Book ok Habakklk.— A full and trustworthy ac- count of the life of this prophet would explain his im- agery, and many of the events to which he alludes; but since we have no information on which we can depend, uotliing remains but to determine from the book itself its historical basis and its age.
1. Tiie Kabbinical traditions agree in jilacing Habak- kuk with Joel and Xahum in the reign of Manasseh (comp. Seller Olum /{abba and Ziita, and Tsemack Da- vid). This date is ailojited by Kimchi and Abarbanel among the Kabbis, and by ^^'itsius and others among modern writers. The general corruption and lawless- ness which prevailed in the reign of Jlanasseh are supposed to be referred to in I lab. i, 2-4. Kalinsky conjectures that Habakkuk may have been one of the prophets mentioned in 2 Kings xxi, 10. Carpzov (/«- trod, (id libr. canon. V. T. p. 79, 410) and .lahn (/ntrnd. in librox siirros V. T. ii, § 120) refer our jirophet to the reign of Manasseh, thus placing him thirty odd years earlier; l)ut at that time the Chaldicans had not as yet given just ground for apprehension, and it would have been injudicious in Habakkuk jirematurely to (ill the minds of the i)eople with fear of tiiem. Some addition- al sup()ort to our .statement of the age of this book is derived from the tradition, reported in the apocryjihal appendix to Daniel and by the I'seudo-Epiphanius", that Habakkuk lived to .see tlie Baliykmi.-ui exile. Syncel- lus (Clinmoiiraphid, p. 214, 2.'i(i, 21(1) makes him con- temporary witli Ezekiel, anil extends the period of his prophecy from the lime of jAIana.sseh to that of Daniel and Joshua, the son of Josedech. The CImmicon J'as- rhale places him later, first mentioning him in the be- ginning of the reign of .losiaii (( )lymp. 32), as contem- I)orary with Zephaniah and Kahum; and again in tlie begiiniiiig of tlie reign of Cyrus (Olymp. 42), as con- temporary with Daniel and Ezekiel in Persia, with Haggai and Zechariaii in Judaea, and with Baruch in Egypt. Davidson (Home's In/rod. ii, !)Ci8), following Keil, decides in favor of the early i)art of the reign of Josiaii. Calmet, Jjiger, Ewakl, KosenmnUer, Maurer, and Hitzig agree in a.ssigning tlie commcncenient of Habakkiik's prophecy to the reign of .Jelioiakim, though they are divided as to the exact (jcriod to which it is to be referred. Itanitz {Introdnctio in Hob. \'(ilic. [>. 24, 59), Sfirkcl (I'rohu/. ad interpr. iertii cap. llah. p. 22^ 27), and Dc W'ctte {Lehrbiich der Ilistorm-hkritischm Eiideit. Berlin, 1840, p. 338) justly place the age of Ilab-
HABAKKUK
akkuk before the invasion of Juda;a by the Chaldseans. Knobel (Der Propheiism. de Hebr.) and Meier {Gesch. d. poet. wit. Liter, d. Ilebr.) are in favor of the commence- ment of the Chaldean lera, after the battle of Carche- mish (B.C. G06), when Judiea was lirst threatened by the victors. Some interpreters are of opinion that ch. ii was -wTitten in the reign of Jehoiachm, the son of Je- hoiakim (2 Kings xxiv, 6), after Jerusalem had been besieged and conquered by Nebuchathiezzar, the king made a prisoner, and, with many thousands of his sub- jects, carried away to Babylon ; none remaining in Je- rusalem save the poorest class of the people (2 Kings xxiv, 14). But of all this nothing is said of the book of Habakkuk, nor even so much as hinted at ; and what is stated of the violence and injustice of the Chaldseans does not imply that the Jews had already experienced it. It is also a supposition equally gratuitous, accord- ing to which some interpreters refer ch. iii to tlic period of the last siege of Jerusalem, when Zcdeluah ^^ns taken, his sons slain, his eyes put out, tlie walls uf the city broken down, and the Temple biu-ned (2 Kings xxv, 1- 10). There is not the sUghtest allusion to any of these incidents in the third chapter of Habakkuk.
But the question of the date of Habakkuk's prophecy has been discussed in the most exhaustive manner by Delitzsch {Der Prophet Ilubakul; Einl. § 3), and, though his arguments are rather ingenious than convincing, they are well deserving of consideration as based upon internal evidence. The conclusion at which he arrives is that Habakkuk delivered his ino|ihccy about the twelfth or thirteenth year of Josiali (B.C. 030 or C29), for reasons of which the following is a summary. In Hab. i, 5 the expression " in yoiu- days" shows that the fulfilment of the prophecy would take place in the life- time of those to whom it was adtU-essed. The same phrase in Jer. xvi, 9 embraces a period of at most twen- ty years, while in Ezek. xii, 25 it denotes about six years, and thereibre, reckoning backwards from the Chaletean invasion, the date above assigned woidd in- volve no violation of probability, though the argument does not amount to a proof. From the similarity of Hab. ii, 10 and Zeph. i, 7, Delitzsch infers that the" lat- ter is an imitation, the former being the original. He supports this conclusion by many collateral arguments. Now Zephaniah, according to the superscription of his prophecy, lived in the time of Josiah, and from iii, 5 he is supposed to ha^•e prophesied after the worship of Je- hovah ivas restored, that is, after the twelfth year of that king's reign. It is thought that he wrote about B.C. G24. Between this period, therefore, and the twelfth year of Josiah (B.C. 630), Delitzsch places Habakkuk. But Jeremiah began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and many passages are borrowed by him from Habakkuk (compare Hab. ii, 13 with Jer. ii, 58, etc.). The latter, therefore, must have written about B.C. G30 or 629. This vie^y receives some confirmation from the position of his projihecy in the O.-T. Canon.