Albert Barnes Commentary Habakkuk 3:14

"Thou didst pierce with his own staves the head of his warriors: They came as a whirlwind to scatter me; Their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly." — Habakkuk 3:14 (ASV)

You struck through with his own staves the head of his villages. The destruction does not come upon himself only, but upon the entire multitude of his subjects; and this not by any mere act of divine might, but “with his own staves,” turning back on him the destruction he prepared for others. So it often was in ancient times. When the Midianites and Amalekites and the children of the east (Judges 6:3–4) devastated Israel in the days of Gideon, the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host (Judges 7:22); and when God delivered the Philistines into the hand of Jonathan (1 Samuel 14:12, 16, 20), so it was with “Ammon, Moab, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir,” at the prayer of Jehoshaphat and his army (2 Chronicles 20:22–23). And so it shall be, God says, at the end, with the army of God: every man’s sword shall be against his brother, (Ezekiel 38:21). And Isaiah says (Isaiah 9:20), every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm, and Zechariah (Zechariah 14:13), a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay every man hold on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.

So Pharaoh drove Israel to the shore of the sea, where he himself perished. Daniel’s accusers perished in the den of lions, from which Daniel was delivered unharmed (Daniel 6:24); and Haman was hanged on the gallows he prepared for Mordecai (Esther 7:10).

Thus it became a saying of the Psalmists (Psalms 7:5; Psalms 10:2; Psalms 35:8; Psalms 57:6; Psalms 94:23; Psalms 141:10; Proverbs 5:22; Proverbs 26:27; Ecclesiastes 10:8): He made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made; his mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate. And this comes from above, sent down by God.

Pagans also observed that there was “no more just law than that artificers of death should perish by their own art.”

This also happened to him when he seemed to have all but gained his end. They came (out) as a whirlwind to scatter me, with whirlwind force, to drive them apart to all quarters of the heavens, as the wind scatters the particles of cloud (Job 37:11), or (Jeremiah 13:24; Isaiah 41:16, Delitzsch) as the stubble which passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.

Pharaoh at the Red Sea or Sennacherib swept all before them. Pharaoh said (Exodus 15:9), I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

Their rejoicing — It is no longer one enemy. The malice of the members was concentrated in the head; the hatred concentrated in him was diffused in them. The readiness of instruments of evil to fulfill evil is an incentive to those who conceive it; those who seem to ride the wave are but carried on upon the crest of the surge which they first roused. They cannot check themselves or it.

So the ambitious conceiver of mischief has his own guilt; the willing instruments of evil have theirs. Neither could be fully evil without the other. Sennacherib would have been nothing without those fierce warriors who are pictured on the monuments, with individual fierceness fulfilling his will, nor the Huns without Attila, or Attila without his hordes whose tempers he embodied.

Satan would be powerless without the willing instruments he uses. Therefore, Holy Scripture sometimes passes from mentioning the evil multitude to mentioning the one head, on earth or in hell, who impels them; or from the one evil head who has his own special responsibility in originating it, to the evil multitude, whose responsibility and guilt lie in fomenting the evil they execute.

Their rejoicing — He does not simply say “they rejoice to,” but in this is their exceeding, exulting joy. The wise of this earth glories in his wisdom, the mighty man in his might, the rich in his riches; but the truly wise glories in this, that he understands and knows God.

But as for these, their exultation is concentrated in this: savagery. In this is their jubilation; this is their passion. Psalmists and pious people use the word to express their exulting joy in God. People must have an object for their impassioned souls; and these find it in cruelty.

As it were to devour the poor secretly — From the general, he descends again to the individual, but so as to now set forth the guilt of each individual in that stormy multitude which is, as it were, one in its evil unity, when each merges his responsibility, as it were, in that of the body, the horde, or the mob in which he acts.

Their exultation, he says, is that of the individual robber and murderer, who lies in wait secretly in his ambush to spring on the defenseless wanderer, to slay him and devour his substance. Premeditation, passion, lust of cruelty, cowardice, murderousness, habitual individual savagery and treachery, and that against the innocent and defenseless, are all concentrated in the words, their exultation is, as it were, to devour the poor secretly, that is, “in their secret haunt.”

Pharaoh had triumphed over Israel. They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in (Exodus 14:3). He rejoices in having them wholly in his power, as a lion has its prey in its lair—in secret, unknown to the eyes of God whom he did not regard, with none to behold, none to deliver.

Dionysius says: “They gloried in oppressing the people of Israel, even as the cruel man glories in secretly rending and afflicting the needy, when without fear they do this cruelty, nor heed God who beholds all as Judge.”

The invisible enemies also rejoice greatly in the ruin of our souls: Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him: for if I be cast down, they that trouble me will rejoice at it (Psalms 13:4). And, O Lord and Governor of all my life, leave me not to their counsels, and let me not fall by them .

Yet God did not leave them in his hands, but even brake the head of Leviathan in pieces.