Albert Barnes Commentary Habakkuk 2:1

"I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will look forth to see what he will speak with me, and what I shall answer concerning my complaint." — Habakkuk 2:1 (ASV)

I will stand – that is, I would stand now, as a servant awaiting his master.

Upon my watch – or, keep (Isaiah 21:8; משׁמר is used in the same sense in Jeremiah 51:12) – and set me (plant myself firmly) upon the tower (literally, a fenced place, but also one confined and narrowly hemmed in).

And will watch (it is a title of the prophets, as spying by God’s enabling, things beyond human understanding); I will spy out, to see a long way off, to see with the inward eye, what He will say to me (literally, Jerome: in me).

He first reveals Himself to the prophets within to the inner man, and then through them.

And what I shall answer when I am reproved, or upon my complaint—literally, upon my reproof or arguing; this might mean either that others argued against him, or that he had argued, pleaded in the name of others, and now listened to hear what God would answer in him (see Numbers 12:6 and Zechariah 1:19).

In this way, taught by God, he should answer his own plea. But he had pleaded with God so repeatedly, why is this?

He has given no hint that any complained of or reproved him.

Theodotion says: "By an image from those who, in war and siege, have the ward of the wall distributed to them, he says, I will stand upon my watch."

Cyril writes: "It was the custom of the saints, when they wished to learn the things of God and to receive the knowledge of things to come through His voice in their mind and heart, to raise it on high above distractions and anxieties and all worldly care, holding and keeping it unoccupied and peaceful, rising as to an eminence to look around and contemplate what the God of all knowledge should make clear to them. For He hates the earth-bound and degraded mind, and seeks hearts which can soar aloft, raised above earthly things and temporal desires."

The prophet takes his stand, apart from people and the thoughts and cares of this world, on his lonely watch, like Moses on the rock. He keeps himself and is kept by God, planted firm so that nothing should move him, fenced around though confined, as in a besieged camp committed to his ward.

He looks out from his lofty place to see what answer God would give concerning times long distant, and what answer He should give first to himself, and then to those for whom his office was, God’s people.