Habakkuk 3:13
“The Lord's Triumphant Theophany”Habakkuk 3:3–15
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain
Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain
Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain
- יָצָאתָya·Tza·tayou have gone outH3318V-Qal-Perf-2msVerb Qal Perfect 2nd Singular Masculine
- לְיֵשַׁעle·Ye·sha'for [the] salvation ofH3468Prep-l ¦ N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Constructלְforיֵשַׁע[the] salvation of
- עַמֶּךָ'a·Me·khayour peopleH5971N-msc ¦ 2msNoun Singular Masculine Construct with suffixעַמֶּpeopleךָyour
- לְיֵשַׁעle·Ye·sha'for [the] salvationH3468Prep-l ¦ N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absoluteלְforיֵשַׁע[the] salvation
- אֶת'et[obj.]H853DirObjMParticle Object Indicator
- מְשִׁיחֶךָme·shi·Che·khayour anointedH4899N-msc ¦ 2msNoun Singular Masculine Construct with suffixמְשִׁיחֶanointedךָyour
- מָחַצְתָּma·Chatz·tayou have shatteredH4272V-Qal-Perf-2msVerb Qal Perfect 2nd Singular Masculine
- רֹּאשׁroSh[the] chiefH7218N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
- מִבֵּיתmi·Beitfrom [the] house ofH1004Prep-m ¦ N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Constructמִfromבֵּית[the] house of
- רָשָׁעra·Sha'[the] wickedH7563N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
- עָרוֹתa·Rotyou have laid bareH6168V-Piel-InfVerb Piel Infinitive Construct
- יְסוֹדye·Sodfoundation[s]H3247N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
- עַד'adtoH5704PrepPreposition
- צַוָּארtza·VarneckH6677N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
- סֶלָהSe·lahSelahH5542PrtParticle Interjection
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?
This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.
Words in [ ] are added by the English.
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Public-domain commentary
Matthew Henry
From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Habakkuk 3:3–15. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.
It has been the usual practice of God's people, when they have been in distress and ready to fall into despair, to help themselves by recollecting their experiences, and reviving them, considering the days of old, and the years of ancient times (Psalm 77:5), and pleading with God in prayer, as he is pleased sometimes to plead them with himself. Isaiah 63:11, Then he remembered the days of old. This is that which the prophet does here, and he looks as far back as the first forming of them into a people, when they were brought by miracles out of Egypt, a house of bondage, through the wilderness, a land of drought, into Canaan, then possessed by mighty nations. He that thus brought them at first into Canaan, through so much difficulty, can now bring them thither again out of Babylon, how great soever the difficulties are that lie in the way. Those works of wonder, wrought of old, are here most magnificently described, for the greater encouragement to the faith of God's people in their present straits.
I.God appeared in his glory, so as he never did before or since (Habakkuk 3:3, Habakkuk 3:4):
He came from Teman, even the Holy One from Mount Paran. This refers to the visible display of the glory of God when he gave the law upon Mount Sinai, as appears by Deuteronomy 33:2 whence these expressions are borrowed. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai in a cloud (Exodus 19:20) and his glory was as the devouring fire, not only to enforce the law he then gave them, but to avow the deliverance he had wrought for them and to magnify it; for the first word he said there was, "I am the Lord thy God, that brought thee out of the land of Egypt. I that appear in this glory am the author of that work." Then his glory covered the heavens, which shone with the reflection of that glorious appearance of his; the earth also was full of his praise, or of his splendour, as some read it. People at a distance saw the cloud and fire on the top of Mount Sinai, and praised the God of Israel. Or the earth was full of those works of God which were to be praised. His brightness was as the light, as the light of the sun when he goes forth in his strength; he had horns, or bright beams (so it should be rendered), coming out of his side or hand. Rays of glory were darted forth around him; and with some rays borrowed thence it was that Moses's face shone when he came down from that mount of glory. Some by the horns, the two horns (for the word is dual), coming out of his hand, understand the two tables of the law, which perhaps, when God delivered them to Moses, though they were tables of stone, had a glory round them; those books were gilt with beams, and so it agrees with Deuteronomy 33:2, From his right hand went a fiery law for them. It is added, And there was the hiding of his power; there was his hidden power, in the rays that came out of his hand. The operations of his power, compared with what he could have done, were rather the hiding of it than the discovery of it; the secrets of his power, as well as of his wisdom, are double to that which is, Job 11:6.
II.God sent plagues on Egypt, for the humbling of proud Pharaoh, and the obliging of him to let the people go (Habakkuk 3:5):
Before him went the pestilence, which slew all the first-born of Egypt in one night; and burning coals went forth at his feet, when, in the plague of hail, there was fire mingled with hail - burning diseases (so the margin reads it), some think those that wasted Egypt, others those with which the number of the Canaanites was diminished before Israel was brought in upon them. These were at his feet, that is, at his coming, for they are at his command; he says to them, Go, and they go, Come, and they come, Do this, and they do it.
III.He divided the land of Canaan to his people Israel, and expelled the heathen from before them (Habakkuk 3:6):
He stood, and measured the earth, measured that land, to assign it for an inheritance to Israel his people, Deuteronomy 32:8, Deuteronomy 32:9. He beheld, and drove asunder the nations that were in possession of it; though they combined together against Israel, God dispersed and discomfited them before Israel. Or he exerted such a mighty power as was enough to shake in pieces all the nations of the earth. Then the everlasting mountains were scattered, and the perpetual hills did bow; the mighty princes and potentates of Canaan, that seemed as high, as strong, and as firmly fixed, as the mountains and hills, were broken to pieces; they and their kingdoms were totally subdued. Or the power of God was so exerted as to shake the mountains and hills; nay, and Sinai did tremble, and the adjacent hills; see Psalm 68:7, Psalm 68:8. To this he adds, His ways are everlasting, that is, all the motions of his providence are according to his eternal counsels; and he is the same for ever, that which he was yesterday and today. His covenant is unchangeable, and his mercy endures for ever. When he drove asunder the nations of Canaan one might have seen the tents of Cushan in affliction, the curtains of the land of Midian trembling, and all the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries taking the alarm; and though they were not in the commission given to Israel to destroy, nor their land within the warrant given to Israel to possess, yet they thought their own house in danger when their neighbour's house was on fire, and therefore they were in a great fright, Habakkuk 3:7. Balak the king of Moab was so, Numbers 22:3, Numbers 22:4. Some make the tents of Cushan to be in affliction when, in the days of judge Othniel, God delivered Cushan-rishathaim into his hand (Judges 3:8), and the curtains of the land of Midian to tremble when, in the days of judge Gideon, a barley cake, in a dream, overthrew the tent of Midian, Judges 7:13.
IV.He divided the Red Sea and Jordan, when they stood in the way of Israel's progress, and yet fetched a river out of a rock when Israel wanted it, Habakkuk 3:8. One would have thought that God was displeased with the rivers, and that his wrath was against the sea, for he made them give way and flee before him when he rode upon his horses and chariots of salvation, as a general at the head of his forces, mighty to save. Note, God's chariots are not so much chariots of state to himself as chariots of salvation to his people; it is his glory to be Israel's Saviour. This seems to be referred to again (Habakkuk 3:15): "Thou didst walk through the sea, through the Red Sea, with thy horses, in the pillar of cloud and fire (that was his chariot drawn by angels); thus thou didst walk secure, and so as to accommodate thyself to the slow pace that Israel could go, as Jacob tenderly drove, in consideration of his children and cattle: Thou didst walk through the heap, or mud, of great waters; and Israel likewise was led through the deep as a horse through the wilderness," Isaiah 63:13, Isaiah 63:14. When they came to enter Canaan the overflowing of the water passed by, that is, Jordan, which at that time overflowed all his banks, was divided, Joshua 3:15. Note, When the difficulties in the way of perfecting the salvation of Israel seem most insuperable, when they rise to the height, and overflow, yet then God can put them by, break through them, and get over them. Then the deep uttered his voice, when, the Red Sea and Jordan being divided, the waters roared and made a noise, as if they were sensible of the restraint they were under from proceeding in their natural course, and complained of it. They lifted up their hands, or sides, on high (for the waters stood up on a heap, Joshua 3:16), as if they would have made opposition to the orders given them. They lifted up their voice, lifted up their waves; but in vain. The Lord on high was mightier than they, Psalm 93:3, Psalm 93:4. With the dividing of the sea and Jordan, notice is again taken of the trembling of the mountains, as if the stop given to the waters gave a shock to the adjacent hills; they are put together, Psalm 114:3, Psalm 114:4. When the sea saw it and fled, and Jordan was driven back, the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs. The whole creation yielded; earth and waters trembled at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the mighty God of Jacob. But (as Mr. Cowley paraphrases it)
Fly where thou wilt, thou sea; and, Jordan's current, cease.
Jordan, there is no need of thee;
For at God's word, whene'er he please,
The rocks shall weep new waters forth instead of these.
So here, Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers; channels were made in the wilderness, such as seemed to cleave the earth, for the waters to run in, which issued out of the rock, to supply the camp of Israel, and which followed them in all their removes. Note, The God of nature can alter and control the powers of nature, which way he pleases, can turn waters into crystal rocks and rocks into crystal streams.
V.He arrested the motion of the sun and moon, to befriend and complete Israel's victories (Habakkuk 3:11):
The sun and moon stood still at the prayer of Joshua, that the Canaanites might not have the benefit of the night to favour their escape; they stood still in their habitation in the heaven (Psalm 19:4), but with an eye to Gibeon and the valley of Ajalon, where God's work was in the doing, and of which they, though at so vast a distance, attended the motions. At the light, at the direction, of thy arrows, they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear; they followed Israel's arms, to favour them; according to the intimation of the arrows God shot (as Jonathan's arrows, 1 Samuel 20:20), and which way soever his spear pointed (the glittering light of which they acknowledged to outshine theirs) that way they directed their influences, benign to Israel and malignant against their enemies, as when the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Note, The heavenly bodies, as well as earth and seas, are at God's command, and, when he pleases, at Israel's service too.
VI.He carried on and completed Israel's victories over the nations of Canaan and their kings; he slew great kings and famous, Psalm 136:17, Psalm 136:18. This is largely insisted upon here, as a proper plea with God to enforce the present petition, that he would restore them again to that land which they were, at the expense of so many lives, so many miracles, first put in possession of.
1.Many expressions are here used to set forth the conquest of Canaan.
(1.)God's bow was made quite naked, taken out of the case, to be employed for Israel; we should say, his sword was quite unsheathed, not drawn out a little way, to frighten the enemy, and then put up again, but quite drawn out, not to be returned till they are all cut off.
(2.)He marched through the land from end to end, in indignation, as scorning to let that wicked generation of Canaanites any longer possess so good a land. He marched cum fastidio - with distaste (so some), despising their confederacies.
(3.)He threshed the heathen in anger, trod them down, nay, he trod them out, as corn in the floor, to give them, and what they had, to be meat to his people Israel, Micah 4:13.
(4.)He wounded the heads out of the house of the wicked; he destroyed the families of the Canaanites, and wounded their princes, the heads of their families; nay, he cut off the heads, and so discovered the foundations of them, even to the neck. Are they a building? They are razed even to the foundation. Are they a body? They are plunged into deep mire even to the neck, so that they cannot get out, or help themselves. He broke the heads of leviathan in pieces, Psalm 74:14. Some apply this to Christ's victories over Satan and the powers of darkness, in which he wounded the heads over many countries, Psalm 110:6.
(5.)He struck through with his staves the head of the villages (Habakkuk 3:14); with Israel's staves God struck through the head of the villages of the enemies, whether Egypt or Canaan. Staves shall do the same execution as swords when God pleases to make use of them. The enemy came out with the utmost force and fury, as a whirlwind to scatter me (says Israel); for many a time have they thus afflicted me, thus attacked me, from my youth, Psalm 129:1. Pharaoh, when he pursued Israel to the Red Sea, came out as a whirlwind; so did the kings of Canaan in their confederacies against Israel. Their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly; they were as confident of success in their enterprise as ever any great man was of devouring a poor man, that was no way a match for him; and his design against him was carried on with secrecy. But God disappointed them, and their pride did but make their fall the more shameful and God's care of his poor the more illustrious.
(6.)He walked to the sea with his horses (so some read it, Habakkuk 3:15), that is, he carried Israel's victories to the Great Sea, which was opposite to that side of Canaan at which they entered, so that they went quite through it, and made themselves masters of it all, or rather God made them so, for they got it not by their own sword, Psalm 44:3. Now,
2.There were three things that God had a eye to, in giving Israel so many bloody victories over the Canaanites: - (1.) He would hereby make good his promise to the fathers; it was according to the oaths of the tribes, even his word, Habakkuk 3:9. He had sworn to give this land to the tribes of Israel; it was his oath to Isaac confirmed to Jacob, and repeated many a time to the tribes of Israel, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan. This word God will accomplish, though Israel be ever so unworthy (Deuteronomy 9:5) and their enemies ever so many and mighty. Note, What God does for his tribes is according to the oaths of the tribes, according to what he has said and sworn to them; for he is faithful that has promised. (2.) He would hereby show his kindness to his people, because of their relation to him, and his interest in them: Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, Habakkuk 3:13. All the powers of nature are shaken, and the course of nature changed, and every thing seems to be thrown into disorder, and all is for the salvation of God's people. There are a people in the world who are God's people, and their salvation is that which he has in his eye in all the operations of his providence. Heaven and earth shall sooner come together than any of the links in the golden chain of their salvation shall be broken; and even that which seems most unlikely shall by an overruling hand be made to work for their salvation, Philippians 1:19. (3.) He would hereby give a type and figure of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ. It is for salvation with thy anointed, with Joshua, who led the armies of Israel and was a figure of him whose name he bore, even Jesus our Joshua. What God did for his Israel of old was done with an eye to his anointed, for the sake of the Mediator, who was both the founder and foundation of the covenant made with them. It was salvation with him, for in all the salvations wrought for them, God looked upon the face of the anointed, and did them by him.
Historical interpretation
Fourteen Centuries of Reception
6 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.
Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.
(Verse 11 onwards) The mountains saw you and trembled; the raging waters passed by. The abyss gave forth its voice; the heights lifted their hands. The sun and moon stood still in their dwelling place; they will go in the light of your arrows, in the radiance of your glittering spear. In your fury, you trample the earth; in your wrath, you astonish the nations. You have come for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your Christ. You have struck the head from the house of the wicked; you have laid bare the foundation to the neck. Always. We have placed our edition alone, so that according to it, that is, according to the Hebrew, we may discuss the coherence of the passage, then we may discuss the same passage comically by chapters. The mountains saw you, God, and they grieved: namely, the high kingdoms and the lofty powers of this age, and the four chariots in Zechariah, which go forth from the bronze mountains (Zech. VI): these saw you and trembled. And the surge of waters passed over: this is, all their impetus and persecution, by which they vexed your people, passed over after they saw you. Then the abyss, that is, the underworld, praised you: then even the gods, that is, the angels, clapped their hands in applause, as if with a certain gesture and exultation of raised hands they showed you as the victor. Your sun and moon, and all the splendor with which you had previously shone upon your people, and afterwards had been covered by the weight of evil, were enveloped in the horror of darkness, received their light again, and regained their former brightness. Your arrows and your flashing spear, that is, your wounds, and your teaching, provided light to your people. Finally, in the light of your arrows, and in the splendor of your spear, which hast struck them to correct them, your people walked in your fury. So when will you avenge the injury of your people, you will tread upon earthly kingdoms, and cause all nations to marvel, for you have come forth for the salvation of your people, and you have come to them with your Christ: although it is written in Hebrew, 'You have come forth for the salvation of your people with your Jesus Christ: or with your Savior Christ: for Jesus indeed means Savior.' But when Jesus Christ, your Son, comes, you will strike the Antichrist from the house of the wicked, that is, in this world, which is placed in evil. Whether you strike the devil himself, who is the head of wickedness, and uncover its foundation up to its neck, that is, you reveal its hidden things, not for a short time, but forever. For this is what Sela means, that is, always.
LXX: They shall see you and be sorrowful, whether the peoples are in labor; for it signifies both. Consequently, when the earth is broken and the rivers flow, the peoples who have drunk from the rivers of God shall see God and be in labor. For from the very fact that they see God, they immediately conceive and say with God's word: We have conceived and given birth in the womb from your fear, O Lord, and have brought forth and given birth; we shall make the spirit of your salvation upon the earth. Blessed, says He, are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). These people, therefore, cleansed by the rivers, have not yet seen, but they will see God: and when they see, they will conceive, so that they may bear the fruits of teachings. But because they are called people, and it is not possible for the people to see the face of God, although the prayer may be extended to the future, they will see and bear: however, according to the allegory it is more Hebraic to follow, where it is said: They have seen You, and the mountains have given birth: for it is the mountains' task to see God and bear children, whom they conceived from the word of God.
LXX: Disperse the waters of the journey. There are different types of waters: some eternal, others temporary. Concerning the eternal waters, and those that flow from the fountains of Israel, it is said: The land will be split by rivers. Concerning the sudden and temporary ones: All streams flow into the sea. The end of such waters is destruction. Therefore, God will disperse all waters that have been trampled upon by perverse doctrines, when He has dissipated the plans of the rulers and the wisdom of this world. If ever you see that a heresy has briefly flourished and then, by the grace of God, has been dissipated, say that it is complete: you will scatter the waters of the journey. However, what is said, 'of the journey,' can be understood as 'of the devil,' so that the meaning is: The waters which the devil has trampled upon, and which have provided a pathway for many, that is, have made many errors possible, the Lord will divide and scatter. Hence, other interpreters, wanting to describe heretical madness, have translated it as: Mockery, or the onslaught of waters will pass. For they are said to rush headlong in the course of eloquence, and to drag along with them whoever they come across, light and easy.
LXX: The abyss gave voice to its depth of imagination. The abyss is often interpreted in a positive way: sometimes in a negative way, and sometimes indifferently. In a positive way: Your judgments are a vast abyss (Psalm 35:7). And: Deep calls to deep (Psalm 42:7), and so on. In a negative way: The waters saw you, O God (Psalm 77:17), and so on. But even demons plead not to be sent into the abyss (Luke 8), and in Genesis: The abyss over which darkness prevailed (Genesis 1:2), I do not know if it can be interpreted in a positive way. However, it is mentioned there in an indifferent way: The fountains of the deep were broken up, and the floodgates of heaven were opened (Genesis, 7:11). And in the one hundred and forty-eighth psalm: Sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and storms, unless perhaps because it is mentioned among sea monsters, fire and hail, it should be interpreted in a negative sense. I do not know if anyone could say this, unless they have seen it resonate with the others in praise of the Lord. Therefore, if we understand the abyss in a positive way, let us say that, with the waters of the worst journey dispersed, your wise ones saw you and borrowed the depth of knowledge they had from your presence. And whatever they previously thought about you, they proclaimed it in praise of their words. And beautifully, the opinion of imagination is called depth, according to Jesus son of Sirach, who says: Who will investigate the abyss and wisdom (Eccl. I, 2)? And from a small mountain (Psalm 41), that is, from the assumption of the human body, which Daniel calls the stone cut out without hands from the mountain, that is, without a wedding work (Daniel 2), Christ invokes the abyss, calling the Father the other abyss, in the voice of his waterfalls (Psalm 41), so that he may give the word with great power to those who proclaim the gospel. Or certainly, the abyss of the New Testament, as a testimony of the small mountain from which the Prince of Tyre was wounded, invokes the abyss of the Old Testament, so that through the waterfalls of Christ, that is, the apostles, the preaching may become more firm. But if anyone wishes to interpret this passage in a negative sense when it says, 'The deep gave forth its voice, the height of its imagination' (Isaiah 14), they will use the argument that after the waters of the journey were dispersed, which were certainly received in a negative sense, this should be rightly understood in the opposite way. At the same time, observe that it does not say 'its height,' but 'the height of its imagination,' that is, of shadows and images. For they seem to possess the height and knowledge of the Scriptures, but all their height, compared to the truth, is imagination, and they raise their voice in vain, because the waters of the journey have already been dispersed. Let us search in the Scriptures wherever we can find imagination in a good sense, and if it has been rarely or never found, we will interpret it as a darker abyss and its imagination in a bad sense.
LXX: The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its place. If we follow a simple interpretation, the progress of the sun and moon is shown by the words at hand: that, according to Isaiah, in the future age the sun will shine sevenfold in light, and the moon will shine with the brightness of the sun (Isaiah XXX, 26). For since the creature will be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Romans VIII), which is now subjected to vanity, because of the one who subjected it in hope of freedom, when at the consummation of the world every creature will be set free, the sun and the moon will also be set free, and they will stand in their place. But if we desire to receive Christ, the sun of justice, in whose wings is health, and the moon, which is illuminated by the splendor of this sun, as the Church: it is not difficult to say that the true light, the light of men, and the splendor of the glory of God, and the splendor of eternal light, may illuminate it: which now in this age may increase and decrease according to prosperities and trials. But when the sun will be exalted, and, according to the Apostle, God will exalt it, and give it a name above every name (Philippians 2): then also the Church, which in the present age cannot maintain its order, will return to its rightful order, and will not be changed; but will stand firm in its position, and will hear with Moses: But you stand here with me (Exodus 34:2).
LXX: In light, your javelins shall go forth, in the splendor of the flashing of your armor. The javelins of God, that is, the arrows going and advancing, are not sent for the purpose of killing, but for the purpose of illuminating. In distinction to these arrows and javelins, Christ is called the chosen javelin by Isaiah proclaiming: He has made me as a chosen javelin and has hidden me in his quiver, and he said to me: This is great for you, to be called my servant (Isaiah 49:2-3). This arrow will have many arrows (as) it sends into the entire world. Hence even the wounded bride (spouse) says: Wounded by love, I. (Song of Songs 4:9). According to which we can also say: Wounded by chastity, I; wounded by wisdom, I. By this dart of wisdom wounded, the Queen of the South (or, the Queen of Sheba) was not herself, and, astonished, she found more in the true Solomon than the reports had narrated to her. (1 Kings 10). Therefore, these arrows which are sent into the light also pass into the splendor of his armor, that is, of God. For whoever is armed, in order to stand against the cunning of the devil, and girded with the armor of the Apostle (Ephesians VI), the arrows of light come to him, so that it can be said to him: You are the light of the world (Matthew V, 14). But if anyone is a sinner and laments that he dwells in the tents of Kedar, sharp arrows with desolating coals are sent to him (Psalm CXIX), so that he may be first pierced by the words of God and say: I am surrounded by misery, when the thorn is thrust into me (Psalm XXXI). And after he has been struck with remorse, then a scorching coal should be sent to him through the Seraphim, that is, the burning word of God, which not only cleanses the unclean lips that Isaiah had (Isa. VI), but also burns all the parts of his body and leads him to the solitude of sinners.
LXX: In the threat, you will approach the earth, and in anger, you will drag away the nations. This can be understood as occurring at the end of the world, when, through frequent wars, a great multitude is killed, and few people are found, and those who did not want to be part of God's people, but remained as nations and foreigners, are led to Tartarus by the anger of the Lord. But it is better to interpret the threat to the earth as a diminution of earthly works, and those who are established in the Church, not waiting for sinners, are corrected by the anger of the Lord; but hearing in the Scriptures the punishments that await sinners, they repent, and gradually diminish their earthly desires, and advance towards heaven. If anyone of us fears the threatening of the Lord, to him the earth is diminished: but he who perseveres in the number of the nations, and does not want to be among those whose land decreases, nor of the people of God, of whom it is said: They shall see thee, and shall bear children, this one shall be taken away in punishment with the nations.
LXX: You went out for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones. First, let us see how many anointed ones there are, and then we will discuss how the Lord went out for the salvation of his anointed ones. The anointed ones in the Old Testament were called Christ and patriarchs, about whom it is written in the Psalms: He rebuked kings for their sake: 'Do not touch my anointed ones, and do not harm my prophets' (Psalm 105:14-15). And in the first book of Chronicles, all those who came out of Egypt are called anointed ones. The anointing oil in Exodus (Ch. XXX) is also used for the priestly consecration, which is later mentioned in Leviticus (Ch. VIII) when the anointed priests are referred to. There is another anointing oil used for anointing kings in the kingdom, which is divided into two. If it is David or Solomon, that is, one who is strong in hand and peaceful (I Sam. XVI), the horn is anointed. But if it is Jehu or Hazael, they are drenched with lentil (II Kings IX and XIX): and the vessel in which it is carried is called fictile, that is, φακός. But even Cyrus, the king of the Persians and the Medes, who released the people from captivity (although many may err and think that it refers to the Lord Savior), is mentioned in Isaiah: Thus says the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have held to make the nations listen before him (Isaiah 45:1), etc. And at the end it is said: But you did not know me, which is blasphemous to understand about the Savior. It is the prophetic ointment, with which Elijah is commanded to anoint Elisha as a prophet (1 Kings 19). And above all kinds of ointments, there is a spiritual ointment called the oil of gladness, with which the Savior is anointed, and it is said to Him: Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions (Psalm 44:8). And I consider those to be His companions to whom John speaks: And you have an anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20). And a little later: These things I have written to you concerning those who deceive you: And the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; but as the anointing teaches you about all things, and it is true, and it is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in Him (ibid., 26, 27). So that those who have lost the anointing of baptism may not despair of receiving the anointing, it is written in Leviticus: When a leper who has been cast out of the camp comes to the priest and his leprosy is cleansed, the priest shall take in his left hand some olive oil and with his right finger sprinkle it seven times before the Lord. The priest shall then touch with the same oil the ear of the one who was a leper, as well as his right hand, his right foot, and the remainder of the oil he shall pour on his head (Leviticus 14). And when he has properly completed all these things: then let him offer a burnt offering for himself, and let him be called the Christ of God. I want to say something; but I fear that I may give occasion for ruin to the negligent: that in the Holy Scriptures the same man is frequently found anointed. Finally, David was anointed a third time (2 Samuel 6 and 19): which we do not understand to be about someone who has sinned; and he is anointed again (for it is enough for a leper to be anointed a second time after the first anointing has been lost), but it is about someone who progresses day by day, and his anointing is always increased. And it goes from the oil of the leper to the oil of the people and the saints, and from the oil of the people it reaches the oil of the priests, and it surpasses the priests to the anointing oil of the high priest, and from the high priest it even goes to the king, from the king to the patriarchs, and from the patriarchs it goes to Christ, and he is anointed with the oil of joy (Psalm 44:8), by which whoever is anointed becomes one with God in spirit, and where the Father and the Son are, there he will also be. But this is rare, and there are the wishes of the believers. However, I do not know if the effect will follow. For it is said: God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions, that is, with that oil which those who are your companions will seldom or never be able to find. Therefore, God has gone out from his place for the salvation of these Christians, just as Micah says: And he will go forth from his place to save (Micah 1:3). For those who were in need of salvation did not want to enter to him, therefore he went out from his majesty and his place, so that he could lead those who were outside into the land of gentle ones and the region of the living, from which Adam had been expelled: from which Cain, when he went out, dwelled in the land of Nod (Gen. III and IV, according to the Septuagint). It should be known, however, as we have said above, that where the Septuagint placed the plural number, 'to save your Anointed Ones,' in Hebrew it is Joshua son of Nun and the Anointed One (Messiah), which Aquila translated, 'to salvation with your Anointed One (Messiah),' not that God went out to save the people and save his Anointed One (Messiah), but that he came to the salvation of the people with his Anointed One (Messiah), according to that passage of the Gospel: 'The Father is in me, and I am in the Father'; and the Father, remaining in me, he himself does his works (John XIV, 10). But even the fifth edition translated similarly: 'You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation with your Christ.' However, Theodotion, being truly like a poor Ebionite, and Symmachus of the same belief, following a poor interpretation, translated: 'You went out for the salvation of your people, in order to save your Christ.' And: 'You went out to save your people, to save your Christ.' I am going to say something unbelievable, but nevertheless true. These half-Christian Jews translated: and the Jew Aquila interpreted, as a Christian. The sixth edition, clearly revealing the sacrament, thus translated from Hebrew: 'You came forth to save your people by your Jesus Christ,' which in Greek is said: 'ἐξῆλθες τοῦσῶσαι τὸν λαόν σου διὰ Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστόν σου.' This meaning can be applied to the fact that the Father came forth with the Son from the temple and the ceremonies of the Jews, saying: 'Your house will be left to you desolate' (Luke 13:35); and he came for the salvation of the Gentiles, to save those who believe through Jesus Christ his Son.
LXX: You have sent death upon the heads of the wicked. We cannot consider this death to be the common one by which we all die, for even Abraham died and was laid to rest with his forefathers (Gen. XXV); and the prophets, and even Christ himself, died (John XIX), but death was sent upon the wicked (1 Sam. II, 6), so that those who had previously lived in wickedness, dead to sin, might live in righteousness (1 Pet. II). Anna also signifies this in her prayer: The Lord kills and gives life. For he kills sinners, sending death upon the heads of the wicked, so that he may give life to righteousness. I will say something bolder: Christ came into the world for this very purpose, to send death upon the heads of the unjust. And just as he himself died for sin once (1 Peter 3): so they also may die to iniquity; and those who have become partakers of this death may also become partakers of life. But according to the Hebrew, where it is written: You have struck the head from the house of the wicked, let us also take the head, as I said, the prince of this world, and his house, the world, and every soul of the sinner, in which the devil had a dwelling. Therefore, the head of the wicked is struck in the house, so that, with him struck and expelled, the house of God may be made, and justice may dwell there, and walk in it. And this is worthy to be understood of God, who went forth for the salvation of his people with his Christ, so that, with such a head struck, he may become in us the head, who is the head of every man and of his Church. If anyone, therefore, still feels the house of the wicked within himself, let him pray for the coming of the Son of God, so that the head of the wicked may be crushed within him.
LXX: You have lifted up the chains until the neck, to the end. The Lord has lifted up the chains of love, so that with the previous burden set aside, and the heavy yoke by which we were oppressed thrown off, we may take up the light yoke of Christ; and, placed in his chariot, we may carry the excellent charioteer. Theodotius also, taking this in a good sense, says: You have adorned the foundation until the neck. Fifth edition: You have stripped, or emptied, the foundation until the neck, selah, that is, always. For the foundation of Christ, which was in the soul of each individual, had been buried under the foreign earth, the accumulated soil is dug out, and the best foundation is uncovered and adorned, so that what was hidden may appear and receive its own clarity, and this is done eternally, which is called 'Sela' in Hebrew. At the same time, consider that the LXX themselves, compelled by the necessity of things, who always interpreted 'sela' as diapsalma, have now translated it as 'in finem'.
And yet, someone may say, we shall find the name Christ applied not to Emmanuel alone, but also applied to others. For God said somewhere about those chosen and sanctified by the Spirit, “Do not touch my anointed ones, and to my prophets do no harm.” The divinely inspired David calls Saul, who had been anointed as king by God through the hand of Samuel: the “Lord’s anointed.” And why do I mention this when it is possible for those who desire to look at the matter calmly to see that those who have been justified by faith in Christ and have been sanctified in the Spirit are honored by such a name? And therefore the prophet Habakkuk has foretold the mystery of Christ and salvation through him, saying, “You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed ones.” Consequently the name Christ would not be applicable exclusively and properly to Emmanuel, as I said, but also to all the rest who may have been anointed with the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the word is derived from the action and the name anointed from the fact of having been anointed.
Concerning [his] companions in the anointing, the apostle says, “To each of us grace is given according to the measure of Christ’s bestowal.” Both the priests and kings are called “christs” in the law, undoubtedly as figures of this king and high priest, our Lord and Savior, and as a type of him they were also anointed with the earthly oil. Not only they, but also the faithful of our own time, as they are called “Christians” from Christ, so also are they rightly called “christs”—from the anointing with the sacred chrism, from the grace of the spirit with which they are consecrated. The prophet testified to this when he said, “You went forth for the salvation of your people, so that you might save your christs.” He did indeed go forth for the salvation of his people, so that he might save his christs. “On account of us human beings and on account of our salvation, he descended from heaven and became incarnate” so that he might grant to us who have been thoroughly anointed and healed by spiritual grace to be sharers in his holy name.
You sent death upon the heads of the enemies; you stirred up bonds up to the neck. For indeed, to his chosen ones, whom the prophet had called Christ's, he brought the joy of salvation, but to those who neglected his anointing grace, he sent eternal death. This was fulfilled even corporally in the very Jewish people, who pursued the Lord appearing in flesh unto death, after they crucified him, not many years intervening, when the Roman army fell upon them; excepting only those who withdrew into the faith of evangelical grace, they were condemned with an enormous disaster, and moreover deprived of their kingdom and homeland; and this is what he said: You stirred up bonds up to the neck; namely the neck of the kingdom, which they had raised against the Lord before, about which the most blessed protomartyr Stephen said to them in their fury against him: Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit (Acts VII, 51). But the Lord stirred up bonds up to the neck, when he sent the hostile army for the overthrow of the proud nation, not only of the Jews but of all who refused to accept the humility of the Christian faith. The Lord dashes pride according to what the Psalmist sings about the saints: And the two-edged swords in their hands to execute vengeance on the nations, reproaches on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with iron fetters (Ps. CXLIX, 6); iron, evidently, because eternal, which once taken, can never be loosed. But if anyone were to say it should be read in the plural: You stirred up bonds up to the necks, the sense is the same. For the just Lord will strike down the necks of sinners.
You went out for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones. The Mediator between God and men went forth from the Father and came into the world, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He calls all the elect anointed ones, who are most rightly named by this title because of the anointing of spiritual grace; hence the Psalmist says about those who, wishing to harm the saints, were restrained by divine prohibition: "He rebuked kings for their sake, saying, 'Do not touch my anointed ones'" (Psalm 105:14). However, he saved his anointed ones, not those he found as anointed, but those he made his own anointed, that is, anointed ones, by going forth from the Father and appearing in the flesh through the Spirit of adoption. Concerning this anointing, admonishing his listeners, the Apostle John says: "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth" (1 John 2:27). This verse is found in some editions as: "You went out to save your people through Jesus Christ your Son," which is understood as said to the Father because he went out to save his people through Jesus Christ his Son. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and because the same going forth, that is, his coming into the world, was to be not only for the resurrection of the faithful but also for the ruin of the faithless, it is aptly added:
The head of the house of the wicked: Such was Pharao heretofore: such shall Antichrist be hereafter.
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This verse
God went out to save his people together with his anointed, and he crushed the head of the house of the wicked and laid it bare to its foundation.
“Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people,”
The reason for the whole march, stated plainly.
“even for salvation with thine anointed;”
God saves through the one he has appointed, the king of David’s line and in the end the Messiah.
“thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked,”
A crushing blow to the leader of the wicked house.
“by discovering the foundation unto the neck.”
The house is laid bare from its base upward, and its ruin is total.
“Selah.”
A pause over God’s victory and the rescue of his people.
Passage studyHabakkuk 3:3–15
The LORD Comes in Glory to Save His People
Summary
Habakkuk has been told that Babylon is coming against Judah, and in his prayer he sees the LORD himself coming. God comes up from the southern wilderness as he came at Sinai, with a glory that covers the heavens. Pestilence and fire go with him, the mountains bow, the nations shake, the rivers and the sea give way, and the sun and moon stand still. Verse 13 tells us why he has come: “Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people.” The vision teaches that the God who saved Israel at the Red Sea still rules creation and the nations, that he keeps his sworn word, and that all his power is at work for the people he has made his own.
Where this vision stands in Habakkuk’s prayer
Habakkuk’s book begins with questions. He grieves over the injustice he sees in Judah (Habakkuk 1:2–4), and God answers that he is raising up the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, to judge it (Habakkuk 1:5–11). The prophet then asks how a holy God can use a nation more wicked than Judah (Habakkuk 1:12–17), and God replies with woes on the oppressor and with the word that “the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). All this belongs to the late seventh century BC, when Assyria was in decline and Babylon was rising, shortly before the first Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 605 BC and the city’s destruction in 586 BC.
Chapter 3 is the prophet’s reply, and it is worship. Its heading calls it “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth” (Habakkuk 3:1), a word for a passionate, wandering song, and with its musical markings it was likely meant for public worship. Habakkuk has just prayed, “O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years” (Habakkuk 3:2). Verses 3 to 15 answer that prayer with a vision of God coming as he came in Israel’s early days. Such an appearing of God to people is called a theophany, and in Scripture it often comes with storm, fire and the shaking of the earth.
Habakkuk remembers on purpose. The psalmist does the same when he resolves to remember the works of the LORD (Psalm 77:11), because what God has done shows who he is and what he will do. By the end of the prayer the prophet can say that he will rejoice in the LORD even if the fig tree does not blossom and the vines are bare (Habakkuk 3:17–19). This vision is what carries him there.
God comes from Teman and mount Paran
Teman was a leading region of Edom, southeast of Judah, known for its wisdom and settled by the descendants of Esau. Mount Paran belongs to the desert wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula, south of Canaan. Both names point to the country Israel crossed after leaving Egypt, where God came down on Sinai with thunders, lightnings and fire to give the law (Exodus 19:16–19). Moses’ blessing speaks of the LORD coming from these same southern regions (Deuteronomy 33:2), and Deborah’s song tells of the earth trembling as he marched from there (Judges 5:4–5). When Habakkuk names these places, he is saying that the God of the Exodus is on the move again.
The verse gives God two names side by side. The first, ʼĕlôwahh, is a singular noun for God, probably a longer and emphatic form of the short name El. The second, “the Holy One”, says that he is set apart and pure. To say that God “came” from a place is to speak of him in human terms so that we can picture his arrival. He is above all that he has made, and he also draws near and acts within it for his people.
His arrival fills everything. The word for glory, hôwd, means grandeur, majesty and splendour, the greatness of God made visible. The verb kâçâh means to cover, to fill up or to overwhelm, so his majesty spreads across the whole sky. The earth answers with praise. The heavens declare the glory of God in the same way (Psalm 19:1–4), and Isaiah was given a vision of that same glory (Isaiah 6:1–3).
What does Selah mean?
Selah, çelâh in Hebrew, is a musical or liturgical marking. It is found mostly in the Psalms, and in this prayer it is written at verses 3, 9 and 13. Its exact meaning is uncertain, and it is best understood as a pause for reflection or an instrumental interlude. In verse 3 it falls right after the announcement that God has come, so the worshipper stops to take that in before the vision goes on. In verse 9 it follows God’s sworn word, and in verse 13 it follows the defeat of the wicked.
His brightness, the horns from his hand and his hidden power
Verse 4 describes how God looks as he comes. His brightness, nôgahh, is brilliance or radiance, and it is “as the light”, like the sun at its height. Scripture speaks of God this way elsewhere: he covers himself with light as with a garment (Psalm 104:2), and he dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16).
The “horns coming out of his hand” are the hardest picture in the verse. The word qeren means a horn, and in Scripture a horn stands for strength, power and dominion. The same word can mean a ray of light, and with the brightness just mentioned the picture is of rays flashing from his hand. Both senses fit together here, since the light that streams from God is itself his power. Scripture tells of something like it when Moses came down from Sinai and the skin of his face shone (Exodus 34:29). The hand, yâd, is the open hand, the picture of power and action. The rays come from God’s own hand, which means that this power is his own and goes out by his will.
How can God’s power be hidden while he is showing himself?
What Habakkuk sees is true, and it is a glimpse. The word chebyôwn means a concealment or a hiding, and the verse says that the blazing light is where God’s power is hidden. Even in his brightest appearing there are depths of his strength that we are too small to take in. Paul marvels at the same thing when he calls God’s judgments unsearchable and his ways past finding out (Romans 11:33), and Isaiah speaks of a God who hides himself (Isaiah 45:15). So when God’s way of working is veiled from us, his power is still fully present and at work.
Pestilence and burning coals go with him
God marches as a warrior, and judgment travels with him. Pestilence, deber, is plague or epidemic disease, from a root with the sense of destroying. Scripture often shows it as an instrument of God’s judgment, as in the plagues he brought on Egypt (Exodus 9:15), the tenth of which struck the firstborn (Exodus 12:29). It goes “before him”, and the Hebrew behind that phrase is pânîym, the word for face, so the plague moves ahead of his very presence like an advance guard.
Behind him come “burning coals”. The word resheph means a live coal, and it can also mean lightning, a fiery arrow or a fever. Fire follows at his feet as he walks, as Sinai was wrapped in smoke and fire when he came down on it (Exodus 19:18). Nahum speaks of the LORD’s indignation in the same way (Nahum 1:5–6). These judgments fall on sin, the sin Isaiah charges even against Judah (Isaiah 1), and they show how serious it is to oppose a holy God. For his people the same march is good news, because the one who commands plague and fire is coming to deliver them.
Is this a literal procession of plague and fire?
The verse is poetry built on real history. It draws on what God truly did in Egypt and at Sinai, and it uses those memories as pictures of the destroying power and righteous judgment that go with his presence. Scripture describes his interventions this way in many places, as in the psalm that says a fire goes before him (Psalm 97:1–6).
The earth, the mountains and the nations before him
In verse 6 God stops, and everything else moves. “He stood” uses ʻâmad, the ordinary verb for standing, and here it is the stance of a ruler who has taken his position and is about to act. “Measured” translates mûwd, a word that means both to shake and to measure. As a measuring, it shows God surveying the earth as its owner, with the right to assess it and apportion it. Then he looks, and at his look the nations are driven apart. Empires rise and fall at his command, and that includes Babylon. Moses sang at the sea that the LORD “shall reign for ever and ever”, and the psalms say that God reigns over the heathen (Psalm 47:8) and comes to judge the world with righteousness (Psalm 96:13).
The mountains and hills are the Bible’s picture of what lasts. Here the “everlasting mountains” are scattered and the “perpetual hills” bow like subjects before a king. The verse then says of God, “his ways are everlasting.” The word is ʻôwlâm, time out of mind, past or future, which is to say eternity. The KJV says “everlasting” of the mountains and again of God’s ways, and the contrast is the point of the verse: the oldest things in creation give way, and the God who made them stays the same. A psalm says that he was God before the mountains were brought forth (Psalm 90:2), and another that the LORD sits as King for ever (Psalm 29:10). Isaiah speaks of his power over the princes of the earth (Isaiah 40:21–23), Daniel records that his dominion is everlasting (Daniel 4:34–35), and Malachi gives the LORD’s own word that he is unchanging (Malachi 3:6).
So the terrifying display rests on something steady. His ways, meaning his character, his principles and his manner of acting, are the same in every generation, and his justice and faithfulness hold when the world is shaking.
Verse 7 turns to people. “I saw,” says Habakkuk, as a witness to the vision. Cushan and Midian were tent-dwelling peoples of the regions south and east of Israel. Cushan is often linked with Cush, a strong and distant people. Midian was a well-known nomadic people of northwest Arabia, the land where Moses once lived (Exodus 2) and the enemy Gideon defeated (Judges 7). The tent, ʼôhel, and the “curtains”, the tent hangings, stand for the peoples who live in them, and such dwellings are easily shaken. The tents of Cushan are “in affliction”, ʼâven, a word for trouble, vanity and wasted effort. The curtains of Midian “tremble”, râgaz, which means to quiver with violent emotion, especially fear or anger. Strong or distant, every people is subject to him. Isaiah foresees men hiding in the rocks for fear of the LORD (Isaiah 2:19), and Revelation shows the kings of the earth hiding from the wrath of the Lamb (Revelation 6:15–17).
Was the LORD angry with the rivers and the sea?
The LORD’s anger was against those who stood in the way of his people’s deliverance, and the waters were where he showed his power. Habakkuk asks his questions in verse 8 to bring out that answer. The verb chârâh, translated “displeased”, means to glow or grow warm and so to blaze up in anger, and Scripture uses it of God’s anger and of ours. The rivers (nâhâr) and the sea (yâm, a word tied to the roar of the surf) recall two days above all. One is the day God divided the Red Sea, so that Israel walked through on dry ground and the waters returned on Pharaoh’s army (Exodus 14:21–29). The other is the day he stopped the Jordan so that Israel crossed into Canaan (Joshua 3:16). A psalm puts the same kind of question to the waters themselves: “What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” (Psalm 114:3–7). The sea fled because its Lord had come for his people. God’s display of power over the water was deliberate, and it had a purpose.
The end of the verse names that purpose. God rides “upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation.” Horses and chariots were the picture of military might, and Moses had sung at the sea, “The LORD is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3). The word yᵉshûwʻâh, salvation, covers deliverance, help, victory and welfare. His chariots are chariots of rescue. When God moves in power through history, he moves to rescue and redeem his people.
He walks through the sea
The vision ends in verse 15 where it has been pointing all along, at the Red Sea. “Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses.” The verb dârak means to tread or walk, and it can also mean to trample, so God crosses the sea as a man crosses level ground. The horses are a picture of the swift, irresistible force of his presence. The “heap of great waters” uses chômer, a heap, from a root that speaks of boiling up, and it recalls the waters that were piled up at the sea (Exodus 15:8).
In Scripture the sea is often the picture of untamed power, and the psalmist says to God, “Thou rulest the raging of the sea.” Another psalm remembers that God’s way was in the sea and his path in the great waters (Psalm 77:16–20), and Isaiah calls him the LORD who makes a way in the sea (Isaiah 43:16). For Habakkuk, with Babylon on the horizon, this memory settled the matter. The God who brought Israel through the sea could bring Judah through what was coming.
The bow made naked and the oaths of the tribes
In verse 9 the warrior’s weapon is out. The bow, qesheth, is “made quite naked”, a phrase built from two Hebrew words, ʻeryâh and ʻûwr, that speak of being bared or uncovered. A bow in its cover is at rest. This one is uncovered and ready to shoot, and that readiness is the meaning of the picture: God is prepared to act at once, in judgment and in deliverance.
The next words give his reason: “according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word.” An oath, shᵉbûwʻâh, is something sworn. These are the promises God swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to the twelve tribes descended from them, such as the covenant he made with Abraham (Genesis 15:18). “Thy word” says the same thing again in parallel. God’s coming is therefore an act of covenant-keeping. He is the faithful God who keeps covenant (Deuteronomy 7:9), and his judgments also follow the terms he set out beforehand in the blessings and curses of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28).
After the Selah comes a second picture: “Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.” The verb bâqaʻ means to split or break open, and it is the verb used when the Red Sea was divided. The line also calls to mind the water that gushed from the rock in the wilderness (Numbers 20:11). The rivers may be the gushing waters themselves or the channels they cut through the ground. Either way, the earth opens at his word, and obstacles that would stop anyone else give way to him.
The mountains, the deep, the sun and the moon
Habakkuk now gives creation eyes, a voice and hands. “The mountains saw thee, and they trembled.” The verb chûwl means to writhe or quake, as a woman does in labour or a person seized by fear, so the steadiest things on earth are in anguish at the sight of God. Sinai itself “quaked greatly” when he came down on it (Exodus 19:18). The flood of waters sweeps past, under his control as the Red Sea and the Jordan were.
Then the deep cries out. The deep, tᵉhôwm, is the vast mass of waters, the word used of the waters that covered the earth at the beginning (Genesis 1:2), and it can also mean the great oceans or the waters under the earth. Its voice is the roar of its waves. It “lifted up his hands on high”, where nâsâʼ is the common verb for lifting or carrying, and lifted hands are the gesture of surrender, of pleading or of praise. The greatest and wildest thing in the world submits to its Maker. A psalm describes the same response: “His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth” (Psalm 97:1–6).
Verse 11 lifts our eyes to the sky. “The sun and moon stood still in their habitation.” The verb is ʻâmad again, the same verb as “he stood” in verse 6. Their habitation, zᵉbûwl, a dwelling place, is their appointed place and course in the heavens, and the two great lights halt there.
Does verse 11 describe a real event?
Verse 11 recalls the day recorded in Joshua 10:12–14, when Joshua spoke, the sun stood still over Gibeon and the moon in the Valley of Aijalon, and God lengthened the day until Israel had won its battle against the Amorites. Habakkuk sets that miracle inside his vision of the warrior God. The God who set the sun and moon on their courses can halt them, and Job speaks of him commanding the sun (Job 9:7–8).
The rest of the verse is about God’s weapons. “At the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.” The light (ʼôwr) of the arrows (chêts) and the shining of the spear (chănîyth) are the flash of divine weapons. The shining is nôgahh, the brightness of verse 4, and “glittering” is bârâq, the word for lightning and for the gleam of a polished blade. “They went” (hâlak) can mean that the sun and moon moved at the blaze of God’s weapons, or that the arrows themselves flew out in light. On both readings the lights of heaven are outshone by the light of the LORD in battle. The arrows and the spear are pictures of his swift judgment, and David uses the same picture when he tells how God sent out his arrows and lightnings to deliver him (Psalm 18:7–15).
God goes out to save his people
Verses 12 to 14 say what the whole march has been for. First comes judgment on the nations. “Thou didst march through the land in indignation.” The verb tsâʻad means to pace or step in regular order, the measured advance of an army, and the land (ʼerets) can be one territory or the whole earth. “Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.” To thresh, dûwsh, is to trample or beat grain so that the kernel is separated from the husk, usually with oxen or a threshing sledge, and it pictures a defeat that is complete.
The heathen are the gôwy, the nations, and here they are the nations that set themselves against God and his people, Babylon above all. God used Babylon as his instrument and still held it to account for its own cruelty, as he did with Assyria before it (Isaiah 10:5–15), and through Jeremiah he promised judgment on Babylon in its turn (Jeremiah 25:12). Elsewhere he promises to make Israel itself a threshing instrument (Isaiah 41:15–16).
Is God’s anger like human anger?
God’s anger is his settled, holy opposition to evil, and it is always just, controlled and purposeful. The two words in verse 12, zaʻam (indignation) and ʼaph (anger), describe the response of a righteous God to sin and cruelty. Human rage flares up and overreaches, while his wrath is measured and falls on what truly deserves it. It comes from his love of what is good, and Nahum holds the two together when he says that the LORD is slow to anger and great in power (Nahum 1:3).
For the salvation of thy people
Verse 13 is the centre of the vision. “Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people.” The verb yâtsâʼ means to go out, as a king goes out to battle, and it echoes the Exodus, when “the LORD went before them.” His people, ʻam, are the nation he bound to himself by covenant. Salvation here is yeshaʻ, which means deliverance, safety and liberty, and it comes from the same root as the word for salvation in verse 8. Every terror in the vision, the plague, the fire and the shaking earth, has been moving toward this rescue.
Who is “thine anointed”?
In Habakkuk’s day the anointed was most naturally the king of Judah, the son of David who stood as God’s chosen representative over his people. The word is mâshîyach, one set apart by anointing with oil, as Samuel anointed Saul (1 Samuel 10:1). Priests and prophets were anointed too, and the word can be used of any servant God has chosen and commissioned. God saves “with” his anointed, working through the one he has appointed.
Scripture then carries the word forward. A psalm speaks of the LORD and his anointed (Psalm 2:2), Isaiah of one on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests because the LORD has anointed him (Isaiah 61:1), and Andrew announces that he has found the Messiah (John 1:41). The Holy Spirit gave Habakkuk a word that reaches past any king of Judah to Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, who is King, Priest and Prophet together.
The head of the wicked house
The other half of verse 13 is the fall of the enemy. “Thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked.” The verb mâchats means to smash or crush, a shattering blow. The head, rôʼsh, is the leader, the top of the enemy’s power, and the house (bayith) of the wicked (râshâʻ) is his whole household, stronghold and system. For Habakkuk that house was Babylon, and it stands for every power that sets itself against God’s rule.
“By discovering the foundation unto the neck” completes the picture. To discover, ʻârâh, is to lay bare. The foundation is yᵉçôwd, the base a building stands on, and the neck is tsavvâʼr. The house of the wicked is stripped from its base upward until all of it lies exposed and ruined. God’s judgment reaches what is hidden, down to the root of the enemy’s power. The crushed head recalls the first promise of all, that the woman’s seed would bruise the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15).
The enemy’s own staves
Verse 14 shows how the blow lands and what kind of enemy receives it. “Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages.” To strike through, nâqab, is to pierce or puncture. The staves, maṭṭeh, are rods or staffs, a word that covers a walking staff, a ruler’s sceptre, a rod of correction and a lance. They are “his” staves, the enemy’s own, so God turns the oppressor’s weapons back on him. Scripture shows this reversal elsewhere: the wicked man falls into the pit he dug (Psalm 7:15–16), Haman is hanged on the gallows he had built (Esther 7:9–10), and Pharaoh’s chariots and horsemen were drowned in the Red Sea. “His villages” translates pârâz, a word linked both with villages and with chieftains, so the “head of his villages” is the enemy’s leadership or his chief strongholds.
Then Habakkuk speaks for his own people: “they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me.” The “me” is Judah. The verb çâʻar means to rush upon like a storm, and it gives the speed and violence of the invader, whose aim was to break the nation apart. Their rejoicing, ʻălîytsûwth, was “as to devour the poor secretly.” To devour is ʼâkal, the plain word for eating, used here of consuming people. The poor are the ʻânîy, the afflicted and lowly, those pressed down and powerless. “Secretly” is miçtâr, a hiding place or covert. The enemy took pleasure in preying on the helpless out of sight.
God saw it. He is a refuge for the oppressed (Psalm 9:9), he commands that the poor and needy be defended (Psalm 82:3–4), and he gave Israel a taunt to sing over the fallen king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4–6).
The Anointed One who came and is coming
Habakkuk’s vision of God coming in glory is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3), and he came from the Father’s presence into our flesh with a glory “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). God was manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). In that coming the power of God was hidden in a new way, for he took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7), and yet he is “the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).
The Lord of the rivers and the sea walked among us. All things were made through him (John 1:1–3), and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). He walked on the sea (Matthew 14:25), and when he stilled the storm with a word his disciples asked what manner of man this was, that even the wind and the sea obey him (Mark 4:39–41).
The salvation Habakkuk saw is Christ’s work. God so loved the world that he gave his Son (John 3:16), who came as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and bore in himself the judgment that the pestilence and the burning coals picture. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us, and we are reconciled to God by his death (Romans 5:8–10). At the cross he crushed the serpent’s head, spoiling principalities and powers and triumphing over them openly (Colossians 2:15). He bound the strong man and plundered his house (Mark 3:27), and through death he destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, and set free those who were held in bondage by the fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). He came to preach good news to the poor and deliverance to the captives (Luke 4:18–19), and the Father has delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his Son (Colossians 1:13–14). The oaths of the tribes are kept in him, for all the promises of God are Yea and Amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20), and he is the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6).
He came the first time to save: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), and he will come again as the warrior of Habakkuk’s vision. John sees him on a white horse, judging and making war, with eyes like a flame of fire and a sharp sword, treading the winepress of the wrath of Almighty God, a picture close to the threshing of verse 12 (Revelation 19:11–16). He comes with clouds, and every eye shall see him (Revelation 1:7). At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11), which is the trembling of Cushan and Midian and the lifted hands of the deep brought to their end.
The Son of man receives an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:13–14), God has set him far above every power and put all things under his feet (Ephesians 1:20–22), and he is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8), the one whose ways are everlasting. Then God will make a new heaven and a new earth and dwell with his people (Revelation 21:1–4), and the earth will be full of his praise.
What the vision gives us
Habakkuk’s circumstances stayed as they were while he prayed, and Babylon was still coming. What changed was what he had seen: the God who came from Teman and walked through the sea was the God ruling over that hour. The passage gives us the same sight. When evil rushes in like a whirlwind and the strong feed on the weak in secret, God sees it, and he has gone forth for the salvation of his people.
The vision also shows who God is. He is holy, and his anger against wickedness is real. He is faithful, and he acts according to what he has sworn. He is unchanging, so that the God of the Exodus, the God of Habakkuk and the God we pray to are one and the same. His power is far greater than what we see of it, and all of it is turned toward rescue.
Remembering, then, is an act of faith. Habakkuk looked back to the Red Sea in order to face Babylon, and we look back to the cross and the empty tomb, where the Anointed One won the salvation this prayer sings of. The mountains and the deep trembled before him, and we who belong to him may bring the same awe with trust added to it. The prayer stops for a Selah after God’s coming, after his oath and after his victory, and each of those is a good place for us to stop as well.
Habakkuk 3:3
“God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran.”
Two lines say one thing in parallel. The holy God arrives from the south, the direction of Sinai and the wilderness years.
“Selah.”
The first pause of the vision, placed so that the worshipper takes in the arrival before reading on.
“His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.”
Majesty above and praise below. Heaven and earth together are filled by his coming.
Habakkuk 3:4
“And his brightness was as the light;”
His radiance is like the sun, the visible sign of his holiness and purity.
“he had horns coming out of his hand:”
Horns of strength that are also rays of light, streaming from the hand that acts.
“and there was the hiding of his power.”
The light both shows him and veils him. What is seen is a glimpse of a might too great for us to take in.
Habakkuk 3:5
“Before him went the pestilence,”
Plague is pictured as a herald running ahead of the king and under his orders.
“and burning coals went forth at his feet.”
Fire follows each step. Wherever he walks, judgment on his enemies goes with him.
Habakkuk 3:6
“He stood, and measured the earth:”
He halts and surveys the earth as its owner. The word can also mean that he shook it.
“he beheld, and drove asunder the nations;”
A look from him is enough to scatter the nations.
“and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow:”
The two lines match, mountains with hills and scattering with bowing. The most lasting things on earth yield to him.
“his ways are everlasting.”
The anchor of the verse. His character and his manner of acting are the same in every age.
Habakkuk 3:7
“I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction:”
Habakkuk speaks as an eyewitness. The tents stand for the people who live in them, and they are in distress.
“and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.”
Curtains are tent hangings, a second word for the same kind of dwelling. A people that was often Israel’s enemy shakes with fear.
Habakkuk 3:8
“Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers?”
A question asked to make a point. The Jordan and the Red Sea gave way because God was acting for Israel.
“was thy wrath against the sea,”
The sea, the great barrier in Israel’s path, was the place where his power was shown.
“that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?”
The warrior’s chariots bring rescue. This phrase names the purpose of all his power.
Habakkuk 3:9
“Thy bow was made quite naked,”
The bow is out of its cover and ready to shoot.
“according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word.”
He acts because he has sworn. His promises to the fathers and the tribes stand behind the battle.
“Selah.”
A pause to weigh God’s readiness and his faithfulness.
“Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.”
The ground splits and water runs, as at the sea and at the rock in the wilderness.
Habakkuk 3:10
“The mountains saw thee, and they trembled:”
The mountains are given eyes, and what they see makes them writhe.
“the overflowing of the water passed by:”
A torrent sweeps past at his direction.
“the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.”
The deep roars and raises its waves like hands, in surrender or in praise.
Habakkuk 3:11
“The sun and moon stood still in their habitation:”
The two great lights halt in their place, as on Joshua’s long day at Gibeon.
“at the light of thine arrows they went,”
Either the sun and moon move at the flash of his arrows, or the arrows themselves fly out in light.
“and at the shining of thy glittering spear.”
His spear gleams like lightning, and the lights of heaven are dim beside the LORD in battle.
Habakkuk 3:12
“Thou didst march through the land in indignation,”
A measured, steady advance through the earth in holy displeasure at wickedness.
“thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.”
The hostile nations are trampled as grain is on a threshing floor, where the worthless husk is parted from the kernel.
Habakkuk 3:13 This verse
“Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people,”
The reason for the whole march, stated plainly.
“even for salvation with thine anointed;”
God saves through the one he has appointed, the king of David’s line and in the end the Messiah.
“thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked,”
A crushing blow to the leader of the wicked house.
“by discovering the foundation unto the neck.”
The house is laid bare from its base upward, and its ruin is total.
“Selah.”
A pause over God’s victory and the rescue of his people.
Habakkuk 3:14
“Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages:”
The enemy’s leaders are pierced with the enemy’s own weapons.
“they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me:”
The invaders rushed in like a storm to break Judah apart. Habakkuk says “me” because he speaks as one of the people.
“their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.”
Their delight was to prey on the afflicted in hiding, and God saw the hidden thing.
Habakkuk 3:15
“Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses,”
God treads a path through the sea as a rider crosses open ground.
“through the heap of great waters.”
The waters are piled up on either side, as they were at the Red Sea.
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