Albert Barnes Commentary Habakkuk 3

A prayer of Habakkuk - The “prayer” of the prophet, in the strictest sense of the word, is contained in the words of Habakkuk 3:2. The rest is, in its form, praise and thanksgiving, chiefly for God’s past mercies in the deliverance from Egypt and the entering into the promised land. But thanksgiving is an essential part of prayer, and Hannah is said to have “prayed,” whereas the hymn which followed is throughout one thanksgiving.

Because these former deliverances were also images of things to come, of every deliverance afterward, and, especially, of that complete divine deliverance which our Lord Jesus Christ performed for us from the power of Satan (1 Corinthians 10:11), the whole is one prayer: “Do, O Lord, as You have done of old; forsake not Your own works. Such were Your deeds once; fulfill them now, all which they foreshadowed.” It is then a prayer for the manifestation of God’s power, and with it the destruction of His enemies, from that time forward to the Day of Judgment.

Cyril: “Having completed the discourse about Babylon, and having announced beforehand most clearly, that those who destroyed the holy city and carried Israel captive shall be severely punished, he passes suitably to the mystery of Christ, and from the redemption which took place partially in one nation, he carries on the discourse to that universal redemption, by which the remnant of Israel, and no less the whole world has been saved.”

Upon Shigionoth - The title, “Shiggaion,” occurs only once besides (Psalms 7:0). “Upon,” in the titles of the Psalms, is used with the instrument, the melody, or the first words of the hymn whose melody has been adopted. The first two are mentioned by a Jewish Commentator (Tanchum) with others, “in his delight,” or “his errors,” in the sense that God will forgive them. This, which the versions and Jewish commentators mostly adopt, would be a good sense, but is hardly consistent with the Hebrew usage. “Shiggaion of David,” as a title of a Psalm, must necessarily describe the Psalm itself, as “Mismor of David,” “Michtam of David,” “Tephillah of David,” “Maschil of David.” But “Shiggaion,” as a “great error,” is not a title; nor does it suit the character of the Psalm, which relates to calumny, not to error.

It probably, then, means a psalm with music expressive of strong emotion, “erratic” or “dithyrambic.” Habakkuk’s title, “on Shigionoth” (plural), then would mean “upon,” or (as we should say) “set to” music of psalms of this sort.

The number “three” remarkably predominates in this psalm (Habakkuk 3:6 has 15 words, in five combinations of three words; Habakkuk 3:3 and Habakkuk 3:10 have 12 words, in four threes; Habakkuk 3:4, Habakkuk 3:9, and Habakkuk 3:19 have 9 words, in three threes; Habakkuk 3:5, Habakkuk 3:12, Habakkuk 3:15, and Habakkuk 3:18 have 6 words, in two threes; Habakkuk 3:17 is divided into 4-3-3-4-3-3; Habakkuk 3:8Isaiah 3-3-3-3-2; Habakkuk 3:11Isaiah 4-3-3; and Habakkuk 3:16Isaiah 3-3-3-2-2-2-3). This forces itself on every reader. Delitzsch quotes Meor Enaim (i. 60): “The prayer of Habakkuk goes on threes.”

Yet this occurs in such a way that long measures are succeeded by very short ones.

O Lord, I have heard - that is, with the inward ear of the heart, “Your speech” (or rather, as the English margin suggests, Your report, that is, the report of You), meaning what may be heard and known of God, or what he had himself heard. The word encompasses both what God had recently declared to the prophet—the judgments of God upon the wicked among the people, and upon those who, through their own injustice, had God's righteous judgments executed upon them—and also that the work of the Lord would be performed in His time for those who patiently wait for it. Furthermore, it more broadly includes what might be heard of God, even if, as it were, only a little whisper of His greatness and the majesty of His workings.

And was afraid - not “fearful” but “afraid in awe,” as a creature, and amazed at the surpassing wonder of the work of God. A person may well stand in awe “at the incarnation of the only-begotten Son, how earth could contain Him who is uncontained by space, how a body was prepared for Him from the virgin by the Holy Spirit, and all the works by which He will work the salvation of mankind: the cross, the death, resurrection, and ascension, uniting opposite things—a body with One who is incorporeal, death with life, resurrection with death, a body in heaven. All is full of wonder and awe.” Rupert says: “This is not a servile fear, but a holy fear which endures forever, not one which love casts out, but which it brings in, in which angels praise, dominions adore, powers stand in awe at the majesty of the Eternal God.”

O Lord, revive Your work - God’s Word often seems, as it were, dead and “come utterly to an end for evermore” (Psalms 77:8), while it is holding its own course, just as all nature seems dead for a while, but everything is laid up in store and ready to shoot forth, as by a kind of resurrection. Rupert says: “The prophet, prophesying, prays that it should come quickly, and praying, prophesies that it will so come.” All God’s dealings with His people, His Church, and each single soul, are part of one great work, which is perfect in itself (Deuteronomy 32:4) and characterized by glory and majesty (Psalms 140:3). It is a work on which the godly meditate (Psalms 77:3; Psalms 143:5), but which those preoccupied with their own plans do not consider (Isaiah 5:12). This work is manifested in great deeds for them or with them. For example, concerning the Exodus, the Psalmist says, “We have heard with our ears, yes, our fathers have told us what work You did in their days, in the times of old” (Psalms 44:2). He also says, “They proved Me and saw My work” (Psalms 95:9). With this work, He makes His own people glad (Psalms 92:3). After it has been withdrawn for a while, “He shows it to His servants” (Psalms 90:6). Ultimately, it issues in judgments on the ungodly, which people consider and declare.

The great work of God on earth, which includes all His works and is the end of all, is the salvation of man through Jesus Christ. This great work seemed, as it were, asleep or dead, like trees in winter, all through those 4,000 years, which gave no sign of His coming. Included in this great work is the special work of the Hand of God. Of this work alone it is said, “God said, Let Us make man in Our image after Our Likeness” (Genesis 1:26); and, “we are the clay and You our Potter, and we are all the work of Your Hands” (Isaiah 64:8); and “Your Hands have made me and fashioned me together round about” (Job 10:8). This refers to man, who, being dead as to the life of the soul through the malice of Satan, was revived by Christ through His dying and rising again.

He was “dead in trespasses and sins,” and like a carcass putrefying in them. This whole world was one great charnel-house, through man’s manifold corruptions, when Christ came to awaken the dead, and those who heard lived (John 5:25).

Again, the Center of this work, the special Work of God, that in which He made all things new, is the Human Body of our Lord—the Temple which was destroyed by death and within three days was raised up.

The answer to Habakkuk’s inquiry, “How long?” had two sides. It had given assurance about the end. The trial-time would not be prolonged for one moment longer than the counsel of God had fore-determined. The relief would “come, come; it would not be behind-hand.” But in the meantime? There was no comfort to be given, for God knew that deepening sin was drawing on deepening chastisement. But in that He was silent about the intervening time and pointed to patient expectation of a lingering future as their only comfort, He implies that the immediate future was heavy. Habakkuk then renews his prayer for the years that had to intervene and pass away.

“In the midst of the years,” before that “time appointed,” when His promise should have its full fulfillment, before those years should come to their close, he prays, “revive Your work.” The years include all the long period of waiting for our Lord’s first coming before He came in the Flesh, and now for His second coming and the “restitution of all things.” In this long period, at times God seems to be absent, as when our Lord was asleep in the boat while the tempest was raging; at times He bids “the storm to cease and there is a great calm.”

This, in those long intervals when God seems to be absent, to leave all things to time and chance, when love grows cold, and graces seem rare, is the prayer of Habakkuk, of prophets and Psalmists, of the Church: “Return, we beseech You, O God of hosts, look down from heaven, behold and visit this vine” (Psalms 80:14). “O God, why have You cast us off forever?” (Psalms 74:1). “Why do You withdraw Your hand, Your right hand? ... For God is my king of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth” (Psalms 74:11–12). “Awake, awake, put on strength, You Arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are You not It which struck Rahab, wounded the dragon? Are You not It which dried the sea, the waters of the great deep, which made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?” (Isaiah 51:9–10).

“Stir up Your might and come, save us” (Psalms 80:3). “Renew our days, as of old” (Lamentations 5:21). So our Lord taught His Church to pray continually, whenever she prayed, “Your kingdom come,” longing not only for His final coming, but also for the increase of His glory, the greater dominion of His grace, and His enthronement in the hearts of people, even before its complete and final coming. “In the midst of the years revive Your work,” is the Church’s continual cry.

In the midst of the years make known - literally, “You will make known: in wrath You will remember mercy;” and so (as we use the word “will”) the prophet at once foretells, expresses his faith, and prays. God had made known His work and His power in the days of old. In times of trouble He seems “like a God who hides Himself.” Now, he prays Him to shine forth and help: make known Your work, before You fulfill it, to revive the drooping hopes of man, and that all may see that “Your word is truth.” Make Yourself known in Your work, so that when the time comes to “make an end of sin” (Daniel 9:24) by the Death of Your Son, Your Awful Holiness, and the love with which You have “so loved the world” (John 3:16), may be more known and adored.

In wrath You will remember mercy - So David prayed (Psalms 25:6), “Remember Your tender-mercies and Your loving-kindnesses; for they are from old.” “You will remember” that counsel for man’s redemption which has been from the foundation of the world, for we seem in our own minds to be forgotten by God when He delays to help us. God remembers mercy (Luke 1:54; Luke 1:72) in anger, in that in this life He never chastens without purposes of mercy, and His mercy ever softens His judgments.

His promise of mercy, that the Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head, went before the sentence of displeasure (Genesis 3:19): “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” Jerome says: “He reveals His wrath that He may scare us from sin and so may not inflict it; and when at last He inflicts it, He has mercy on the remnant who flee to His Mercy, so that we may not be like Sodom and Gomorrah.” (Romans 5:8), “while we were yet sinners,” and God was angry, “Christ died for us.” And (Titus 3:5), “He saved us, not for works which we had done, but out of His great Mercy,” taking away sin and restoring us to life and incorruption.

God had already promised by Micah (Micah 7:15), “According to the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt, I will show him marvelous things.”

Isaiah had often used the great events of that deliverance as symbols of the future. So now Habakkuk, in one vast panorama, as it were, without distinction of time or series of events, exhibits the future in pictures of the past. In the description itself which follows, he speaks sometimes in the past, sometimes in the future. In these instances, the future might be portrayed as a vivid present, and the past as a prophetic past.

As a key to the whole, he says, “God shall come,” indicating that all that follows, however spoken, was a part of that future. In no other way was it an answer to that prayer, “Revive Your work.” To foretell future deliverances in plain words would have been a comfort; it would have promised a continuance of that work.

The unity and revival of the work is expressed in that the past is made, as it was, the image of the future. That future was to be wondrous and superhuman; elsewhere, the past miracles had been no image of it. It was to be no mere repetition of the future; and to mark this, the images are exhibited out of their historical order.

God came - literally, will come.

From Teman - “God will come,” as He came of old, clothed with majesty and power; but it was not mere power. The center of the whole picture is, as Micah and Isaiah had prophesied that it was to be, a new revelation (Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2): “The law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

It is also prophesied (Isaiah 44:5), “I will give You for a covenant to the people (Israel), for a light of the Gentiles.” So now, speaking of the new work in store, Habakkuk renews the imagery in the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 33:2), in Deborah’s Song (Judges 5:5), and in David (Psalms 68:7); but there the manifestation of His glory is spoken of entirely in time past, and Mount Sinai is named.

Habakkuk speaks of that coming as still to come, and omits the explicit mention of Mount Sinai, which was the emblem of the law. And so he directs us to another Lawgiver, whom God would raise up like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15–18), yet with a law of life, and tells how He who spoke the law, God, will come in the likeness of our flesh. And the Holy One from Mount Paran.

In the earliest passage, three places are mentioned in which or from which the glory of God was manifested; with this difference however, that it is said (Deuteronomy 33:2), The Lord came from Sinai, but His glory arose, as we should say “dawned,” unto them from Seir, and flashed forth from Mount Paran. Seir and Mount Paran are joined together by the symbol of the light which dawned or shone forth from them.

In the second passage, the Song of Deborah, Seir and the field of Edom are the place from where God came forth; Sinai melted (Judges 5:4–5) at His presence.

In (Psalms 68:0) the mention of Edom is dropped; and the march through the wilderness under the leading of God is alone mentioned, together with the shaking of Sinai.

In Habakkuk, the contrast is the same as in Moses; only Teman stands in place of Seir. Teman and Mount Paran are named probably, as the two opposed boundaries of the journeys of Israel through the desert. They came to Mount Sinai through the valley, now called Wady Feiran or Paran; Edom was the boundary of their wanderings to their promised land (Numbers 20:14–20; Deuteronomy 2:0). God who guided, fed, protected them from the beginning, led them to the end. Between Paran also and Edom or Teman was the gift of the Spirit to the seventy, which was the shadow of the day of Pentecost; there, was the brass serpent lifted up, the picture of the healing of the Cross.

If Mount Paran is near Kadesh, then Moses in the opening of his song describes the glory of God as manifested from that first revelation of His Law on Mount Sinai; then in that long period of Israel’s waiting there to its final departure for the promised land, when Mount Hor was consecrated and God’s awe-inspiring Holiness declared in the death of Aaron.

He who “will come,” is God, the Holy One (a proper name of God). Perfect in Holiness, as God, the Son of God, and as Man also all-holy, with a human will, always exactly accompanying the Divine Will, which was:

“The passion of His Heart
Those Three-and-thirty years.”

On this there follows a pause denoted by “Selah” (which occurs three times according to the mystery of that number), that the soul may dwell on the greatness of the majesty and mercy of God.

Selah - There is no doubt as to the general meaning of the word, that it is a musical direction, that there should be a pause, the music probably continuing alone, while the mind rested upon the thought, which had just been presented to it; our “interlude.” It is always placed at some pause of thought, even when not at the end of a strophe, or, as twice in this hymn, at the end of the verse.

Gregory of Nyssa modifies this thought, supposing “Selah” to express a pause made by the writer, so that “while the psalmody, with which David’s prophesying was accompanied, continued its course, another illumination of the Holy Spirit, and an addition to the gift according to knowledge, came for the benefit of those who received the prophecy, he, holding in his verse, gave time for his mind to receive the knowledge of the thought, which took place in him from the divine illumination.” He defines it to be “a sudden silence in the midst of the Psalmody for the reception of the illumination.”

His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise - This is clearly no created glory, but anticipates the Angelic Hymn (Luke 2:14) “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men,” or, as the Seraphim sing first glory to God in Heaven (Isaiah 6:3), “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God of Sabaoth,” and then, the whole earth is full of His glory;

And Uncreated Wisdom says , “I alone compassed the circuit of Heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep.” Nor are they our material heavens, much less this lowest heaven over our earth, nor is “His glory” merely some aspect of God, which rules, encompasses, fills, penetrates the orbs of heaven and all its inhabitants, and yet is not enclosed nor bounded by them.

Those who are made as the heavens by the indwelling of God He spiritually “covers,” filling them with the light of glory and splendor of grace and brightness of wisdom, as it says, “Is there any number of His armies, and upon whom does not His light arise?” (Job 25:3).

And so the earth was full of His praise,” that is, the Church militant spread throughout the world, as in the Psalm (Psalms 112:3), “The Lord’s name is praised from the rising up of the sun unto the going down of the same,” and, (Psalms 8:1), “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens.”

and His brightness - that wherein God dwells (Ezekiel 10:4), the brightness of the Lord’s glory, before which darkness flees (Psalms 18:12), was as the light, or as the sun. Out of the midst of the darkness, with which God, as it were (Exodus 19:9; Exodus 19:16; Exodus 20:21), hid Himself, the brightness of the “inapproachable Light” wherein “He dwells,” gleams forth (Exodus 24:10), bright as the brightest light gathered into one, which man knows of and on which he cannot gaze.

So amid the darkness of the humiliation of His presence in the flesh (John 1:14): We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father; and (Isaiah 9:2), the people that walked in darkness see a great light, not dim. Theophylact says: “nor weak, nor shadowed, like that of Moses, but pure unimaginable light of the knowledge of God.” The brightness too of His flesh was like the light of the Godhead on Mount Tabor, for the Godhead flashed through.

Rupertus states: “As often as He did His marvelous works, He put forth His “brightness” (tempered for His creatures, since they could not approach the depth of His light, yet) as “light” to enlighten people to know Him. Yet the brightness issues from the Light, co-existing with it, and in it, while issuing from it. And so the words aptly express how He who is (Hebrews 1:3) the brightness of the Father’s Glory and the express Image of His Person. Wisdom (Hebrews 7:25), brightness of the eternal light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness, is as the Light from whom He is.”

The Nicene Creed states: “Light of Light,” Equal to the Father by whom He was begotten. As John says in John 1:9: That was the true Light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. As He prays in John 17:5: Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

He had horns coming out of His Hand - Jerome and Dionysius say: “Horns are everywhere in Holy Scripture the emblem of strength.” It may be that here “rays” are likened to horns, as the face of Moses is said, with the same image, to have “sent forth rays” after he had long been in the presence of God. So it may be a mingled image of the Glory and might; Light, which was also might. But “horns,” though they may be a symbol of “light,” are not of “lightning;” and the Hand of God is used as an emblem of His power, His protection, His bounty, His constraining force on His prophets. It is nowhere used of the side or sides.

We have two images combined here: “horns,” which in every other place in which they are used as a metaphor, is an emblem of power; and “from the hand of,” which, wherever it is used of a person, means that the thing spoken of had been in that person’s hand or power, really or virtually. Both then combine in the meaning that the might came forth from the directing agency of God who wielded it.

When then did light or might, which lay, as it were, before in the hand of God, go forth from it? For “the hand of God” is always symbolic of His might, whether put forth, or for the time laid up in it.

The form of the words remarkably corresponds to those of Moses, in the preface to the blessing on the tribes, which Habakkuk had in mind (Deuteronomy 33:2): From His right hand was a fiery law for them. And Paul says that the glory of Moses’ face, which he received from the Presence of God, was a symbol of the glory of the law. As 2 Corinthians 3:7 says: The ministration of death written and engraven on stone was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance. The law, being given by God, had a majesty of its own.

The Psalms bear witness to its power in converting, making wise, rejoicing, and enlightening the soul (Psalms 19:8). For those in whose heart it was, none of their steps slipped (Psalms 37:31). The whole 119th Psalm is one varied testimony of its greatness and its power.

It was a guide on the way; it was a schoolmaster to Christ (Galatians 3:24), by whom it was fulfilled. But it itself bore witness of the greater glory which should come forth from the Hand of God. As 2 Corinthians 3:11 states: If that which is done away were glorious, much more that which remains is glorious.

Cyril says: “The horn signifies power, when it is spoken of God the Father exhibiting to us God the Son (Luke 2:69): He hath raised up a horn of salvation for us, and again (Psalms 111:9), His horn shall be exalted in honor. For all things which were marvelously done were glorious. The only-begotten One then came in our form, and, in regard to the flesh and the manhood, enduring the appearance of our weakness, but, as God, invisible in might and easily subduing whom He willed.”

And what has been the weapon of His warfare, by which He has subdued the might of Satan and the hearts of people, but “the horns” of His cross, to which His sacred hands were once fastened by the sharp nails, where was the “hiding of His Power,” when His almightiness lay hidden in His passion (Isaiah 53:3), and He was (Psalms 22:6) a worm and no man; a reproach of men and the despised of the people? Now it is the scepter laid upon His shoulder (Isaiah 9:6), the ensign and trophy of His rule, the rod of His strength (Psalms 110:2), terrible to devils, salvation to mankind.

In it His might lay, although concealed. As He said: “The words, horns are in His hands, show the insignia of His kingdom, by which horns, pushing and thrusting the invisible and opposing powers, He drove them away.” (Compare Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica vi. 15). Cyprian adds (Testimonies to Quirinus ii. 21, p. 57, Oxford Translation): “The horns in His hands, what are they but the trophy of the cross?”

Augustine (De Civitate Dei xviii. 32) points to John 12:32: I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. His Might was lodged there, although hidden. It was “the hiding-place of His power.”

The cross was (1 Corinthians 1:23–24) to the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ crucified was the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. Through the Cross, as Matthew 28:18 records, all power was given to Him both in Heaven and earth.

As Daniel 7:14 states: there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him. From Him shall go forth all power on earth; by His hands shall be given the vacant thrones in Heaven, as He says in Revelation 3:21: To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My Throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father in His Throne.

There too was the hiding of His Power, in that there, in His Cross, is our shelter, and in His pierced Side our hiding place, where we may take refuge from Satan and our sins; for in it is power.

Consider John 10:28: Neither shall any pluck them out of My Hand. Light and darkness always meet in God. His inapproachable light is darkness to eyes which would gaze on it. As Psalm 104:2 says: He covereth Himself with Light as with a garment. His light is the very veil which hides Him.

His Light is darkness to those who pry into Him and His Nature; His darkness is light to those who by faith behold Him. He emptied Himself (Philippians 2:8) and hid Himself; He hid the power of His Godhead in the weakness of the Manhood.

And so, as 2 Corinthians 4:6 declares: He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the Face of Jesus Christ. Jerome says: “In the Cross His might was for a while hidden, when He said to His Father (Matthew 26:38–39), My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me, and on the Cross itself (Luke 23:13), Father, into Thy Hands I commend My Spirit.”

Before Him went (goes) the pestilence – then to consume His enemies. (Exodus 23:27): I will send My fear before thee, and will destroy all the people, to whom thou shalt come, and the lightnings are a sign that, (Psalms 68:1–2), they which hate Him, flee before Him, and the wicked perish at the Presence of God. So, on His Ascension, Herod and Pilate were struck by Him, and Elymas and Simon Magus before His apostles, and whatever has lifted itself up against Him has perished, and antichrist shall perish, (Psalms 11:4), at the breath of His mouth, and all the ungodly on the Day of Judgment.

And burning coals – rather, as in an English rendering, “burning fever,” (Deuteronomy 32:2). (where it is also singular, as it is otherwise singular only in רשׁף בני b'nēy resheph (Job 5:7)). So A. E., “burning coals” is from Kimchi, Tanchum gives as different opinions “sparks” or “arrows” or “pestilence;” but the meanings “sparks, arrows,” are ascribed only to the plural. (Psalms 76:4); (Psalms 88:48); (Song of Solomon 8:6). The central meaning is probably “burning heat.”

Went forth at his feet – i.e., followed Him. Messengers of death went as it were before Him, as the front of His army, and the rear of it was other forms of death. Death and destruction of all sorts are a great army at His command, going before Him as heralds of His Coming (such as are judgments in this world) or attendants upon Him, at the judgment when He appears (2 Timothy 6:1) in His kingdom, when, (Matthew 13:51), (Matthew 13:42), they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.