Habakkuk

Habakkuk (Heb., 'embrace'), one of the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament. His personal history is unknown. In his book he appears as a prophet of Judah, announcing the divine chastisement which is to come upon his nation at the hands of the Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar. He was the first of the prophets who saw in the great victory of Carchemish (Cireesium), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the fall of the Egyptian supremacy before the young Babylonian king. His period is thus fixed in the last decade of the 7th century B.C. Both as a poem and as a prophecy his book holds a very high rank among the Old Testament scriptures. His aim was to inspire his nation with trust in Him who is the God of Israel from everlasting, his 'Holy One' (i. 12). After asking God why he had so long suffered his prophet to cry in vain for deliverance from the sight of iniquity and grievance (i. 2-4), he gives a vivid description of the Chaldeans (i. 5 et seqq.). Then he betakes himself in spirit to his watch-tower (chap. ii.), and sees that this violent nation shall at last become the scorn of the nations it has spoiled, its idols will be of no avail: 'Jehovah is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him' (ii. 20). From this prospect he rises to the prophetic height of the third chapter, which is a majestic hymn describing in the most striking images the appearance of the Almighty for judgment, and ending (16-19) with the impression produced by this prophecy on himself, and a beautiful expression of his confidence in God, whatever may befall. The keynote of the whole prophecy is the sentence in ii. 4: 'the just shall live by his faith,' quoted by St Paul in Rom. i. 17, and Gal. iii. 11. The best commentaries on Habakkuk are those of Delitzsch (1843), Hitzig (3d ed. 1863; 4th ed. by Steiner, 1881), Ewald (1867; Eng. trans. in vol. iii. of his Prophets, 1878), Kleinert (1869), and Keil (1873).