Habakkuk 1:12

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. ART THOU NOT FROM OVERLASTING. In opposition to the impious deifying of the Chaldeans' power as their god (Maurer, or, as the English version, their attributing of their successes to their idols), the prophet, in an impassioned address to Yahweh, vindicates His being "from everlasting," as contrasted with the Chaldean so-called "god." O LORD MY GOD, MINE HOLY ONE? Habakkuk speaks in the name of his people. God was "the Holy One of Israel," against whom the Chaldean was setting up himself (Isaiah 37:23). WE SHALL NOT DIE - Thou, as being our God, wilt not permit the Chaldeans utterly to destroy us. This r...

The Prophet now exulting, according to what all the faithful feel, shows the effect of what he has just mentioned; for as ungodly men wantonly rise up against God, and, while Satan renders them insane, throw out swelling words of vanity, as though they could by speaking confound earth and heaven; so also the faithful derive a holy confidence from God’s word, and set themselves against them, and overcome their ferocity by the magnanimity and firmness of their own minds, so that they can intrepidly boast that they are happy and blessed even in the greatest miseries. This then is what the prophet means when he adds—_Art not thou our God? _The question is much more emphatical than if he had simply declared that the true God was worshipped in Judea, and would therefore be the protector of that nation; for when the Prophet puts a question, he means, according to what is commonly understood in...

12-17 However matters may be, yet God is the Lord our God, our Holy One. We are an offending people, he is an offended God, yet we will not entertain hard thoughts of him, or of his service. It is great comfort that, whatever mischief men design, the Lord designs good, and we are sure that his counsel shall stand. Though wickedness may prosper a while, yet God is holy, and does not approve the wickedness. As he cannot do iniquity himself, so he is of purer eyes than to behold it with any approval. By this principle we must abide, though the dispensations of his providence may for a time, in some cases, seem to us not to agree with it. The prophet complains that God's patience was abused; and because sentence against these evil works and workers was not executed speedily, their hearts were the more fully set in them to do evil. Some they take up as with the angle, one by one; others they...

Verse Habakkuk 1:12. _ART THOU NOT FROWN EVERLASTING_] The idols change, and their worshippers change and fail: but thou, Jehovah, art _eternal_; thou canst not change, and they who trust in thee are safe. Thou art infinite in thy mercy; therefore, "we shall not die," shall not be totally exterminated. _THOU HAST ORDAINED THEM FOR JUDGMENT_] Thou hast raised up the Chaldeans to correct and punish us; but thou hast not given them a commission to destroy us totally. Instead of לא נמות _lo namuth_, "we shall not die," _Houbigant_ and other critics, with a little transposition of letters, read אל אמת _El emeth_, "God of truth;" and then the verse will stand thus: "Art thou not from everlasting, O Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? O Jehovah, GOD OF TRUTH, thou hast appointed them for judgment." But this emendation, however elega

The prophet, having summed up the deeds of the enemy of God in this his end, sets forth his questions anew. He had appealed against the evil of the wicked of his people; he had been told of the vengeance by the Chaldaeans (Heading of Habakkuk 1). But the vengeance is executed by them who are far worse. How then? The answer is: “Wait to the end, and thou shalt see.” What remains are the triumphs of faith; the second chapter closes with the entire prostration of the whole world before God, and the whole prophecy with joyous trust in God amid the entire failure of all outward signs of hope. Here, like the Psalmists (Asaph, Psalms 73 Ethan Psalms 76:1) and Jeremiah...

EXPOSITION VERSE 1:1-2:20 PART I. JUDGMENT UPON THE EVIL, IN THE FORM OF A COLLOQUY BETWEEN THE PROPHET AND GOD. HABAKKUK 1:1 § 1. _The inscription of the book. _THE BURDEN (see note on Nahum 1:1). The prophet (Habakkuk 3:1). This title, which is added in the inscriptions only to the names of Haggai and Zechariah, and cursorily to that of Jeremiah (46, 47; 50.), implies that he exercised the pr

[ART] THOU NOT FROM EVERLASTING, O LORD MY GOD, MINE HOLY ONE?.... The prophet, foreseeing these calamities coming upon his nation and people, observes some things for their comfort in this verse; and expostulates with God in the following verses Habakkuk 1:13 about his providential dealings, in order to obtain an answer from him, which might remove the objections of his own mind, and those of other good men he personates, raised against them; being stumbled at this, that wicked men should be suffered to succeed and prosper, and the righteous should be afflicted and distressed by them: but for his own present consolation, and that of others, in a view of the worst that should befall them, he strongly asserts, WE SHALL NOT DIE; meaning not a corporeal death, for that all men die, good and bad; and this the Jews did die, and no doubt good men among them too, at the siege a

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS CHAPTER 1 The Judgment of Judah Through the Chaldeans Announced _ 1. The prophet's cry to Jehovah (Habakkuk 1:1) _ 2. The answer (Habakkuk 1:5) 3. The prophet's plea (Habakkuk 1:12) Habakkuk 1:1. The prophet begins his message with a prayer-cry to Jehovah. He whose name is “the embracer” embraces the Lord and cries to Him on account of the conditions prevailing in Judah. The Spirit of God stirred up the heart of Habakkuk on account of the moral conditions in Judah. He is jealous for Jehovah's glory, which manifested itself in hating the evil. “There is no prophetic

REMONSTRANCE OVER THE INHUMANITY OF THE CHALDEANS. The execution of Divine judgment raises fresh questions: Why should the Holy One, whose eyes are too pure to look on evil, appoint as minister of justice a people still more faithless and corrupt than its victim? And why should He make the nations like leaderless swarms of fish, to be swept into the net, and gathered up in the seine (drag-net), then emptied out and slaughtered, while the oppressor in brutal joy offers sacrifice to his nets? HABAKKUK 1:12. Read probably, Yahweh, my Holy God, that diest not? (_cf. mg_.). The second part of the _verse_ should also perhaps be taken interrogatively, Was it thou that didst ordain (appoint) him. for judgment? For _tsur_, Rock (which reads very awkwardly), Duhm suggests _tsir_, messenger or minister: thus, and established him as a minister of chastisement.

ART THOU NOT... ? Note the change of subject, as shown in the Structure above. GOD. Hebrew. _Elohim._ App-4. WE SHALL NOT DIE. This is one of the eighteen emendations of the _Sopherim_ (see App-33), which they say they made because it was considered offensive to say this of Jehovah; hence, the one word of the primitive text "who diest not" was changed to "who die not" (rendered in Authorized Version, Revised Version, and American Revised Version, "we shall not die"). This is the only one of the eighteen emendations which the Revised Version and American Revised Version notice, and speak of it in the margin as "an ancient Jewish tradition", whereas. list of such emendations is given in the _Massorah._ The change from the second person to the first did more than avoid the supposed irreverent expression; it transferred to mortal men the truth which, apart from resurrection, pertains to God...