Habakkuk says nothing about its author, date or purpose, but seems to be a cry to God from the miseries of the exile, answered by a prophecy of Babylon's fate. Someone called Habakkuk is mentioned in the Greek version of Daniel which is found in the Apocrypha.
© David Billin 2002–2024
Commentary
1:2fThe prophet's starting point echoes many psalms, including 6, 13, 74, 82 and 94.
1:15The two types of net mentioned here are the two traditionally used on Galilee: a throwing net used from a boat, or a seine net dragged by people on the shore.[1 p.53]
2:2The reference to a messenger reading the message (aloud, to the recipient, one assumes) is one of several indications in scripture that literacy was widespread in the time of the kings.
2:3This is a message to a hurried society, like ours.
2:6fThese verses seem to foretell the doom of the oppressor Babylon.
2:11cf. Luke 19:40.
2:20cf. Psalm 11:4. Silence is a form of worship; see Revelation 8:1.
3:2English translations follow the Masoretic text, but Pseudo-Matthew 14 (eighth century?) quotes a different reading from LXX which has been associated with the presence of animals at Jesus's birth: "In the midst of two living creatures you will be known, in the drawing near of the years you will be recognised, and when the right time comes you will be shown forth." This, together with ancient Christian artworks discovered recently, suggests that the details of the nativity story which are consistently and widely told, but not supported by the New Testament, such as the presence of an ox and an ass, are based on ancient sources.[2] See comments on Luke 2:7.
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