Albert Barnes Commentary Habakkuk 1:13

"Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness, wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he;" — Habakkuk 1:13 (ASV)

You are of purer eyes than to behold evil - The prophet repeats his complaint (as troubling thoughts are accustomed to come back after they have been repelled) in order to answer it more strongly. All sin is hateful in God’s sight, and in His holy wisdom He cannot endure to “look toward iniquity.” As a person turns away from sickening sights, so God’s abhorrence of wrong is pictured by His not being able to “look toward it.” If He looked toward them, they must perish (Psalms 104:32).

Light cannot coexist with darkness, fire with water, heat with cold, deformity with beauty, foulness with sweetness; nor is sin compatible with the presence of God, except as its Judge and Punisher. You cannot look. There is an entire contradiction between God and unholiness. And yet,

Why do you look upon - you view, as in Your full sight, makes the contrast stronger. God cannot endure “to look toward” (אל) iniquity, and yet He not only does this but beholds it, contemplates it, and still is silent—yes, as it would seem, with favor, bestowing upon them the goods of this life—honor, glory, children, riches—as the Psalmist says (Psalms 73:12): Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.? Why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue, putting restraint, as it were, upon Yourself and Your own attribute of Justice, when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?

(Psalms 143:2). In God’s sight no man living can be justified. And, in one sense, Sodom and Gomorrah were less unrighteous than Jerusalem; and (Matthew 10:15; Matthew 11:24; Mark 6:11; Luke 10:12) it shall be more tolerable for them in the day of Judgment, because they sinned against less light. Yet the actual sins of the Chaldeans were greater than those of Jerusalem, and Satan’s evil is greater than that of those who are his prey.

To say that Judah was more righteous than the Chaldean does not imply any righteousness of the Chaldean, just as the saying that (Jeremiah 31:11, Del.) God ransomed Jacob from the hand of one stronger than he does not imply any strength remaining to Israel.

Then, also, in all the general judgments of God, the righteous also suffer in this world, which is why Abraham intercedes for Sodom, if there were but ten righteous in it, lest (Genesis 18:23) the righteous be destroyed with the wicked. Hence, God also spared Nineveh in part as having (Jonah 4:11) more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, that is, good from evil.

No times were more full of sin than those before the destruction of Jerusalem, yet the fury of the Assassins fell upon the innocent.

And so the words, like the voice of the souls under the altar (Revelation 6:10), become the cry of the Church at all times against the oppressing world, and of the blood of the martyrs from Abel to the end, Lord, how long?

And in that the word “righteous” signifies both “one righteous man” and the whole class or generation of the righteous, it speaks both of Christ the Head and of all His members in whom (as by Saul) He was persecuted.

The wicked also includes all persecutors: both those who executed the Lord Christ, and those who brought His servants before judgment seats, and who blasphemed His Name (James 2:6–7), and caused many to blaspheme, and killed those whom they could not compel. And God, all the while, seems to look away and not to regard.