The Pulpit Commentary — Habakkuk — Section 72

Vere. 3-16.-God poetically portrayed 0/IUl practie,a,lly remembered. "God came from Teman, and tho Holy One from Mount Paran. Selab," etc. The Bible contains n111ny grand songs and odes. There is the song that Moses taught Israel to sin<> (Exod. xv. 1). There is the triumphant Rong of Deborah and Barak (.J udg. v.). There is the song of Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. ii. 1). 'fhere is the song of David bewailing the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 19), and his song of thanksgiving after the communication of Nathan respecting the buil<lin" of the temple (2 Sam. vii. 18). There is the song of Hezekiah after he had received comfort in hie sickness and recovered his health (Isa. xxxviii. 9-20). There is the song of the blessed Virgin, Magnificat; the song of Zacharias, Benedictm ; the song of Simeon, Nwnc dimittis. But this song of Habakkuk stands in peerless splendour amongst them all. Here the majesty of God in Jewish history is poetical,ly portrayed and. practical,ly remembered. I. POETICALLY PORTRAYED. God is here presented, not as he is in himself-the Absolute One, whom "no one bath seen or can see," nor as he appears to philosophical or logical minds, but as he appears to a lofty imagination divinely inspired. To the prophet's imagination he appears as coming from Teman and Mount Paran, which refers to the visible display of his glory when he gave the Law upon Mount Sinai amidst thunders and lightnings and earthquakes. Then, indeed, his glory covered the heavens. People at a distance witnessed the splendour of his appearance and shout.ad his praise. He seemed encircled in surpassing radiance; his brightness was as the light; he "had horns coming out of his hand," and there was the "hiding of his power." Hendersbn renders it," Rays streamed from bis hand, yet the concealment of his glory was there."· The idea, perhaps, is that the brightness that was seen was not his full glory, but mere scintillations or emanations of those infinite abysses of his unrevealed and unrevealable glory. What is revealed of God is as nothing compared with the unrevealed. "Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet." Or, as Keil renders it, "Before him goes the plague, and the pestilence follows his feet." The reference is, perhaps, to the plagues which he brought upon the Egyptians in order to obtain the deliverance of his people. "He stood, and mea.5ured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting." "He stands, and sets the earth reeling: he looks, and makes nations tremble, primeval mountains burst in pieces, the early hills sink down: his are the ways of the olden tiI11.e" (Keil). "While," sa.ys Henderson," Jehova.h is marching forth to the delivernnce of his people, he stops a.ll of a. sudden in his progress, the immediate effects of which are universal consternation a.nd terror." "I ea.w the tents of Cushan in afHiction : and the curtains of the land of Midia.n did tremble." "When he drove asunder the nations of Canaan," says an old writer, "one might have seen the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian trembling, and all the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries taking alarm. He struck consternation into the heart of his enemies." "Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy cha.riots of salvation? The bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word? Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers." '" Was it against rivers, 0 Jehovah, against the rivers, that thy wrath wa.s kindled? that thou ridest hither upon thy horses, thy chariots of salvation? 'l'hy bow lays itself bare. Thou splittest the earth into rivers.' The ode, taking a new turn, now passes from the description of the coming of God to an address to God himself. To the mental eye of the prophet God presents himself as Judge of the world, in the threatening attitude of a wulike hero equipped for conflict, so that he asks him wha.t is the object of hiR wrath. The question is merely a poetical turn given to a lively composition, which expects no answer, and is simply introduced to ~et forth the greatness of the wrath uf God; so that in substance it is an affirmation. The wrath of God is kindled over. th<.l rivers, his fury over the eoo" (Keil). The riding upon horsos is a figurative repre- sentation of the celerity of his triumphant progress. "The mountains saw thee, and th(•y trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, :rnd li[ted np bis bands on high." "The mountains saw thee, they Wl're in pain: the iuumbtiou of water overflowed; the abyss uttered its voice, it rnisccl its hnllls c1 u 'i(\ THE BOOK OF HADAKKUK. [cH. m.1-l!l.