Literal Commentary on Habakkuk

The Commentary of Habakkuk the Prophet, Literally The Commentary of Habakkuk the Prophet, literally, after Sennacherib the Assyrian had led the ten tribes into captivity and had withdrawn and gone up to Jerusalem, and there, with the angels, the city was destroyed, Habakkuk began his prophecy to the sons of Judah. And it is in the time of the Chaldeans and the Aramaeans, and his prophecy is to the people and to the Babylonians. He says, "How long, O Lord, shall I cry out, and you not hear?" when he is oppressed, he says, "Woe!" but when he marvels at the courage of the spirit of God. He saw the plunderers of many who were rich in their possessions, and many wrongdoers, and he was asking that a leader be set over them, and he did not rest from his petition. And concerning them he says, "How long shall I cry out?" when he asks, "I cry out that a judgment may come upon the plunderers and that the oppressors may be punished, and that the righteous may be saved." It was before me that he said, "Woe! Evil things do not hear instruction, but before me my deeds and my petitions have seen that righteousness has been cast down." He says, "The law is turned aside, the law is perverted by bribery, as if sin were a thing that is completely abolished." He says, "In victories, as if it were fitting for the rectitude of the law." He saw the arrogant, he says, "They are arrayed on the faces of their wickedness." And they looked and wondered, he says, "They looked and were astonished at those who are being acted upon, knowing that God does not completely tolerate you." For it is not far off that a leader who is prepared for you will be set with him. "In your days," he says, "In your days, indeed, that which is fulfilled in great wonder will come and establish you.

and Hezekiah brought out a wondrous, terrifying, and deceptive vision of the departure of souls from bodies and the burial of dust; he cast dust into the air and heaped it up like a mound of earth, and upon that he ascended the walls and subdued the cities and captured them. Then his spirit changed; he gave a sign concerning the beginning of the destruction of the Babylonians and the beginning of what happened to the people from the evils. And he said, "My spirit changed; my evil desire ceased and my pride passed away." By the justice of God he said that his desire changes and his wrath passes away from the people. And the power of the Babylonian was weakened with the God of the people; for you are the one who, from the beginning, is the doer of such things; you are God, for from the beginning you are the doer of such things; your existence is in this, that from the beginning you have done great things to the Egyptians and the Chaldeans. Your holy power is not changed; this is foolishness that is before. For you are not under law, since under law you placed all who kill, that a killer be killed. You move your spirit upon him. And not in the order of deeds known are you under law. You placed him for judgment; you prepared his judgment to decree judgment upon them, and you created me to show and declare how they patiently bear it. Why do you look with contempt upon the Babylonians? And you are silent with the complaint, while the iniquity of the Babylonians devours the Jews or the rich of the people like fish. For like fish, because of the movement of your spirit, you do not pursue them to the foolish ones; you have done like the fish of the sea that swallow and are swallowed with each other.

and he was caught in the net of the vision of the one who, in the form and body, moves the souls, not a vision that is revealed upon this, but one and the same in his body. Thus also in the Babylonian, he cast all his lot in the likeness of souls, and one and the same in the destruction of the hair. Among the peoples, when he did not cut. And he sacrificed to his net, and while he was performing the hair, he did not perceive that he had given him this power, but the power of his own soul, and he cut off the limbs of his armor and gave it to the performer. And a very small vision was revealed upon his own soul, that of God. For in that hearing, he was revealed upon the soul of that God, and by his power the kingdom was strengthened and his table was spread with goods. Chapter 2: On the place where I stand, I am not able to stand as I was, for the true movement that is revealed to me, everything that I said, I am able to stand in my place truly, while I am not able to stand at all with that which is fitting and right for me. I am able to pass over the boundaries of my house and look and see what God wills for me upon the face of my reception that I approached before him. What I learned, I approached with difficulty to the covering and the caution of the hearers. And this is what is returned to me. Write the vision that the Lord showed to him, write upon the tablets that he read. The sign of the end that he placed at the head of the cut upon the Babylonians, the sign in its time and not deceitful. Do not cut yourself off from your strength, because God does not will iniquity that does not reconcile his confessions. The righteous one, however, with the difficulty in that which he believes and reconciles that those confessions that God made upon this life are and he rejoices over that which he sees the coming upon the Babylonians. He does not become weary, nor is he left to eat and be satisfied with the goods of the peoples.

quickly it follows. The covering and the honor placed upon him as a head, which resembles the image of the cross in which he is immersed and lost. Behold, when the Medes and Persians, your fierce ones, are quieted and your young men and Persians, your strong ones, are roused. And woe to the world, and he thinks that, like something placed in a high place and not at night, it is revealed, so also he, in the pursuit. Because a stone, when it is a foundation, is hidden; for this entire greatness of yours is for plunder. For there is nothing in your house that is not from plunder and theft, even down to the smallest peg, which is placed under a statue or a cross that is fixed in the corners or between the villages. The witnesses testify that from the theft of the Syrians they are caught. Again, he calls a cross to that which is cut from wood and fixed in the foundation. The Hebrews, instead of cross, say "aspiyana," which is a small piece of wood that is bent and twisted like your plunder in the corners or between the villages, like a dwelling and an addition that is placed. The neck is satisfied with honor. Before I stood, it was turned. Upon you, the head-covering is placed, that which all the nations drank from your hands, the gods turned against you, and through it they are filled and arrayed against you. Like the river that, after it has watered the people, its master of the house also waters it upon its hardness, the head-covering teaches, because the blow in this right hand, the mighty one, when with the left and the neck upon the honor, then all your honor is turned into the neck that comes to you from the hands of the Lord, or your former honor is changed into the neck. Because the plunder of the heart is the head-covering instead of the plunder of these who dwell in the mountain of the heart, your Cushites.

O Lord, I have heard your name. It is fitting for prayer, and through it one inquires into the future things that are written in Hebrew: a prayer concerning errors. It is a ransom, and it is not right that it be considered concerning the prophet who erred. O Lord, when I heard and learned through revelation concerning the placing of a head upon the dead, you came upon the people, and after you turned against the Babylonians, fear was fulfilled. Instead of your name, "your hearing" he says, "your revelation." Within the hour, within the times of these who are now living, and within this generation that stands, your deeds are revealed, and this he said concerning the people: that within the times you will be known in the times that are destined to come through the destruction of the Babylonians and the salvation of the people. You are known to every high and exalted one. In wrath, your mercies turn toward the Babylonians, who act like these, but toward the people you are moved with mercy, and in the midst of the wrath of captivity, your mercy was remembered for them, and you turned toward them. God, with Timotheus, with Jerusalem, came against Babylon and destroyed it and saved his people. And the holy one, with Mount Paran, in the land of the kingdom, came against the Edomites, and when it was destroyed by the people, he came and dwelt in Jerusalem with splendor and this. In the city of his hands, these wonders he performed in Jerusalem. This, which was sought in deeds and was established through salvation, when he established his dwelling within and [...] the remainder in his strength for its inhabitants. And for its language, likewise its territory and its region, again all its region and its territory, likewise he took it, delighting in the light of revelation. Before him went death, placing a head upon the Babylonians.

And when God is stirred and goes forth to fulfill the words of the prophets concerning the Babylonians, he goes forth upon the Medes in the manner of a bird to fulfill his command. They were enraged and deceived; he was enraged against them in wrath, and cast and deceived them, as though he were a hunter who casts a net upon the birds before his eyes, beneath the shadow of the tree. This is the land of the Medes, which is that of the Medes. For it is not only to the Assyrians and Babylonians that he is destined to do such things in the end, but also beforehand, when he was in the land, he was seen in the destruction of enemies, and especially of the Medes, who were sitting beneath the shadow of the tree of the idol. When he destroyed the wicked king Kush and his son, his army, by means of weak men who were able. It is possible that Kush said concerning them that they were examined for the stump of the star of the hair of life, which was turned into the rest of his kingdom. And it is known how they dwelt in tents. The Ionians replaced Kush. He says "Kushite" because the Medes strike the Kushites and are called Kushites. The land of the Babylonians, in its splendors, in Media and Persia, will be laid low, will be plundered, will be laid waste, will be desolated, and will be scattered like abundant waters that flow and are destroyed and are left. "See the mountains," he says concerning the enemies who were like mountains and like the torrent of waters, a plain and a flood. That which was small and passed over those who were destined, he says that they tremble and pass over. The depth of the abyss, its voice, is Babylon, its voice is that of the cry and shout from the harshness of the blow of the swallowing. And the raising of his hands, he took to you to entreat you, and it is not hindered.

stirred and went forth. And when God is stirred and goes forth to fulfill the words of the prophets concerning the Babylonians, he goes forth upon the Medes in the manner of a bird to fulfill his command. They were enraged and deceived; he was stirred and went forth. Now also when he went forth against the Babylonians, all of them were stirred. The sun and the moon, those two, he set against the Babylonians as a bird with a people from captivity, and he rejoiced joyfully at the end of the nobles. Others. For this which Jesus son of Nun did in the noble city of Jericho, he remembered. And in the light of your arrows, it is clearly as in the light of the sun, his arrows went forth against the enemies. Again, in the light, is it not that which is born after the destruction of the Babylonians, that which is fulfilled by your arrows? The Jews went forth and returned to their land. The end of the head, its passage to the kingdom with the body of the Babylonian, when she left in her house a man who was worthy of his headship. And she sent him, she sent him with honor, when she crushed all of them in the appointment of the head, the fathers with the sons. And until its form, until the going out of the soul, or he called the kingdom a form. She terrified with his rods the Medes. His rulers, of the Babylonians, she terrified, she shook and broke. She trod upon the sea, which is Babylon. Upon your horses, angels or Medes and enemies who were like the sound of many waters, she stirred and troubled. She heard and trembled, when she heard by revelation of the evils that were coming upon the former people and upon the Babylonians at the end. She stood in trembling and quaking. Against the speech of that which was revealed to me with God. Against the speech of the prayer of my lips which was crushed for me and showed upon the appointment of the head that was about to come upon the people and upon the Babylonians after you.

because she would show the severity of the imposition of the first one that came upon the Babylonians, that with the affliction of enemies, even with the shaving of hair and with the stripping of garments, they were disciplined, as also the people were disciplined in both. But this, but this in the Lord, that is, the person of the people, he says these things because he relied on his promises that after seventy years he would make a return. The end of the interpretation of the prophecy of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is interpreted as "embrace." Now when Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem, he fled, and after that, when he returned to his land and was serving the idols, he took a basket and was carried to his own place to go to a distant region and quickly returned. And he went to Babylon and gave food to Daniel and returned and perceived that he quickly returned with the people. He was carried because of the injustice of the people and their lack of faith and their rapacity and the stirring of the spirit of God over them and because of Nebuchadnezzar. The prophecy is because of Christ and the Church and because of the stirring of the spirit of good. Habakkuk supposes that he is not angry. And therefore he says, "You are not a God of lawlessness," because the iniquity that did evil, evil indeed, to the Babylonians to the Israelites, and he sacrificed to his own image to the idols that he had set up with spices when he thought that by them he would conquer. "Upon my place I will stand," that is, seventy upon the rock, that is, I will stand upon the destruction of the Babylonians. And the righteous one in faith is the brother, that is, the one who believes that the Babylonians are destined to perish. And the wicked man is the Babylonian, the Lord and the knower. The rock, what is it? The cry is the cry that cries out against you, O world, because to all alike it is for the wicked and the righteous.

to the known custom with blood upon the Jews who were being slaughtered, because it is said after her that the earth would be filled, and the rest that was not filled except in the days of the Messiah. The rest, however, was upon the Babylonians and the Israelites. And he who was to afflict was Nebuchadnezzar, who used to afflict the chiefs of the peoples. He also gave the Jews wine mixed with something intoxicating, as they stripped and uncovered their shame and laughed at them. He would clothe them in garments that were not sewn, their captives. Lord, I have heard your name, that of Elijah, that plagues came upon the arrogant. I have heard your name, the Trinity, the name of the Messiah, the gates of life, the sacrifice of the priesthood. The two lives are the people and the nations who knew him, that he was revealed in flesh. Again, the two lives are the two armies. In your wrath, that is, all your anger is in the idols. But you had mercy and descended and redeemed. With the sign, the light and joy came. The mountain of Parwan is the heavens, the powers. Its radiance is the gospel, the good news. God with the sign is God with Bethlehem, which is placed in the sign of Jerusalem. The mountain of Parwan is the virgin, she is the speaking mountain. In place of Parwan, a thick cloud is the Messiah with his incarnation, for the thickness of the flesh, to which nothing is comparable in a thick cloud. The bird came forth, that is, the nations that believed and came forth at his feet with sin and darkness into the light. He stood when he was beheaded. When dead. When he redeemed. When he stood. He raised up nations, demons, mountains, and heights, that is, the well-known demons and kings of the earth. The walking is the evangelical commandments. The thorns are those who believed and moved, the Medes with the gospel. The light is the teaching of demons or nations. Horses. Apostles.

the hidden things. The soul and thought are a composite thing. The cross and the multitude of that faith. They raised their voices in preaching and to the glory of the Messiah. His hands are wealth, and everything in the world Emmanuel took with righteousness. The sun and the moon are Adam and Eve. He became a man inwardly, a dwelling place is paradise. The answer to that which is as in the image. The thorns are the apostles, and that is like lightning and sword because they divided between soul and body, and father and son. The land is Judah. The nations are demons. It went out with hidden things against the company of enemies to save your people. To your Christians, to those who were anointed with spirit. A head with the house of iniquity is the king and the priest and the prophet with the Jews, and the priesthood of grace was sent from them. The rulers are the scribes and the Pharisees who devoured the houses of widows. It trampled upon those who were in baptism, being a head of those who err from God. Those who secretly devoured the poor are the Jews who were threatening the apostles, that they might hide the preaching and not speak in the name of Jesus. For concerning the people, these are they. The seed of the prophet testifies because of those who speak with his lips. And she who examined my life is oppression. The fig tree is the shame that did not ripen but dried up. The leaves are knowledge. The father of the olive tree is the priesthood of Christ. The cedars are the enemies. The branches are the perfect ones in it. Habakkuk is of the tribe of Simeon, and he died two years before the return from captivity. The end of Habakkuk.