Habakkuk 1 WBT
Summary: Unlike most prophets, Habakkuk opens by arguing with God: how long must he cry out about violence and injustice in Judah while the LORD does nothing, letting the law grow slack and the wicked surround the righteous (v. 2-4)? God's answer is startling — he is raising up the Chaldeans (Babylonians), a fierce and feared nation whose horses are swifter than leopards and who sweep in like the east wind to seize dwellings not their own. Habakkuk then voices a second, harder complaint: how can the LORD, whose eyes are too pure to look on evil, use a nation more wicked than Judah to punish it, letting them gloat and haul in people "like fish with a hook" (v. 14-15)?
1The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! [even] cry out to thee [of] violence, and thou wilt not save!
3Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause [me] to behold grievance? for devastation and violence [are] before me: and there are [that] raise strife and contention.
4Therefore the law is slackened, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth encompass the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.
5Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for [I] will work a work in your days, [which] ye will not believe though it be told [you].
6For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, [that] bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places [that are] not theirs.
7They [are] terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.
8Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle [that] hasteth to eat.
9They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up [as] the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
10And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.
11Then shall [his] mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, [imputing] this his power to his god.
12[Art] thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.
13[Thou art] of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: why lookest thou on them that deal treacherously, [and] keepest silence when the wicked devoureth [the man that is] more righteous than he?
14And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping animals [that have] no ruler over them?
15They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion [is] fat, and their food plenteous.
17Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?
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