Habakkuk

This is the message that Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision.

1The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

Note"Burden" translates a Hebrew word (massa) that means both a load somebody has to carry and a formal announcement delivered by a prophet. Prophetic "burdens" were nearly always announcements of coming disaster. The verb attached to it is "see": the message came to Habakkuk as something he witnessed, not simply words he heard.

2LORD, how long do I have to call for help before you listen? I cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not rescue us.

2O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!

NoteWhere the King James prints LORD in capital letters, the Hebrew has the personal name of Israel's God, written with four consonants usually transcribed YHWH. Jewish readers did not pronounce it aloud, saying "my Lord" instead, and English translations follow that custom with the capitalised form. "How long?" is the standard opening of a formal complaint addressed to God, the same phrase that begins several psalms of protest.

3Why do you make me look at so much wrong? Why do you put up with all this trouble? Ruin and violence are right in front of me. People keep fighting and arguing.

3Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

4So the law has no power left, and justice never comes out into the open. Wicked people surround those who do right, so what passes for justice comes out twisted.

4Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

Note"The law" is Hebrew torah, which covers more than legislation: it is the whole body of instruction (legal, ritual and moral) that Israel understood as given to it through Moses. "Justice never goes forth" pictures a verdict that never gets issued; legal cases were heard in public at the town gate, so a ruling that never "comes out" is one the community never sees delivered.

5"Look at the other nations. Watch closely, and be completely amazed. I am going to do something in your own lifetime that you would not believe even if someone described it to you.

5Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

NoteThe King James "heathen" translates goyim, which means simply "the nations", foreign peoples, everyone who is not Israel. In 1611 English the word carried no suggestion of savagery or irreligion, though it does now.

6Look: I am raising up the Chaldeans, a harsh nation that moves fast. They march across the whole width of the earth to take over homes that are not theirs.

6For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.

NoteThe Chaldeans were the people who ruled Babylon in southern Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq. Under Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar they destroyed the Assyrian empire late in the seventh century BC and became the dominant military power of the region; within a generation of this prophecy they besieged Jerusalem and deported much of its population. "Bitter and hasty" means ruthless and headlong, acting fast and without restraint, not merely traveling quickly.

7People are terrified of them. They decide for themselves what is right, and their authority comes from no one but themselves.

7They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

NoteThe point is that this nation acknowledges no law or authority above its own. Ancient kings normally claimed their right to rule came from a god; these people are described as taking it from nobody but themselves.

8Their horses run faster than leopards and attack more fiercely than wolves at dusk. Their riders charge ahead. Their horsemen come from far away. They swoop in like a bird of prey rushing to eat.

8Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

Note"Evening wolves" are wolves at dusk, at their hungriest after a day without food, a stock image for ravenous attack. The bird in the last line is Hebrew nesher, which covers both the eagle and the griffon vulture; the picture is of a large bird dropping out of the sky onto a carcass, so "vulture" and "eagle" are both defensible translations.

9They all come to do violence. They press straight forward and sweep in like the hot east wind. They round up prisoners as if scooping up sand.

9They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

NoteThe east wind is the sirocco, a scorching wind off the desert that dries up vegetation in a day or two, the standard image for something that arrives suddenly and leaves nothing alive. The middle phrase of this verse is obscure in Hebrew (literally something like "the eagerness of their faces is forward"), and translations differ over whether it describes the direction of their advance or the sheer mass of the horde.

10They laugh at kings, and rulers are nothing but a joke to them. They sneer at every fortress: they pile up dirt into a ramp against the wall and take it.

10And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.

NotePiling up earth was the ordinary way to take a walled city in this period: attackers built a long ramp of packed soil and rubble against the wall so that troops and battering rams could be brought up over the defenses. Assyrian and Babylonian armies were expert at it, and Habakkuk's audience would have understood the image as the point at which a fortified town's fall becomes only a matter of time.

11Then he sweeps on past like the wind and moves along, and he is guilty, because he gives his own god the credit for his strength.

11Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.

NoteThis verse is one of the hardest in the book, and the Hebrew is damaged or at least very compressed; ancient and modern translations diverge sharply. It can be read as "then he sweeps past like a wind and moves on" or as "then his mind changes", the same consonants can yield either. What the versions agree on is the last clause: the conqueror treats his own strength as the god responsible for his success.

12LORD, my God, my Holy One, have you not always existed? We will not die. LORD, you have appointed them to carry out your judgment. Mighty God, you set them in place to correct us.

12Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

Note"Mighty God" here renders Hebrew tsur, "Rock", a standing title for God as an immovable place of safety. "We shall not die" carries an old note in the Jewish scribal tradition: the scribes recorded that the line originally read "you do not die," addressed to God, and that they altered it out of reverence, since even the phrase "you do not die" seemed to raise the possibility. Both readings have been transmitted.

13Your eyes are too pure to look at evil, and you cannot stand to watch people do wrong. So why do you watch those who betray others? Why stay silent while the wicked swallow up people more honest than they are?

13Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

NoteThose who "deal treacherously" are faith-breakers: people who violate an agreement, an oath or an obligation to someone who trusted them. "Swallow up" is the ordinary Hebrew image for destroying someone completely, as an animal or a pit swallows what falls into it.

14You make people like fish in the sea, like small crawling creatures that have no one to lead them.

14And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

Note"Creeping things" translates a word for swarming creatures that move in shoals or masses, here the small sea life that has no leader and no defense. A creature with "no ruler" is one nobody is responsible for and nobody protects.

15The enemy hauls them all up with a hook, catches them in his net, and drags them together in his fishing net. That is why he is happy and celebrates.

15They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

NoteThree distinct pieces of fishing equipment are named: a hook and line for taking one fish at a time, a casting net thrown over a small area, and a dragnet or seine hauled through the water to sweep up everything in its path. The escalation is the point, individuals, then groups, then whole populations.

16So he offers sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his fishing net, because those nets bring him a rich share and plenty of food.

16Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

NoteThe image is of a fisherman offering worship to his own tackle, since his gear is what actually feeds him. Ancient armies did honor their weapons and military standards with offerings, so the picture is not far-fetched; here it stands for a conqueror crediting his success to the instruments of his violence. Incense, aromatic resin burned so the smoke rises, was a normal part of offering worship to a god.

17Is he going to keep emptying his net, killing nations without mercy, on and on?

17Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?