Habakkuk 1:1

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET HABAKKUK

Chronological Notes relative to this Book, upon the supposition that it was written a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before the commencement of the Christian era.

-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3404.

-Year of the Julian Period, 4114.

-Year since the Flood, 1748.

-Year since the vocation of Abram, 1321.

-Year from the foundation of Solomon's temple, 412.

-Year since the division of Solomon's monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 376.

-First year of the forty-fifth Olympiad.

-Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 121.

-Year before the birth of Jesus Christ, 596.

-Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 600.

-Cycle of the Sun, 26.

-Cycle of the Moon, 10.

-Third year of AEropas, king of Macedon.

-Twentieth year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia.

-Twenty-sixth year of Cyaxares or Cyaraxes, king of Media.

-Sixth year of Agasicles, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae.

-Eighth year of Leon, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae.

-Seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

-Seventeenth year of Tarquinius Priscus, king of the Romans.

-Eleventh year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah.

CHAPTER I

The prophet enters very abruptly on his subject, his spirit

being greatly indignant at the rapid progress of vice and

impiety, 1-4.

Upon which God is introduced threatening very awful and sudden

judgments to be indicted by the ministry of the Chaldeans,

5-10.

The Babylonians attribute their wonderful successes to their

idols, 11.

The prophet then, making a sudden transition, expostulates with

God (probably personating the Jews) for permitting a nation

much more wicked than themselves, as they supposed, to oppress

and devour them, as fishers and fowlers do their prey, 12-17.

We know little of this prophet; for what we find in the ancients concerning him is evidently fabulous, as well as that which appears in the Apocrypha. He was probably of the tribe of Simeon, and a native of Beth-zacar. It is very likely that he lived after the destruction of Nineveh, as he speaks of the Chaldeans, but makes no mention of the Assyrians. And he appears also to have prophesied before the Jewish captivity, see Habakkuk 1:5; Habakkuk 2:1; Habakkuk 3:2; Habakkuk 3:16; and therefore Abp. Newcome thinks he may be placed in the reign of Jehoiakim, between the years 606 B.C. and 598 B.C.

As a poet, Habakkuk holds a high rank among the Hebrew prophets. The beautiful connection between the parts of his prophecy, its diction, imagery, spirit, and sublimity, cannot be too much admired; and his hymn, Habakkuk 3:1, is allowed by the best judges to be a masterpiece of its kind. See Lowth's Praelect. xxi., xxviii.

NOTES ON CHAP. I

Verse Habakkuk 1:1. The burden] המשא hammassa signifies not only the burdensome prophecy, but the prophecy or revelation itself which God presented to the mind of Habakkuk, and which he saw - clearly perceived, in the light of prophecy, and then faithfully declared, as this book shows. The word signifies an oracle or revelation in general; but chiefly, one relative to future calamities.