Habakkuk 1:5

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5-11) Jehovah’s answer to Habakkuk’s complaint. These disorders are to be punished by an invasion of Chaldæaus. The appearance, character, and operations of these invaders are described.

(5) Among the heathen.—These words are emphatic. They imply—Jehovah will no longer manifest Himself among His chosen people, but among the Gentiles. Let them look abroad, and they shall see Him using the Chaldæans as His instrument for their own chastisement. They are to “wonder,” not at God’s choice of an agent, but at the consequences of the visitation, which resulted in the sack of the Temple, and the deportation of 10,000 captives; a work which the Jews might well not have credited, though it were told them. The words “among the heathen” (bag-gôyim) were, probably, misread by the LXX. translators bôg’dîm. Hence the translation, Καταϕρονηταί, “ye despisers.” In Acts 13:41 St. Paul is represented as citing the verse in its LXX. form, as a warning to his Jewish hearers at Antioch. This citation, of course, gives no authority whatever to the variant. Nor is it certain that St. Paul did not actually quote the Hebrew form of the verse, which would seem more appropriate to the circumstances than the other. (Comp. Acts 13:42; Acts 13:46 seq.). That St. Luke should substitute the Greek variant is intelligible enough.

Benson Commentary

Habakkuk 1:5. Behold, &c. — For a punishment of such exorbitant practices, behold, God is about to make the heathen the instruments of his vengeance. Ye among the heathen, and regard — Consider and weigh it well, in its nature and consequences; for it is intended as a warning to you, and assures you that judgment will overtake you also. And wonder marvellously — As astonished at judgments too great to be described, and so strange that they will appear to many, even of God’s professing people, to be incredible. For I will work a work, &c., which ye will not believe — The judgment shall be such, as you despisers of God’s word will not believe to be coming upon you. These words are referred to, and indeed quoted, by St. Paul, Acts 13:41; not, however, according to the Hebrew text, but the translation of the LXX., who, instead of בגוים, begoim, among the heathen, seem to have read בגדום, begadim, despisers, or perfidious persons. This reading of the LXX. is preferred by Grotius, because, he observes, “God addresses the Jews who were despisers of his deity.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold ye among the heathen - The whole tone of the words suddenly changes. The Jews flattered themselves that, being the people of God, He would not fulfill His threats upon them. They had become like the pagan in wickedness; God bids them look out among them for the instrument of His displeasure. It was an aggravation of their punishment, that God, who had once chosen them, would now choose these whom He had not chosen, to chasten them. So Moses had foretold; Deuteronomy 32:21, "They have moved Me to jealousy by that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with not-a-people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." There were no tokens of the storm which should sweep them away, yet on the horizon. No forerunners yet. And so He bids them gaze on among the nations, to see whence it should come. They might have expected it from Egypt. It should come whence they did not expect, with a fierceness and terribleness which they imagined not.

Regard - look narrowly, weigh well what it portends.

And wonder marvelously - literally, "be amazed, amazed." The word is doubled to express how amazement should follow upon amazement; when the first was passing away, new source of amazement should come; for .

I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. - So incredible it will be, and so against their wills! He does not say, "ye would not believe if it were told you;" much less "if it were told you of others;" in which case the chief thought would be left unexpressed. No condition is expressed. It is simply foretold, what was verified by the whole history of their resistance to the Chaldees until the capture of the city; "Ye will not believe, when it shall be told you." So it ever is. Man never believes that God is in earnest until His judgments come. So it was before the flood, and with Sodom, and with Lot's sons-in-law; so it was with Ahab and Jezebel; so with this destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, and what is shadowed forth, by the Romans. So Jeremiah complained Jeremiah 5:12, "They have belied the Lord, and said, it is not He; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine," and Jeremiah 20:7-8, "I am in derision daily; everyone mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily;" and Isaiah Isa 53:1, "Who hath believed our report?" and John the Immerser speaks as though it were desperate Matthew 3:7; "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" and our Lord tells them Matthew 23:38; Luke 13:35, "Your house is left unto you desolate."

And yet they believed not, but delivered Him up to be put to death, lest that should be, which did come, because they put Him to death John 11:48. "If we let Him thus alone, all people will believe on Him; and the Romans shall come, and take away both our place and nation." Therefore, Paul applies these words to the Jews in his day, because the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar was an image of the destruction of the second temple (which by divine appointment, contrary to man's intention, took place on the same day ), and the Chaldaeans were images of the Romans, that second Babylon, pagan Rome; and both foreshowed the worse destruction by a fiercer enemy - the enemy of souls - the spiritual wasting and desolation which came upon the Jew first, and which shall come on all who disobey the gospel. So it shall be to the end. Even now, the Jews believe not, whose work their own dispersion is; His, who by them was crucified, but who has "all power in heaven and in earth" Matthew 28:18. The Day of Judgment will come like a thief in the night to those who believe not or obey not our Lord's words.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. Behold … marvellously … a work—(Compare Isa 29:14). Quoted by Paul (Ac 13:41).

among the heathen—In Ac 13:41, "ye despisers," from the Septuagint. So the Syriac and Arabic versions; perhaps from a different Hebrew reading. In the English Version reading of Habakkuk, God, in reply to the prophet's expostulation, addresses the Jews as about to be punished, "Behold ye among the heathen (with whom ye deserve to be classed, and by whom ye shall be punished, as despisers; the sense implied, which Paul expresses): learn from them what ye refused to learn from Me!" For "wonder marvellously," Paul, in Ac 13:41, has, "wonder and perish," which gives the sense, not the literal wording, of the Hebrew, "Wonder, wonder," that is, be overwhelmed in wonder. The despisers are to be given up to their own stupefaction, and so perish. The Israelite unbelievers would not credit the prophecy as to the fearfulness of the destruction to be wrought by the Chaldeans, nor afterwards the deliverance promised from that nation. So analogously, in Paul's day, the Jews would not credit the judgment coming on them by the Romans, nor the salvation proclaimed through Jesus. Thus the same Scripture applied to both.

ye will not believe, though it be told you—that is, ye will not believe now that I foretell it.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Behold ye: here God begins to answer the prophet, and calls for a very particular and exact consideration of the thing; see and ponder.

Among the heathen; what judgments, what punishments have been executed upon the heathen, for like sins.

Regard; weigh it well in all its tendency and consequence, for it is a warning to you, it assures you judgment will overtake you also. Wonder marvellously; as astonished at judgments, too great to be expressed in words, and so strange that it will seem too much to be believed.

For I, the great and glorious God, the just and supreme Judge,

will work a work; begin, continue, and finish a work; a work I am working, a work of equal severity and justice.

In your days; it shall no more be deferred, Ezekiel 7:5, &c.

Ye will not believe; you wicked violent oppressors will not believe, though the Lord by his prophets foretell it.

Told you; described how, and by whom, and when.

Behold ye: here God begins to answer the prophet, and calls for a very particular and exact consideration of the thing; see and ponder.

Among the heathen; what judgments, what punishments have been executed upon the heathen, for like sins.

Regard; weigh it well in all its tendency and consequence, for it is a warning to you, it assures you judgment will overtake you also. Wonder marvellously; as astonished at judgments, too great to be expressed in words, and so strange that it will seem too much to be believed.

For I, the great and glorious God, the just and supreme Judge,

will work a work; begin, continue, and finish a work; a work I am working, a work of equal severity and justice.

In your days; it shall no more be deferred, Ezekiel 7:5, &c.

Ye will not believe; you wicked violent oppressors will not believe, though the Lord by his prophets foretell it.

Told you; described how, and by whom, and when.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard,.... This is the Lord's answer to the prophet's complaint, or what he directs him to say to the Jews, guilty of the crimes complained of, which should not go long unpunished; and who are called upon to look around them, and see what was doing among the nations; how the king of Babylon had overturned the Assyrian empire, and was going from place to place, subduing one nation after another, and their turn would be quickly: for these words are not addressed to the heathen, to stir them up to observe what was doing, or about to be done, to the Jews; but to the Jews themselves, to consider and regard the operations of the Lord, and the works of his providence among the nations of the earth. These words are differently rendered in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and which better agree with the quotation of them by the apostle; see Gill on Acts 13:41,

and wonder marvellously; or "wonder, wonder" (s); the word is repeated, to express the great admiration there would be found just reason for, on consideration of what was now doing in the world, and would be done, especially in Judea:

for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you; which was the destruction of the Jewish nation, city, and temple, by the Chaldeans, as is evident from the following words; and, though they were the instruments of it, it was the work of divine Providence; it was done according to the will of God, and by his direction, he giving success; and, being thus declared, was a certain thing, and might be depended on, nothing should hinder it; and it should be done speedily, in that generation, some then living should see it; though the thing was so amazing and incredible, that they would not believe it ever would be; partly because the Chaldeans were their good friends and allies, as they thought, as appears by Josiah's going out against the king of Egypt, when he was marching his army against the king of Babylon; and partly because they were the covenant people of God, and would never be abandoned and given up by him into the hands of another people; and therefore, when they were told of it by the prophets of the Lord, especially by Jeremiah, time after time; who expressly said the king of Babylon would come against them, and they would be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans; yet they would give no credit to it, till their ruin came upon them, as may be observed in various parts of his prophecy. The apostle quotes this passage in the place above mentioned, and applies it to the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, for their contemptuous rejection of the Messiah and his Gospel; which yet they would not believe to the last, though it was foretold by Christ and his apostles.

(s) "et admiramini, admiramini", Vatablus, Drusius, Burkius.

Geneva Study Bible

Behold ye among the nations, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which {d} ye will not believe, though it be told you.

(d) As in times past you would not believe God's word, so you will not now believe the strange plagues which are at hand.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. behold ye among the heathen] among the nations. For “among the nations” Sept. read “ye despisers” (bgdm for bgym), and part of the phrase “wonder marvellously” they translated “and perish.” With this translation the “despisers” addressed are the wrongdoers of Habakkuk 1:1-4.

I will work a work] R.V. marg. one worketh a work, a construction equivalent to the pass., a work is wrought; Isaiah 21:11 “one calleth unto me out of Seir.” This is not very natural. Though the omission of pron. “I” is perhaps without parallel, A.V. is more probable. So Sept. The rendering he worketh would be more according to usage, but the connexion with Habakkuk 1:6 is then broken.

ye will not believe] Perhaps: ye would not believe though it were told you, i.e. in other circumstances—unless you saw it.

5–11. The answer of God to the Prophet’s complaint

The wrongs complained of will bring their punishment. The Lord raiseth up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation. They are irresistible; they laugh at kings, and fortresses they heap up dust and take.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 5-11. - § 3. To this appeal answers that he will send the Chaldeans to punish the evil doers with a terrible vengeance; but rinse, his instruments, shall themselves offend by pride and impiety. Verse 5. - Behold ye among the heathen; the nations. God, in answer, bids the prophet and his people look among the nations for those who shall punish the iniquities of which he complains. I will use a heathen nation, he says, as my instrument to chastise the sinners in Judaea; and you shall see that I have not disregarded the evil that is rife among you. Some commentators suppose that the impious are addressed; but Habakkuk spoke in the name and person of the righteous, and to them the answer must be directed. The LXX, gives, Ιδετε, οἱ καταφρονηταί, "Behold, ye despisers," which is justifiable. St. Paul quotes the Greek Version, Acts 13:41, in his sermon at Antioch in the Jewish synagogue, warning those who despised the gospel This was sufficiently close to the Hebrew for his purpose. And regard, and wonder marvellously. They are to wonder because the work is as terrible as it is unexpected. The LXX. (quoted by St. Paul, loc. cit.) adds, καὶ ἀφανίσθητε, "and perish," or rather, "be stupefied by astonishment," die of amazement. I will work; I work. The pronoun is not expressed, but must be supplied from ver. 6. It is God who sends the avengers. In your days. The prophet had asked (ver. 2), "How long?" The answer is that those now living should see the chastisement (see Introduction, § III.). Which ye will not believe. If ye heard of it as happening elsewhere, ye would not give credit to it; the punishment itself and its executors are both unexpected (comp. Lamentations 4:12). Habakkuk 1:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Look ye among the nations, and see, and be amazed, amazed! for I work a work in your days: ye would not believe it if it were told you." The appeal to see and be amazed is addressed to the prophet and the people of Judah together. It is very evident from Habakkuk 1:6 that Jehovah Himself is speaking here, and points by anticipation to the terrible nature of the approaching work of His punitive righteousness, although פּעל is written indefinitely, without any pronoun attached. Moreover, as Delitzsch and Hitzig observe, the meaning of the appeal is not, "Look round among the nations, whether any such judgment has ever occurred;" but, "Look about among the nations, for it is thence that the terrible storm will burst that is about to come upon you" (cf. Jeremiah 25:32; Jeremiah 13:20). The first and ordinary view, in support of which Lamentations 1:12; Jeremiah 2:10 and Jeremiah 18:13, are generally adduced, is precluded by the fact, (1) that it is not stated for what they are to look round, namely, whether anything of the kind has occurred here or there (Jeremiah 2:10); (2) that the unparalleled occurrence has not been mentioned at all yet; and (3) that what they are to be astonished or terrified at is not their failure to discover an analogy, but the approaching judgment itself. The combination of the kal, tâmâh, with the hiphil of the same verb serves to strengthen it, so as to express the highest degree of amazement (cf. Zephaniah 2:1; Psalm 18:11, and Ewald, 313, c). כּי, for, introduces the reason not only for the amazement, but also for the summons to look round. The two clauses of the second hemistich correspond to the two clauses of the first half of the verse. They are to look round, because Jehovah is about to perform a work; they are to be amazed, or terrified, because this work is an amazing or a terrible one. The participle פּעל denotes that which is immediately at hand, and is used absolutely, without a pronoun. According to Habakkuk 1:6, אני is the pronoun we have to supply. For it is not practicable to supply הוּא, or to take the participle in the sense of the third person, since God, when speaking to the people, cannot speak of Himself in the third person, and even in that case יהוה could not be omitted. Hitzig's idea is still more untenable, namely, that pō‛al is the subject, and that pō‛ēl is used in an intransitive sense: the work produces its effect. We must assume, as Delitzsch does, that there is a proleptical elipsis, i.e., one in which the word immediately following is omitted (as in Isaiah 48:11; Zechariah 9:17). The admissibility of this assumption is justified by the fact that there are other cases in which the participle is used and the pronoun omitted; and that not merely the pronoun of the third person (e.g., Isaiah 2:11; Jeremiah 38:23), but that of the second person also (1 Samuel 2:24; 1 Samuel 6:3, and Psalm 7:10). On the expression בּימיכם (in your days), see the Introduction. לא תאמינוּ, ye would not believe it if it were told you, namely, as having occurred in another place of at another time, if ye did not see it yourselves (Delitzsch and Hitzig). Compare Acts 13:41, where the Apostle Paul threatens the despisers of the gospel with judgment in the words of our verse.