit maxime in vinum et que ebrietatem sequuntur effusi sunt;” and it is well known from Dan. vy. that Babylon was conquered while Belshazzar and the great men of his kingdom were feasting at a riotous banquet. The following words 17) 733 are not the object to 7213, but form a fresh sentence, parallel to the preceding one: a boasting man, he continueth not. Nr introduces the apodosis to 17° 133, which is written absolutely. 7 only occurs again in Prov. xxi. 24, and is used there as a parallel to tI: addafov (LXX.), swaggering, boasting. The allusion to the Chaldzan is evident from the relative clause which follows, and which Delitzsch very properly calls an individualizing exegesis to 17123. But looking to what follows, this sentence forms a protasis to ver. 6, being written first in an absolute form, “ He, the widely opened one, etc., upon him will all take up,” etc. Hirchibh naphsho, to widen his soul, i.e, his desire, parallel to pd‘ar peh, to open the mouth (Isa. v. 14), is a figure used to denote insatiable desire. ANWR, like Hades, which swallows up every living thing (see Prov. xxvii. 20, xxx. 15, 16). The comparison to death has the same meaning. ya” Nr does not refer to Nn"), but to the Chaldzean, who grasps to himself in an insatiable manner, as in ch. 1. 6, 7, and 15-17. The imperff. consece. express the continued gathering up of the nations, which springs out of his insatiable desire.

In vers. 6-20 the destruction of the Chaldean, which has been already intimated in vers. 4, 5, is announced in the form of a song composed of threatening sentences, which utters woes in five strophes consisting of three verses each: (1) upon the rapacity and plundering of the Chaldean (vers. 6-8); (2) upon his attempt to establish his dynasty firmly by means of force and cunning (vers. 9-11); (3) upon his wicked ways of building (vers. 12-14); (4) upon his base treatment of the subjugated nations (vers. 15-17); and (5) upon his idolatry (vers. 18-20). These five strophes are connected together, so as to form two larger divisions, by a refrain which closes the first and fourth, as well as by the promise explanatory of the threat in which the third and fifth strophes terminate; of which two divisions the first threatens the judgment of retribution upon the insatiableness of the Chaldzean in three woes (ver. 50), and the second in two woes the judgment of retribution upon his pride. Throughout the whole of the threatening prophecy the Chaldean nation is embraced, as in vers. 4, 5, in the ideal person of its ruler.’

Vers. 6-8. Introduction of the ode and first strophe.—Ver. 6. “ Will not all these lift up a proverb upon him, and a song, a riddle upon him? And men will say, Woe to him who increases what is not his own! For how long? and who loadeth himself with the burden of pledges. Ver. 7. Will not thy biters rise up suddenly, and thy destroyers wake up, and thou wilt become booty to them? Ver. 8. For thou hast plundered many nations, all the rest of the nations will plunder thee, for the blood of men and wickedness on the earth, the city, and all its inhabitants.” Nien is here, as everywhere else, equivalent to a confident assertion.

- 1 The unity of the threatening prophecy, which is brought out in the clearest manner in this formal arrangement, has been torn in pieces in the most violent manner by Hitzig, through his assumption that the oracle of God includes no more than vers. 4-8, and that a second part is appended to it in vers. 9-20, in which the prophet expresses his own thoughts and feelings, first of all concerning king Jehoiakim (vers. 9-14), and then concerning the Egyptians (vers. 15-20). This hypothesis, of which Maurer observes quite correctly, Qua nulla unquam excogitata est infelicior, rests upon nothing more than the dogmatic assumption, that there is no such thing as prophecy effected by supernatural causality, and therefore Habakkuk cannot have spoken of Nebuchadnezzar’s buildings before they were finished, or at any rate in progress. The two strophes in vers. 9-14 contain nothing whatever that would not apply most perfectly to the Chaldeean, or that is not covered by what precedes and follows (compare ver. 9a with 6b and 8a, and ver. 10 with 50 and 8a). ‘‘ The strophe in vers. 9-11 contains the same fundamental thought as that expressed by Isaiah in Isa. xiv. 12-14 respecting the Chaldean, viz. the description of his pride, which manifests itself in ambitious edifices founded upon the ruins of the prosperity of strangers” (Delitzsch). The resemblance between the contents of this strophe and the woe pronounced upon Jehoiakim by Jeremiah in Jer. xxii. 13-17 may be very simply explained from the fact that Jehoiakim, like the Chaldean, was a tyrant who occupied himself with the erection of large state buildings and fortifications, whereas the extermination of many nations does not apply in any respect to Jehoiakim. Lastly, there is no plausible ground whatever for referring the last two strophes (vers. 15-20) to the Egyptian, for the assertion that Habakkuk could not pass over the Egyptian in silence, unless he meant to confine himself to the Chaldean, is a pure petitio principit; and to any unprejudiced mind the allusion to the Chaldzean in this verse is placed beyond all possible doubt by Isa. xiv. 8, where the devastation of Lebanon is also attributed to him, just as it is in ver. 17 of our prophecy.

“ All these:” this evidently points back to “all nations” and “all people.” Nevertheless the nations as such, or in pleno, are not meant, but simply the believers among them, who expect Jehovah to inflict judgment upon the Chaldeans, and look forward to that judgment for the revelation of the glory of God. For the ode is prophetical in its nature, and is applicable to all times and all nations. Mdashdl is a sententious poem, as in Mic. ii. 4 and Isa. xiv. 4, not a derisive song, forthis subordinate meaning could only be derived from the context, as in Isa. xiv. 4 for example; and there is nothing to suggest it here. So, again, m/itsdh neither signifies a satirical song, nor an obscure enigmatical discourse, but, as Delitzsch has shown, from the first of the two primary meanings combined in the verb 7x5, lucere and lascivire, a brilliant oration, oratio splendida, from which pn is used to denote an interpreter, so called, not from the obscurity of the speaking, but from his making the speech clear or intelligible. niDN is in apposition to myer and rwin, adding the more precise definition, that the sayings contain enigmas relating to him (the Chaldean). The enigmatical feature comes out more especially in the double meaning of O'3y in ver. 60, 732 in ver. 7a, and Hopp in ver. 160. 8" serves, like 108? elsewhere, as a direct introduction to the speech. The first woe applies to the insatiable rapacity of the Chaldean. ond 2123, who increases what does not belong to him, ze. who seizes upon a large amount of the possessions of others. ‘N'2"1Y, for how long, se. will he be able to do this with impunity; not “how long has he already done this” (Hitzig), for the words do not express exultation at the termination of the oppression, but are a sigh appended to the woe, over the apparently interminable plunderings on the part of the Chaldean. 232) is also dependent upon foi, since the defined participle which stands at the head of the cry of woe is generally followed by participles undefined, as though the former regulated the whole (cf. Isa. v. 20 and x.1). At the same time, it might be taken as a simple declaration in itself, though still standing under the influence of the hoi; in which case 815 would have to be supplied in thought, like NviN) in ver. 10. And even in this instance the sentence is not subordinate to the preceding one, as Luther follows Rashi in assuming (“and still only heaps much slime upon himself”); but is co-ordinate, as the parallelism of the clauses and the meaning of O'Day require. The az. rey. ODAY is probably chosen on account of the resemblance in sound to "23%, whilst it also covers an enigma or double entendre. Being ENG from D2 (to give a pledge) by the repetition of the last radical, OY signifies the mass of pledges (pignorum captorum Ete Ges., Maurer, Delitzsch), not the load of guilt, either in a literal or a tropico-moral sense. The quantity of foreign property which the Chaldzean has accumulated is represented as a heavy mass of pledges, which he has taken from the nations like an unmerciful usurer (Deut. xxiv. 10), to point to the fact that he will be compelled to disgorge them in due time. 337, to make heavy, i.e. to lay a heavy load upon a person. The word 5')2Y, however, might form two words so far as the sound is concerned: 0'Y 3Y, cloud (7.e. mass) of dirt, which will cause his ruin as soon as it is discharged. This is the sense in which the Syriac has taken the word; and Jerome does the same, observing, considera quam eleganter multiplicatas divitias densum appellaverit lutum, no doubt according to a Jewish tradition, since Kimchi, Rashi, and Ab. Ezra take the word as a composite one, and merely differ as to the explanation of 32. Grammatically considered, this explanation is indeed untenable, since the Hebrew language has formed no appellative nomina composita; but the word is nevertheless enigmatical, because, when heard from the lips, it might be taken as two words, and understood in the sense indicated. In ver. 7 the threatening 0: is still further developed. Will not thy biters arise? '2¥2 = JN& D3W3, those who bite thee. In the description here given of the enemy as savage vipers (cf. Jer. vill. 17) there is also an enigmatical double entendre, which Delitzsch has admirably interpreted thus: “naven,” he says,

“pointed to MAA (interest). The latter, favoured by the idea of the Chaldean as an unmerciful usurer, which is concentrated in O°D3Y, points to 7¥2, which is frequently connected with ™37F, and signifies usurious interest; and this again to the Paling epithet b'2v2, which is applied to those who have to inflict hs divine retribution upon the Chaldean. The prophet selected this to suggest the thought that there would come upon the Chaldean those who would demand back with interest (neshek) the capital of which he had unrighteously

taken possession, just as he had unmercifully taken the goods of the nations from them by usury and pawn.” 3p‘, from /'?',

yivt, piled of Yt, ceiw, is used in Arabic of the wind (to shake the tree); hence, as in this case, it was employed to denote shaking up or scaring away from a possession, as is often done, for example, by a creditor (Hitzig, Delitzsch), nibw is an intensive plural.

So far as this threat applies to the Chaldeans, it was executed by the Medes and Persians, who destroyed the Chaldean empire. But the threat has a much more extensive application. This is evident, apart from other proofs, from ver. 8 itself, according to which the whole of the remnant of the nations is to inflict the retribution. Goyim rabbim, “many nations:” this is not to be taken as an antithesis to kol-haggoyim (all nations) in ver. 50, since “all nations” are simply many nations, as kol is not to be taken in its absolute sense, but simply in a relative sense, as denoting all the nations that lie within the prophet’s horizon, as having entered the arena of history. Through 72%, which is placed at the head of the concluding clause without a copula, the antithesis to now is sharply brought out, and the idea of the righteous retaliation distinctly expressed, Oy “N'-02, the whole remnant of the nations, is not all the rest, with the exception of the one Chaldean, for yether always denotes the remnant which is left after the deduction of a portion; nor does it mean all the rest of the nations, who are spared and not subjugated, in distinction from the plundered and subjugated nations, as Hitzig with many others imagine, and in proof of which he adduces the fact that the overthrow of the Chaldzeans was effected by nations that had not been subdued. But, as Delitzsch has correctly observed, this view makes the prophet contradict not only himself, but the whole of the prophetic view of the world-wide dominion of Nebuchadnezzar. According to ver. 5), the Chaldean has grasped to himself the dominion over all nations, and consequently there cannot be any nations left that he has not plundered. Moreover, the Chaldean, or Nebuchadnezzar as the head of the Chaldean kingdom, appears in prophecy (Jer. xxvil. 7, 8), as he does in history (Dan. ii. 38, ui. 31, v. 19) throughout, as the ruler of the world in the highest sense, who has subjugated all nations and kingdoms round about, and compelled them to serve him. These nations include the Medes and Elamites (= Persians), to whom the future conquest of Babylon is attributed in Isa. xii, 17, xxi. 2, Jer. li. 11, 28. They are both mentioned in Jer. xxv. 25 among the nations, to whom the prophet is to reach the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah; and the kingdom of Elam especially is threatened in Jer. xlix. 34 sqq. with the destruction of its power, and dispersion to all four winds. In these two prophecies, indeed, Nebuchadnezzar is not expressly mentioned by name as the executor of the judgment of wrath; but in Jer. xxy. this may plainly be inferred from the context, partly from the fact that, according to ver. 9, Judah with its inhabitants, and all nations round about, are to be given into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, and partly from the fact that in the list of the nations enumerated in vers. 18-26a the king of Sesach (t.e. Babel) is mentioned as he who is to drink the cup “after them” (ver. 265). The expression ’achdréhem (after. them) shows very clearly that the judgment upon the nations previously mentioned, and therefore also upon the kings of Elam and Media, is to occur while the Chaldean rule continues, z.¢. is to be executed by the Chaldeans. This may, in fact, be inferred, so far as the prophecy respecting Elam in Jer. xlix. 34 sqq. is concerned, from the circumstance that Jeremiah’s prophecies with regard to foreign nations in Jer. xlvi—li. are merely expansions of the summary announcement in ch. xxv. 19-26, and is also confirmed by Ezek. xxxii. 24, inasmuch as Elam is mentioned there immediately after Asshur in the list of kings and nations that have sunk to the lower regions before Egypt. And if even this prophecy has a much wider meaning, like that concerning Elam in Jer. xlix. 34, and the elegy over Egypt, which Ezekiel strikes up, is expanded into a threatening prophecy concerning the heathen generally (see Kliefoth, Lzech. p. 303), this further reference presupposes the historical fulfilment which the threatening words of prophecy have received through the judgment inflicted by the Chaldeans upon all the nations mentioned, and has in this its real foundation and soil.

History also harmonizes with this prophetic announcement.

The arguments adduced by Hiivernick (Daniel, p. 547 sqq.)

to prove that Nebuchadnezzar did not extend his conquests to Elam, and neither subdued this province nor Media, are not conclusive. The fact that after the fall of Nineveh the conquerors, Nabopolassar of Babylonia, and Cyaxares the king of Media, divided the fallen Assyrian kingdom between them, the former receiving the western provinces, and the latter the eastern, does not preclude the possibility of Nebuchadnezzar, the founder of the Chaldean empire, having made war upon the Median kingdom, and brought it into subjection. There is no historical testimony, however, to the further assertion, that Nebuchadnezzar was only concerned to extend his kingdom towards the west, that his conquests were all of them in the lands situated there, and gave him so much to do that he could not possibly think of extending his eastern frontier. It is true that the opposite of this cannot be inferred from Strabo, xvi. 1, 18; but it may be inferred, as M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs, pp. 211-12) has said, from the fact that according to Jer. xxvii. and xxviii., at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign, and therefore not very long after Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Jerusalem in the time of Jehoiachin, and restored order in southern Syria in the most energetic manner, the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Zidon, entered into negotiations with Zedekiah for a joint expedition against Nebuchadnezzar. M.v. Niebuhr infers from this that troublous times set in at that period for Nebuchadnezzar, and that this sudden change in the situation of affairs was connected with the death of Cyaxares, and leads to the conjecture that Nebuchadnezzar, who had sworn fealty to Cyaxares, refused at his death to do homage to his successor; for fidelity to a father-in-law, with whose help the kingdom was founded, would assume a very different character if it was renewed to his successor. Babel was too powerful to accept any such enfeoffment as this. And even if Nebuchadnezzar was not a vassal, there could not be a more suitable opportunity for war with Media than that afforded

1This passage is quoted by Hitzig (Ezech. p. 251) as a proof that Elam made war upon the Babylonians, and, indeed, judging from Jer. xlix. 34, an unsuccessful war. But Strabo speaks of a war between the Elymzans (Elamites) and the Babylonians and Susians, which M. vy. Niebuhr (p. 210) very properly assigns to the period of the alliance between Media (as possessor of Susa) and Babylon.

by a change of government, since kingdoms in the East are so easily shaken by the death of a great prince. And there certainly was no lack of inducement to enter upon a war with Media. Elam, for example, from its very situation, and on account of the restlessness of its inhabitants, must have been a constant apple of discord. This combination acquires extreme probability, partly from the fact that Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning Elam, in which that nation is threatened with the destruction of its power and dispersion to all four winds, was first uttered at the commencement of Zedekiah’s reign (Jer. xlix. 34), whereas the rest of his prophecies against foreign nations date from an earlier period, and that against Babel is the only one which falls later, namely, in the fourth year of Zedekiah (Jer. li. 59), which appears to point to the fact that at the commencement of Zedekiah’s reign things were brewing in Elam which might lead to his ruin. And it is favoured in part by the account in the book of Judith of a war between Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) and Media, which terminated victoriously according to the Rec. vulg. in the twelfth year of his reign, since this account is hardly altogether a fictitious one. These prophetic and historical testimonies may be regarded as quite sufficient, considering the universally scanty accounts of the Chaldzan monarchy given by the Greeks and Romans, to warrant us in assuming without hesitation, as M. v. Niebuhr has done, that between the ninth and twentieth years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign—namely, at the commencement of Zedekiah’s reign—the former had to make war not only with Elam, but with Media also, and that it is to this eastern war that we should have to attribute the commotion in Syria.

From all this we may see that there is no necessity to explain “all the remnant of the nations” as relating to the remainder of the nations that had not been subjugated, but that we may understand it as signifying the remnant of the nations plundered and subjugated by the Chaldeans (as is done by the LX X., Theodoret, Delitzsch, and others), which is the only explanation in harmony with the usage of the language. For in Josh. xxiii. 12 yether haggoyim denotes the Canaanitish nations left after the war of extermination; and in Zech. xiv. 2 yether hé‘dm signifies the remnant of the nation left after the previous conquest of the city, and the carrying away of half its inhabitants. In Zeph. ii. 9 yether gai is synonymous with ‘SY N NY, and our OY It is equivalent to NIN’ O37 in Ezek. xxxvi. 3, 4, DIN 21: on account of the human blood unjustly shed, and on account of the wickedness on the earth (chdmas with the gen. obj. as in Joel iv. 19 and Ob. 10). ’Erets without an article is not the holy land, but the earth generally; and so the city (giryah, which is still dependent upon chdémas) is not Jerusalem, nor any one particular city, but, with indefinite generality, “cities.” The two clauses are parallel, cities and their inhabitants corresponding to men and the earth. The Chaldean is depicted as one who gathers men and nations in his net (ch. i. 14-17). And so in Jer. 1. 23 he is called a hammer of the whole earth, in li. 7 a cup of reeling, and in li. 25 the destroyer of the whole earth.

Vers. 9-11. The second woe is pronounced upon the wickedness of the Chaldeean, in establishing for himself a permanent settlement through godless gain. Ver. 9. “ Woe to him who getteth a godless gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to save himself from the hand of calamity. Ver. 10. Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, destruction of many nations, and involvest thy soul in guilt. Ver. 11. For the stone out of the wall will ery, and the spar out of the wood will answer it.” To the Chaldzean’s thirst for robbery and plunder there is attached quite simply the base avarice through which he seeks to procure strength and durability for his house. Y¥2 Y¥3, to get gain, has in itself the subordinate idea of unrighteous gain or sinful covetousness, since Y¥2 denotes cutting or breaking something off from another’s property, though here it is still further strengthened by the predicate 37, evil (gain). in’2 (his house) is not the palace, but the royal house of the Chaldean, his dynasty, as ver. 10 clearly shows, where M3 evidently denotes the king’s family, including the king himself. How far he makes ys for his family, is more precisely defined by 0) pave. 3p, his (the Chaldeean’s) nest, is neither his capital nor his Bs or royal castle; but the setting up of his nest on high is a figure denoting the founding of his government, and securing it against attacks. As the eagle builds its nest on high, to protect it from harm (cf.*Job xxxix. 27), so does the Chaldean seek to elevate and strengthen his rule by robbery and plunder, that it may never be wrested from his family again. We might here think of the buildings erected by Nebuchadnezzar for the fortification of Babylon, and also of the building of the royal palace (see Berosus in Jos. ¢. Ap. i. 19). We must not limit the figurative expression to this, however, but must rather refer it 6 all that the Chaldean did to establish his rule. This is called the setting on high of his nest, to characterize it as an emanation from his pride, and the lofty thoughts of his heart. For the figure of the nest, see Num. xxiv. 21, Ob. 4, Jer. xlix. 16. His intention in doing this is to save himself from the hand of adversity. 7 is not masculine, the evil man; but neuter, adversity, or “the hostile fate, which, so far as its ultimate cause is God (Isa. xlv. 7), is inevitable and irreversible” (Delitzsch). In ver. 10 the result of his heaping up of evil gain is announced: he has consulted shame to his house. 7}, to form a resolution. His determination to establish his house, and make it firm and lofty by evil gain, will bring shame to his house, and instead of honour: and lasting glory, only shame and ruin. Mi¥P, which has been variously Ssh, cannot be the plural of the noun MSP, “the ends of many nations,” since it is impossible to aac any intelligent meaning to this. It is rather the infinitive of the verb T¥P, the occurrence of which Hitzig can only dispute by an arbitrary alteration of the text in four different passages, and is equivalent to /'$?, to cut off, hew off, which occurs in the piel in 2 Kings x. 32 and Prov. xxvi. 6, but in the kal only here. The iienitive construct does not stand for the inf. abs., or for miypd, exscindendo, but is used substantively, and is governed bee Msy, which still retains its force from the previous clause. Thou hast consulted (resolved upon) the cutting off, or destruction, of many nations. di, and sinnest against thy soul thereby, zc. bringest retribution upon thyself, ramet away thine own life. Our the use of the participle in the sense of the second person without NAN, see at ch. i. 5. SDN, with the accusative of the person, as in Prov. xx. 2 and viii. 36, instead of 1531 Non. The participle is used, because the reference is to a present, which will only be completed in the future (Hitzig and Delitzsch). The reason for this verdict, and also for the hoi which stands at the head of this strophe, follows in ver. 11. The stone out of the wall and the spar out of the woodwork will cry, sc. because of the wickedness which thou hast practised in connection with thy buildings (ch. i. 2), or for vengeance (Gen. iv. 10), because they have been stolen, or obtained from stolen property. The apparently proverbial expression of the crying of stones is applied in a different way in Luke xix. 40. P does not mean the wall of a room here, but, as distinguished from /’Y, the outside wall, and /'Y, the woodwork or beams of the buildings. The dz. rey. D'D2, lit. that which binds, from p53 in the Syriac and Targum, to bind, is, according to Jerome, “the beam which is placed in the middle of any building to hold the walls together, and is generally called (uavtwous by the Greeks.” The explanation given by Suidas is, déous EdNwy EuBardopéver ev Tois oixodoujcact, hence rafters or beams. 733’, will answer, se. the stone, 7.¢. join in its crying (cf. Isa. xxxiv. 14).

Vers. 12-14. The third woe refers to the building of cities with the blood and property of strangers. Ver. 12. “ Woe to him who buildeth cities with blood, and foundeth castles with injustice. Ver. 13. Is it not, behold, from Jehovah of hosts that the peoples weary themselves for fire, and nations exhaust themselves for vanity? Ver. 14. For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.” The earnest endeavour of the Chaldzan to found his dynasty in permanency through evil gain, manifested itself also in the building of cities with the blood and sweat of the subjugated nations. VY and 7? are synonymous, and are used in the singular with indefinite generality, like "7? in ver. 8. The preposition 2, attached to D'D3 and Hy, denotes the means employed to attain the end, as in Mic. iii. 10 and Jer. xxii. 13. This was murder, blooddhad, transportation, and tyranny of every kind. Kénén is not a parciple with the Mem dropped, but a perfect; the address, which was opened with a participle, being continued in the finite tense (cf. Ewald, § 350, a). With ver. 13 the address takes a different turn from that which it has in the preceding woes. Whereas there the woe is always more fully expanded in the central verse by an exposition of the wrong, we have here a statement that it is of Jehovah, @.e. is ordered or inflicted by Him, that the nations weary themselves for the fire. The } before *¥}” introduces the declaration of what it is that comes from Jehovah. 37 sida (is it not? behold!) are connected together, as in 2 Chron. xxv. 26, to point to what follows as something great that was floating before the mind of the prophet. w "73, literally, for the need of the fire (compare Nah. ii. 13 and Isa. xl. 16). They labour for the fire, i.e. that the fire may devour the cities that have been built with severe exertion, which exhausts the strength of the nations. So far they weary themselves for vanity, since the buildings are one day to fall into ruins, or be destroyed. Jeremiah (li. 58) has very suitably applied these words to the destruction of Babylon. This wearying of themselves for vanity is determined by Jehovah, for (ver. 14) the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah. That this may be the case, the kingdom of the world, which is hostile to the Lord and His glory, must be destroyed. This promise therefore involves a threat directed against the Chaldean. His usurped glory shall be destroyed, that the glory of Jehovah of Sabaoth, ze. of the God of the universe, may fill the whole earth. The thought in ver. 14 is formed after Isa. xi. 9, with trifling alterations, partly substantial, partly only formal. The choice of the niphal xdion instead of the ANMD of Isaiah refers to the actual fact, and is induced in both passages by the different turn given to the thought. In Isaiah, for example, this thought closes the description of the glory and blessedness of the Messianic kingdom in its perfected state. The earth is then full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the peace throughout all nature which has already been promised is one fruit of that knowledge. In Habakkuk, on the other hand, this knowledge is only secured through the overthrow of the kingdom of the world, and consequently only thereby will the earth be filled with it, and that not with the knowledge of Jehovah (as in Isaiah), but with the knowledge of His glory ("” 7133), which is manifested in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (Isa. ii. 12-21, vi. 3, compared with the primary passage, Num. xiv. 21), 1123 is “the d0&a of Jehovah, which includes His right of majesty over the whole earth” (Delitzsch). pypy 3D2" is altered in form, but not in sense, from the DD) D of Isaiah; and %D2. is to be taken relatively, since 2 is only used as a preposition before a noun or participle, and not like a conjunction before a whole sentence (comp. Ewald, § 360, a, with § 337, c). ny is an infinitive, not a noun, with the preposition >; for NPD, NPI, is construed with the accus. ret, lit. the

CHAP. II. 15-17, 87 earth will be filled with the acknowledging. The water of the sea is a figure denoting overflowing abundance.

Vers. 15-17. The fourth woe is an exclamation uttered concerning the cruelty of the Chaldean in the treatment of the conquered nations. Ver. 15. “ Woe to him that giveth his neighbour to drink, mixing thy burning wrath, and also making drunk, to look at their nakedness. Ver. 16. Thou hast satisfied thyself with shame instead of with honour; then drink thou also, and show the foreskin. The cup of Jehoval’s right hand will turn to thee, and the vomiting of shame upon thy glory. Ver. 17. For the wickedness at Lebanon will cover thee, and the dispersion of the animals which frightened them; for the blood of the men and the wickedness on the earth, upon the city and all its inhabitants.” The description in vers. 15 and 16 is figurative, and the figure is taken from ordinary life, where one man gives another drink, so as to intoxicate him, for the purpose of indulging his own wantonness at his expense, or taking delight 1 in his shame. This helps to explain the 77 Npw, who gives his neighbour to drink. The singular is used with andes finite generality, or in a collective, or speaking more correctly, a distributive sense. The next two circumstantial clauses are subordinate to Mpv12 4n, defining more closely the mode of the drinking. 5D does not mean to pour in, after the Arabic oie;

for this, which is another form for G\in, answers to the Hebrew 72Y, to pour out (compare inn 72Y, to pour out, or empty out His wrath: Ps. Ixxix. 6; Jer. x. 25), but has merely the meaning to add or associate, with the sole exception of Job xiv.

19, where it is apparently used to answer to the Arabic ce consequently here, where drink is spoken of, it means to mix wrath with the wine poured out. Through the suffix yon the woe is addressed directly to the Chaldean himself,—a change from the third person to the second, which would be opposed to the genius of our language. The thought is sharpened by 72¥ aN, “and also re addition) making drunk” (shakkér, inf. abs.) To look upon their Bale Anesseds the plural anniv2 is used because YI has a collective meaning. The prostrate condition of the drunken man is a figurative representation of the overthrow of a conquered nation (Nah. iii, 11), and the uncovering of the shame a figure denoting the ignominy that has fallen upon it (Nah. iii. 5; Isa. xlvii. 3). This allegory, in which the conquest and subjugation of the nations are represented as making them drink of the cup of wrath, does not refer to the open violence with which the Chaldean enslaves the nations, but points to the artifices with which he overpowers them, “ the cunning with which he entices them into his alliance, to put them to shame” (Delitzsch). But he has thereby simply prepared shame for himself, which will fall back upon him (ver. 16). The perfect mya¥ does not apply prophetically to the certain future; but, as in the earlier strophes (vers. 8 and 10) which are formed in a similar manner, to what the Chaldzean has done, to bring upon himself the punishment mentioned in what follows. The shame with which he has satisfied himself is the shamefulness of his conduct; and Y2¥, to satisfy himself, is equivalent to revelling in shame. 1231, far away from honour, 7.e. and not in honour. 2 is the negative, as in Ps. lii. 5, in the sense of ND, with which it alternates in Hos. vi. 6. For this he is now also to drink the cup of wrath, so as to fall down intoxicated, and show himself as having a foreskin, @e. as uncircumcised (ayn from nowy). This goblet Jehovah will hand to him. Tissobh, he will turn, -Y (upon thee, or to thee). This is said, because the cup which the Chaldzan had reached to other nations was also handed over to him by Jehovah. The nations have hitherto been obliged to drink it out of the hand of the Chaldean. Now it is his turn, and he must drink it out of the hand of Jehovah (see Jer. xxv. 26). Hopp, and shameful vomiting, (sc. 7) will be over thine honour, i.e. will cover over thine honour or glory, i.e. will destroy thee. The az. rey. ep’? is formed from the pilpal pp from 55p, and softened down from jeep, and signifies extreme or the greatest contempt. This form of the word, however, is chosen for the sake of the play upon Hep s’?, vomiting of shame, vomitus ignominie (Vulg.; cf. ONS 8? in Isa. xxviii. 8), and in order that, when the word was heard, it should call up the subordinate meaning, which suggests itself the more naturally, because excessive drinking is followed by vomiting (cf. Jer. xxv. 26, 27). This threat is explained in ver. 17, in the statement that the wickedness practised by the Chaldzean on Lebanon and its beasts will cover or fall back upon itself. Lebanon with its beasts is taken by of the holy land and its inhabitants. But although it may be pleaded, in support of this view, that Lebanon, and indeed the summit of its cedar forest, is used in Jer. xxii. 6 as a symbol of the royal family of Judea, and in Jer. xxii. 23 as a figure denoting Jerusalem, and that in Isa. xxxvii. 24, and probably also in Zech. xi. 1, the mountains of Lebanon, as the northern frontier of the Israelitish land, are mentioned synecdochically for the land itself, and the hewing of its cedars and cypresses may be a figurative representation of the devastation of the land and its inhabitants; these passages do not, for. all that, furnish any conclusive evidence of the correctness of this view, inasmuch as in Isa. x. 33, 34, Lebanon with its forest is also a figure employed to denote the grand Assyrian army and its leaders, and in Isa. lx. 13 is a symbol of the great men of the earth generally; whilst in the verse before us, the allusion to the Israelitish ]and and nation is neither indicated, nor even favoured, by the context of the words. Apart, for example, from the fact that such a thought as this, “ the wickedness committed upon the holy land will cover thee, because of the wickedness committed upon the earth,” not only appears lame, but would be very difficult to sustain on biblical grounds, inasmuch as the wickedness committed upon the earth and its inhabitants would be declared to be a greater crime than that committed upon the land and people of the Lord; this view does not answer to the train of thought in the whole of the ode, since the previous strophes do not contain any special allusion to the devastation of the holy land, or the subjugation and ill-treatment of the holy people, but simply to the plundering of many nations, and the gain forced out of their sweat and blood, as being the great crime of the Chaldzean (cf. vers. 8, 10, 13), for which he would be visited with retribution and destruction. Consequently we must take the words literally, as referring to the wickedness practised by the Chaldeean upon nature and the animal world, as the glorious creation of Ged, represented by the cedars and cypresses of Lebanon, and the animals living in the forests upon those mountains. Not satisfied with robbing men and nations, and with oppressing and ill-treating them, the Chaldean committed wickedness upon the cedars and cypresses also, and the wild animals of Lebanon, cutting down the wood either for military purposes or for state buildings, so that the wild animals were unsparingly exterminated. There is a parallel to this in Isa. xiv. 8, where the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon rejoice at the fall of the Chaldean, because they will be no more hewn down. Shod b*hémoth, devastation upon (among) the animals (with the gen. obj., as in Isa. xxii. 4 and Ps. xii. 6). $"M is a relative clause, and the subject, shdd, the devastation which terrified the animals. The form jn for nm, from 1M, hiphil of NNN, is anomalous, the syllable with dagesh being resolved into an extended one, like 72° for 790 in Isa. xxxiiil. 1; and the tsere of the final syllable is exchanged for pathach because of the pause, as, for example, in pbynn in Ps. lv. 2 (see Olshausen, Gramm. p. 576). There is no necessity to alter it into JM (Ewald and Olshausen after the LXX., Syr., and Vulg.), and it only weakens the idea of the ¢alio. The second hemistich is repeated as a refrain from ver. 8b.

Vers. 18-20. Fifth and last strophe.—Ver. 18. “ What: profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath carved it; the molten image and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his: image trusteth in him to make dumb idols? Ver. 19. Woe to him that saith to the wood, Wake up; Awake, to the hard stone. Should tt teach? Behold, it is encased in gold and silver, and there is nothing of breath in its inside. Ver. 20. But Jehovah ts in His holy temple: let all the world be silent before Him.” This concluding strophe does not commence, like the preceding ones, with hd, but with the thought which prepares the way for the woe, and is attached to what goes before to strengthen the threat, all hope of help being cut off from the Chaldean. Like all the rest of the heathen, the Chaldzan also trusted in the power of his gods. This confidence the prophet overthrows in ver. 18: “ What use is it?” equivalent to “ The idol is of no use” (cf, Jer. ii. 11; Isa. xliv. 9,10). The force of this question still continues in massekhdh: “ Of what use is the molten image?” Pesel is an image carved out of wood or stone; masstkhéh an image cast in metal. YN is the perfect, expressing a truth founded upon experience, as a fact: What profit has it ever brought? Moreh sheger (the teacher of lies) is not the priest or prophet of the idols, after the analogy of Mic. iii. 11 and Isa. ix. 14; for that would not suit the following explanatory clause, in which wy (in him) points back to méreh sheger: “ that the maker of idols trusteth in him (the teacher of lies).” Consequently the mdreh sheger must be the idol itself; and it is so designated in contrast with the true God, the teacher in the highest sense (cf. Job xxxvi. 22). The idol is a teacher of lying, inasmuch as it sustains the delusion, partly by itself and partly through its priests, that it is God, and can do what men expect from God; whereas it is nothing more than a dumb nonentity (eli ’ulém: compare eidwra a&pwva, 1 Cor. xii. 2). Therefore woe be to him who expects help from such lifeless wood or image of stone. /Y is the block of wood shaped into an idol. Hdgitséh, awake! sc. to my help, as men pray to the living God (Ps. xxxv. 23, xliv. 24, lix. 6; Isa. li. 9). 77 an isa question of astonishment at such a delusion. This is required by the following sentence: it is even encased in gold. Taphas: generally to grasp; here to set in gold, to encase in gold plate (zahabh is an accusative). [PS Sy: there is not at all. mm, breath, the spirit of life (cf. Jer. x. 14). Vers. 18 and 19 contain a concise summary of the reproaches heaped upon idolatry in Isa. xliv. 9-20; but they are formed quite independently, without any evident allusions to that passage. In ver. 20 the contrast is drawn between the dumb lifeless idols and the living God, who is enthroned in His holy temple, «e. not the earthly temple at Jerusalem, but the heavenly temple, or the temple as the throne of the divine glory (Isa. Ixvi. 1), as in Mic. i. 2, whence God will appear to judge the world, and to manifest His holiness upon the earth, by the destruction of the earthly powers that rise up against Him. This thought is implied in the words, “ He is in His holy temple,” inasmuch as the holy temple is the palace in which He is enthroned as Lord and Ruler of the whole world, and from which He observes the conduct of men (Ps. xi. 4). Therefore the whole earth, i.e. all the population of the earth, is to be still before Him, 7.2. to submit silently to Him, and wait for His judgment. Compare Zeph.i. 7 and Zech. ii. 17, where the same command is borrowed from this passage, and referred to the expectation of judgment. D7 is hardly an imper. apoc. of 1D7, but an interjection, from which the verb hdsdh is formed. But if the whole earth must keep silence when He appears as Judge, it is all over with the Chaldzan also, with all his glory and might.:

In this chapter, which is called a prayer in the heading, the prophet expresses the feelings which the divine revelation of judgment described in ch. i. and ii. had excited in his mind, and ought to excite in the congregation of believers, so that this supplicatory psalm may be called an echo of the two answers which the prophet had received from the Lord to his complaints in ch. i. 2-4 and 12-17 (vid. ch. i. 5-11 and ii. 2-20). Deeply agitated as he was by the revelation he had received concerning the terrible judgment, which the Lord would execute first of all upon Judah, through the wild and cruel Chaldean nation, and then upon the Chaldean himself, because he deified his own power, the prophet prays to the Lord that He will carry out this work of His “ within years,” and in the revelation of His wrath still show mercy (ver. 2). He then proceeds in vers. 3-15 to depict in a majestic theophany the coming of the Lord to judge the world, and bring salvation to His people and His anointed; and secondly, in vers. 16-19, to describe the fruit of faith which this divine manifestation produces, namely, first of all fear and trembling at the day of tribulation (vers. 16, 17), and afterwards joy and rejoicing in the God of salvation (vers. 18 and 19). Consequently we may regard ver. 2 as the theme of the psalm, which is distributed thus between the two parts. In the first part (vers. 3-15) we have the prayer for the accomplishment of the work (ver. 2a) announced by God in ch. i. 5, expressed in the form of a prophetico-lyric description of the coming of the Lord to judgment; and in the second part (vers. 16-19), the prayer in wrath to remember mercy (ver. 26), expanded still more fully in the form of a description of the feelings and state of mind excited by that prayer in the hearts of the believing church.

The song has a special heading, after the fashion of the psalms, in which the contents, the author, and the poetical character of the ode are indicated. The contents are called t“philléh, a prayer, like Ps. xvii., Ixxxvi., xe., cii., and cxlii., not merely with reference to the fact that it commences with a prayer to God, but because that prayer announces the contents of the ode after the manner of a theme, and the whole of the ode is simply the lyrical unfolding of that prayer. In order, however, to point at the same time to the prophetic character of the prayer, that it may not be regarded as a lyrical effusion of the subjective emotions, wishes, and hopes of a member of the congregation, but may be recognised as a production of the prophets, enlightened by the Spirit of Jehovah, the name of the author is given with the predicate “the prophet;” and to this there is added ni3iv 2Y, to indicate the poetico-subjective character, through which it is distinguished from prophecy in the narrower sense. The expression “upon Shigionoth” cannot refer to the contents or the object of the ode; for although shiggdyon, according to its etymon shdgdh = shdgagq, to transgress by mistake, to sin, might have the meaning transgression in a moral sense, and consequently might be referred to the sins of transgressors, either of the Judeans or the Chaldeans, such an assumption is opposed both to the use of shiggdydn in the heading to Ps. vii., and also to the analogy between ‘al shigyonoth, and such headings to the psalms as ‘al haggittith, ‘al n’ginoth, and other words introduced with ‘al. Whilst shiggdyon in Ps. vii. 1 indicates the style of poetry in which the psalm is composed, all the notices in the headings to the psalms that are introduced with ‘al refer either to the melody or style in which the psalms are to be sung, or to the musical accompaniment with which they are to be introduced into the worship of God. This musico-liturgical signification is to be retained here also, since it is evident from the subscription in ver. 19, and the repetition of Selah three times (vers. 3, 9, 13), that our hymn was to be used with musical accompaniment. Now, as shdgdh, to err, then to reel to and fro, is applied to the giddiness both of intoxication and of love (Isa. xxviii. 7; Prov. xx. 1, v. 20), shiggdyon signifies reeling, and in the terminology of poetry a reeling song, te. a song delivered in the greatest excitement, or with a rapid change of emotion, dithyrambus (see Clauss on Ps. vii. 1; Ewald, Delitzsch, and others); hence Ni3iw by, after dithyrambs, or ‘“‘after the manner of a stormy, martial, and triumphal ode” (Schmieder).

Jehovah, Thy work, in the midst of the years call it to life, in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” YY is the tidings (dxo7) of God; what the prophet has heard of God, ie. the tidings of the judgment which God is about to iia upon Judah through the Chaldeans, and after that upon the Chaldeans themselves. The prophet is alarmed at this. The word ‘8}) (I am alarmed) does not compel us to take what is heard as referring merely to the judgment to be inflicted upon Judah by the Chaldeans. Even in the overthrow of the mighty Chaldzean, or of the empire of the world, the omnipotence of Jehovah is displayed in so terrible a manner, that this judgment not only inspires with joy at the destruction of the foe, but fills with alarm at the omnipotence of the Judge of the world. The prayer which follows, “Call Thy work to life,” also refers to this twofold judgment which God revealed to the prophet in ch. i. and i. TeyD, placed absolutely at the head for the sake of emphasis, points back to the work (pd‘al) which God was about to do (ch. i. 5); but this work of God is not limited to the raising up of the Chaldzan nation, but includes the judgment which will fall upon the Chaldean after he has offended (ch. i. 11). This assumption is not at variance even with 7". For the opinion that 7°73 never means to call a non-existent thing to life, but always signifies either to give life to an inorganic object (Job xxxili. 4), or to keep a living thing alive, or (and this most frequently) to restore a dead thing to life, and that here the word must be taken in the sense of restoring to life, because in the description which follows Habakkuk looks back to Ps. Ixxvii. and the po'al depicted there, viz. the deliverance out of Egyptian bondage, is not correct. m1 does not merely mean to restore to life and keep alive, but also to give life and call to life. In Job xxxiii. 4, where °F is parallel to "2n’Y, the reference is not to the impartation of life to an inorganic object, but to the giving of life in the sense of creating; id so also in Gen. vil. 3 and xix. 382, Y21 77 means to. call seed to life, or raise it up, é.e. to call a non-existent thing to life. Moreover, the resemblances in the theophany depicted in what follows to Ps. lxxvii. do not require the assumption that Habakkuk is praying for the renewal of the former acts of God for the redemption of His people, but may be fully explained on the ground that the saving acts of God on behalf of His people are essentially the same in all ages, and that the prophets generally were accustomed to describe the divine revelations of the future under the form of imagery drawn from the acts of God in the past. There is special emphasis in the use of O° 37P3 twice, and the fact that in both instances it stands at the head. It has been interpreted in very different ways; but there is an evident allusion to the divine answer in ch. i. 3, that the oracle is for an appointed time, etc. “In the midst of the years,” or within years, cannot of course mean by itself “within a certain number, or a small number, of years,.” or “within a brief space of time” (Ges., Ros., and Maurer); nevertheless this explanation is founded upon a correct idea of the meaning. When the prophet directs his eye to the still remote object of the oracle (ch. ii.), the fulfilment of which was to be delayed, but yet assuredly to come at last (ch. ii. 3), the interval between the present time and the mo‘éd appointed by God (ch. ii. 3) appears to him as a long series of years, at the end only of which the judgment is to come upon the oppressors of His people, namely the Chaldzans. He therefore prays that the Lord will not delay too long the work which He designs to do, or cause it to come to life only at the end of the appointed interval, but will bring it to life within years, 2.e. within the years, which would pass by if the fulfilment were delayed, before that mo‘éd arrived. Grammatically considered, gerebh shdnim cannot be the centre of the years of the world, the boundary-line between the Old and New Testament zons, as Bengel supposes, who takes it at the same time, according to this explanation, as the starting-point for a chronological calculation of the whole course of the world. Moreover, it may also be justly argued, in opposition to this view and application of the words, that it cannot be presupposed that the prophets had so clear a consciousness as this, embracing all history by its calculus; and still less can we expect to find in a lyrical ode, which is the outpouring of the heart of the congregation, a revelation of what God Himself had not revealed to him according to ch. ii. 8. Nevertheless the view which lies at the foundation of this application of our passage, viz. that the work of God, for the manifestation of which the prophet is praying, falls in the centre of the years of the world, has this deep truth, that it exhibits the overthrow not only of the imperial power of Chaldza, but that of the world-power generally, and the deliverance of the nation from its power, and forms the turning-point, with which the old eon closes and the new epoch of the world commences, with the completion of which the whole of the earthly development of the universe will reach its close. The repetition of DY 27?2 is expressive of the earnest longing with which the congregation of the Lord looks for the tribulation to end. The object to YM, which is to be taken in an optative sense, answering to the imperative in the parallel clause, may easily be supplied from the previous clause. To the prayer for the shortening of the period of suffering there is appended, without the copula Vav, the further prayer, in wrath to remember mercy. The wrath (rogez, like rdgaz in Isa. xxviii. 21 and Prov. xxix. 9) in which God is to remember mercy, namely for His people Israel, can only be wrath over Israel, not merely the wrath manifested in the chastisement of Judah through the Chaldzans, but also the wrath displayed in the overthrow of the Chaldeans. In the former case God would show mercy by softening the cruelty of the Chaldeans; in the latter, by accelerating their overthrow, and putting a speedy end to their tyranny. This prayer is followed in vers. 3-15 by a description of the work of God which is to be called to life, in which the prophet expresses confidence that his petition will be granted.