John Calvin Commentary Habakkuk 3:5

"Before him went the pestilence, And fiery bolts went forth at his feet." — Habakkuk 3:5 (ASV)

The Prophet repeats here that God came armed to defend His people when He went out from Teman, for He connects the deliverance of the people with it here. He does not indeed speak only of the promulgation of the law, but encourages all the godly to confidence, because God, who had once redeemed their fathers from Egypt, always remained like Himself and was endowed with the same power.

And he says that before God’s face walked the pestilence; this refers to the Egyptians. He also says that ignited coal proceeded from his feet. Some translate רשף, reshoph, as exile, but its etymology requires it to be translated as burning or ignited coal, and there is no necessity to give it another meaning.

The meaning of the whole is this: God had put to flight all the enemies of His people. We know that the Egyptians were struck with various plagues and that Pharaoh’s army was drowned in the Red Sea.

Therefore, the Prophet says that God had appeared from Teman in such a way that the pestilence went before Him, and then the ignited coal. In short, the pestilence and ignited coal were God’s officers, ready to perform His commands.

Just as a king or a judge, having attendants, commands them to put one person in prison and to punish another in a different way, so the Prophet, in giving us a representation of God, says that all kinds of evils were ready to obey His orders and to destroy His and their enemies.

He does not, then, intend here to terrify the faithful by mentioning the pestilence and the ignited coal. On the contrary, his purpose is to present to them evidences of God’s power, by which He could deliver them from the hand of their enemies, just as He had formerly delivered their fathers from Egypt.

By “God’s feet,” he then means His going out or His presence. I do not agree with what some have said, that ignited coals followed when pestilence had preceded, for both clauses are presented in the same way.

It follows—