1 I will stand at my watch, and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
He cried as a lion: Lord, I stand continually on the watch-tower in the day-time, and am set in my ward whole nights;
I will hear what God, Yahweh, will speak, For he will speak peace to his people, his saints; But let them not turn again to folly.
to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn't immediately confer with flesh and blood,
seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me; who toward you is not weak, but is powerful in you.
Aren't you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious, and his food is good. Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?
Righteous are you, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet would I reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?
I have set watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day nor night: you who call on Yahweh, take no rest,
Now David was sitting between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate to the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, a man running alone.
When I tried to understand this, It was too painful for me; Until I entered God's sanctuary, And considered their latter end.
I would declare to him the number of my steps. As a prince would I go near to him.
Oh that I had one to hear me! (Behold, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me); Let the accuser write my indictment!
I would know the words which he would answer me, And understand what he would tell me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No, but he would listen to me. There the upright might reason with him, So I should be delivered forever from my judge.
The children of Israel did secretly things that were not right against Yahweh their God: and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Habakkuk 2
Commentary on Habakkuk 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
In this chapter we have an answer expected by the prophet (v. 1), and returned by the Spirit of God, to the complaints which the prophet made of the violences and victories of the Chaldeans in the close of the foregoing chapter. The answer is,
Hab 2:1-4
Here,
Hab 2:5-14
The prophet having had orders to write the vision, and the people to wait for the accomplishment of it, the vision itself follows; and it is, as divers other prophecies we have met with, the burden of Babylon and Babylon's king, the same that was said to pass over and offend, ch. 1:11. It reads the doom, some think, of Nebuchadnezzar, who was principally active in the destruction of Jerusalem, or of that monarchy, or of the whole kingdom of the Chaldeans, or of all such proud and oppressive powers as bear hard upon any people, especially upon God's people. Observe,
Hab 2:15-20
The three foregoing articles, upon which the woes here are grounded, are very near akin to each other. The criminals charged by them are oppressors and extortioners, that raise estates by rapine and injustice; and it is mentioned here again (v. 17), the very same that was said v. 8, for that is the crime upon which the greatest stress is laid; it is because of men's blood, innocent blood, barbarously and unjustly shed, which is a provoking crying thing; it is for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein, which God will certainly reckon for, sooner or later, as the asserter of right and the avenger of wrong.
But here are two articles more, of a different nature, which carry a woe to all those in general to whom they belong, and particularly to the Babylonian monarchs, by whom the people of God were taken and held captives.