Habakkuk 1:14

And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? AND MAKEST MEN AS THE FISH - i:e., and so, by suffering oppressors to go unpunished, "thou makest men as the fish ... that have no ruler" - i:e., no defender. All may fish in the sea with impunity; so the Chaldeans with impunity afflict thy people, as these have no longer the God of the theocracy, their King, to defend them. Thou reducest men to such a state of anarchy, by wrong going unpunished, as if there was no God. He compares the world to the sea; men to fish; Nebuchadnezzar to a fisherman (Habakkuk 1:15)....

He goes on, as it has been said, in his complaint; and by a comparison he shows that the judgement would be such as though God turned away from men, so as not to check the violence of the wicked, nor oppose his hand to their wantonness, in order to restrain them. Since, then, every one would oppress another as he exceeded him in power, and would with increased insolence rise up against the miserable and the poor, the Prophet compares man to the fish of the sea,—“What can this mean?” he says. “For men have been created after God’s image: why then does not some justice appear among them? When one devours another, and even one man oppresses almost the whole world, what can be the meaning of this? God seems to sport with human affairs. For if he regards men as his children, why does he not defend them by his power? But we see one man (for he speaks of the Assyrian king) so enraged and so cru...

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 1:14. _MAKEST MEN AS THE FISHES OF THE SEA_] Easily are we taken and destroyed. We have no _leader_ to guide us, and no _power_ to defend ourselves. Nebuchadnezzar is here represented as a fisherman, who is constantly casting his nets into the sea, and enclosing multitudes of fishes; and, being always successful, he sacrifices to his own net-attributes all his conquests to his own power and prudence; not considering that he is only like a _net_ that after having been used for a while, shall at last be thrown by as useless, or burnt in the fire....

AND MAKEST MEN AS THE FISHES OF THE SEA - mute, helpless, in a stormy, restless element, no cry heard, but themselves swept away in shoals, with no power to resist. AS THE CREEPING THINGS - whether of the land (as it is mostly used), or the sea Psalms 104:25. Either way, it is a contemptuous name for the lowest of either. THAT HAVE NO RULER OVER THEM - none to guide, order, protect them, and so a picture of man deprived of the care and providence of God....

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

AND MAKEST MEN AS THE FISHES OF THE SEA,.... That is, sufferest them to be used as the fishes of the sea, which are easily taken in the net, and are common to everyone; whosoever will may take them up, and kill them, and use them for their food; and which also among themselves are often hardly used, the lesser being devoured by the greater; and in like manner the prophet suggests, that the people of the Jews, who were men made after the image of God, and made for society and usefulness, and moreover were God's covenant people; and it might have been expected, that a more special providence would have attended them, more than other men, and especially than what attended the fishes of the sea; yet it looked as if there were no more care taken of them than of these: AS THE CREEPING THINGS [THAT HAVE] NO RULER OVER THEM; not the creeping things of the earth, but of the water, the lesser sor...

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.

MEN. Hebrew. _'adam._ App-14....