2 How long, O Lord, will your ears be shut to my voice? I make an outcry to you about violent behaviour, but you do not send salvation. 3 Why do you make me see evil-doing, and why are my eyes fixed on wrong? for wasting and violent acts are before me: and there is fighting and bitter argument. 4 For this reason the law is feeble and decisions are not effected: for the upright man is circled round by evil-doers; because of which right is twisted.
5 See among the nations, and take note, and be full of wonder: for in your days I am doing a work in which you will have no belief, even if news of it is given to you. 6 For see, I am sending the Chaldaeans, that bitter and quick-moving nation; who go through the wide spaces of the earth to get for themselves living-places which are not theirs. 7 They are greatly to be feared: their right comes from themselves. 8 And their horses are quicker than leopards and their horsemen more cruel than evening wolves; they come from far away, like an eagle in flight rushing on its food. 9 They are coming all of them with force; the direction of their faces is forward, the number of their prisoners is like the sands of the sea. 10 He makes little of kings, rulers are a sport to him; all the strong places are to be laughed at; for he makes earthworks and takes them. 11 Then his purpose will be changed, over-stepping the limit; he will make his strength his god.
12 Are you not eternal, O Lord my God, my Holy One? for you there is no death. O Lord, he has been ordered by you for our punishment; and by you, O Rock, he has been marked out to put us right. 13 Before your holy eyes sin may not be seen, and you are unable to put up with wrong; why, then, are your eyes on the false? why do you say nothing when the evil-doer puts an end to one who is more upright than himself? 14 He has made men like the fishes of the sea, like the worms which have no ruler over them. 15 He takes them all up with his hook, he takes them in his net, getting them together in his fishing-net: for which cause he is glad and full of joy. 16 For this reason he makes an offering to his net, burning perfume to his fishing-net; because by them he gets much food and his meat is fat. 17 For this cause his net is ever open, and there is no end to his destruction of the nations.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Habakkuk 1:2-17
Commentary on Habakkuk 1:1-11
(Read Habakkuk 1:1-11)
The servants of the Lord are deeply afflicted by seeing ungodliness and violence prevail; especially among those who profess the truth. No man scrupled doing wrong to his neighbour. We should long to remove to the world where holiness and love reign for ever, and no violence shall be before us. God has good reasons for his long-suffering towards bad men, and the rebukes of good men. The day will come when the cry of sin will be heard against those that do wrong, and the cry of prayer for those that suffer wrong. They were to notice what was going forward among the heathen by the Chaldeans, and to consider themselves a nation to be scourged by them. But most men presume on continued prosperity, or that calamities will not come in their days. They are a bitter and hasty nation, fierce, cruel, and bearing down all before them. They shall overcome all that oppose them. But it is a great offence, and the common offence of proud people, to take glory to themselves. The closing words give a glimpse of comfort.
Commentary on Habakkuk 1:12-17
(Read Habakkuk 1:12-17)
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 catch in shoals, as in their net, and gather them in their drag, their enclosing net. They admire their own cleverness and contrivance: there is great proneness in us to take the glory of outward prosperity to ourselves. This is idolizing ourselves, sacrificing to the drag-net because it is our own. God will soon end successful and splendid robberies. Death and judgment shall make men cease to prey on others, and they shall be preyed on themselves. Let us remember, whatever advantages we possess, we must give all the glory to God.