Albert Barnes Commentary Habakkuk 1:6

"For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs." — Habakkuk 1:6 (ASV)

For behold - So God announces a future, in which His hand shall be greatly visible, whether more or less distant. In His sight it is present.

I raise up - God uses the free will and evil passions of people or devils for His own ends; and so He is said to “raise up” those whom He allows to be stirred up against His people, since the events which His Providence permits favor their designs, and it rests with Him to withhold them. They lift themselves up for some end of covetousness or pride. But there is a higher order of things, in which God orders their actions to fulfill His righteousness by their iniquities.

The Chaldeans, that bitter - מר. In (Judges 18:25) and (2 Samuel 17:8), the less concise נפשׁ מר.

And hasty nation - נמהר as in (Isaiah 32:4). Jerome states: “To its might and warlike boldness almost all the Greeks who have written histories of the barbarians witness.”

Which shall march through the breadth of the land - rather, “the earth.” This phrase literally means “to the breadths of the earth,” reaching to its whole length and breadth, all its dimensions, as in the description of Gog and Magog (Revelation 20:8–9): “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea; and they went up on the breadth of the earth; unhindered, not pent up, but spreading abroad, where they will, over the whole earth.”

All before it is one wide, even plain which it overspreads and covers like a flood, and yet is not spent or exhausted.

To possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs - As God’s people had done, so should it be done to them. Spoiling and violence within (Habakkuk 1:2–4) attract oppression from without.

The overcharged atmosphere casts down lightning upon them. They had expelled the weak from their dwelling (Micah 2:9); others shall possess theirs.

Yet this scourge too shall pass by, since, although the Chaldean did God’s will, he himself did not will it, but rather his own purposes . The words “not theirs,” literally “not to him,” stand with a mysterious fullness of meaning. The dwelling places, not being his by right, shall not remain his, although given to him, while God wills.