Commentary on the Twelve Prophets 1 part 12/19

Knowing therefore the justice of the Judge, let us fear the tribunal, that we may escape the sentence there pronounced against transgressors, and may enjoy the eternal good things, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

There are some who are utterly vexed at seeing the unjust prospering;

and some are in doubt whether the God of all takes forethought for men;

The person of these latter the admirable prophet Habakkuk takes up, and raises the difficulty—as though he himself were eager to learn the cause of what happens;

but he brings in the solution which the grace of the Spirit supplied.

For it was not, as some supposed, that he himself underwent this affliction;

but he introduces what comes from others, and adds the teaching concerning the things inquired into.

For he brings on the stage a person ill-disposed toward the prosperity of the wicked, and says:

'But as for me, my feet were almost moved, my steps had well nigh slipped, because I was jealous at the wicked, beholding the peace of sinners.' And adding many such things to these, he pointed out the solution of the questions.

For this, he says, was toil in my sight, until I entered into the sanctuary of God, and understood their latter end. And having learned this from the grace of the Spirit, he went on to add:

'Surely because of their deceits you appointed evils for them;

you cast them down when they were lifted up;

how did they come to desolation? They failed suddenly, they perished because of their lawlessness, as a dream when one awakes.' And a little later, teaching us not to meddle curiously with the divine dispensations, but to receive the divine words in simplicity:

'I was as a beast before you,' he says, 'yet I am continually with you.' For it befits me, he says, just as a beast follows the one who leads and guides it, without busying itself about where it walks, so to trust in your words, and to follow your laws;

for by doing this, I shall not become bereft of your care.

And that he set down the aforesaid inquiries not as one himself in doubt, but as sketching out the reasonings of men, the very prelude of the psalm also makes plain:

For 'God is good to Israel,' he says, 'to such as are upright in heart.' And he who has confessed God to be good, plainly confesses together with this that he is the dispenser of good things.

Many such things we find in other psalms too, and in other prophets.

To these the prophecy of the divinely-inspired Habakkuk is also like.

And that he did not set forth his own reasonings, but, preparing a remedy against evil for those who were sick, cast the prophecy into the form of question and solution, this too the prelude itself testifies. CHAPTER ONE

The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw—he straightway went on to add:

'How long, O Lord, shall I cry out, and you will not hear? I shall cry to you when wronged, and you will not save? Why have you shown me troubles and pains, to look upon misery and impiety?' And he calls it a 'burden' (lēmma), the receiving of the understanding, and the passing over from human things to the divine revelation.

If therefore he uttered the aforesaid things out of a spiritual working, it is plain that he did not himself undergo the affliction, but lays bare the ulcer of those who are so disposed, and applies the remedy.

Therefore he adds to what has been said, and declares:

'Judgment has arisen against me, and the judge takes.' For, he says, the judges sell justice for money, and take no care at all for the keeping of the laws.

For this he indicated by what he added:

that the impious man oppresses the just;

'therefore the judgment shall go forth perverted.' These things he related concerning the transgressors in Jerusalem;

for Israel, already carried off into slavery by the Assyrians, was dwelling in the foreign land.

Thus, having set forth the words of the ill-disposed person, he effects the healing by means of the divine answer.

'Behold, you despisers, and look, and wonder, and see marvelous things, and be brought to nought;'

committing lawlessness without fear, and sick with insensibility.

To these he exhorts them to give heed to the things prophesied, to be astounded, and to fear the threat.

Yet he knows nonetheless—inasmuch as he clearly understands all things even before they come to pass—that they will disbelieve what is said, and, before the actual trial of events, will reckon the words about these things false.

But nevertheless, being good and just, he does not endure to judge by foreknowledge alone;

but he presents his predictions even to the unbelieving, and, when they do not receive the healing, brings on the punishment.

'He is fearful and glorious;'

'from him shall his judgment be, and his burden shall go forth from him.' He is notable, and able to strike terror by his mere report.

And this Symmachus has rendered more clearly:

'He himself shall judge for himself, and his own decree shall proceed against him.' 8.

'And his horses shall leap beyond the leopards, and be swifter than the wolves of Arabia;'

For such among birds is the eagle, to which he likened the horsemen;

and among wild beasts, the leopards and the wolves of Arabia, to which he compared the swiftness of the horses.

'Destruction shall come upon the impious, resisting their faces from the opposite side.' These shall bring utter ruin upon the ungodly, and that too while these attempt to make war upon them and to draw up in battle array against them.

And this Symmachus has set down more plainly:

'All things shall come to plunder; the aspect of their countenance is a scorching wind.' For just as by way of comparison he displayed the swiftness of the horses and the horsemen,

so also he likened the beast-like ferocity of their faces to a scorching wind.

For just as that wind burns the naked parts of bodies, so the very sight of the Chaldeans is sufficient to quench the bloom of those who behold them.

'And he shall gather captivity as the sand.'

(v.10) 'And he shall make sport among kings, and tyrants shall be his playthings;'

'and he shall mock at every stronghold, and shall cast up a mound, and take it.' For sporting rather than exerting himself in earnest, he shall overthrow both the lawful kingdoms and the lawless tyrannies, and using mounds and siege-engines, he shall tear up from its very foundations every fortified rampart.

'For then,' he says, 'shall his spirit change, and he shall pass through, and shall make atonement.' For turning his wrath into pity, he shall be merciful, and shall extinguish the things that cause grief.

'Thine eye is pure, so as not to behold evil things, and thou wilt not be able to look upon troubles.'

Knowing the punishment that was to be brought upon them by the Chaldeans, and knowing that concerning this too a question would arise for many—namely, why He handed over those who had sinned in graver ways to those who were most wicked—he set down what has now been said, not as though he himself were prying into the divine providence (for how could he, who declared that he had been fashioned to be a refutation of others?), but delineating the reasonings of those who inquire into such matters.

'That Thou dost abhor all wickedness, I know;'

'for Thou art the fountain of righteousness;'

'but I long to learn why ever Thou dost suffer the arrogant and those sick with insensibility to prosper, and dost overlook those who are not such being wronged by the ungodly.'

For here he has not called 'the righteous man' the one who is righteous in all things, but by way of comparison the one who is more righteous than the one wronging him.

For thus also Aquila, and Symmachus, and Theodotion have translated:

'Thou art silent while the ungodly devours the one more righteous than himself.' But if these things come to pass, the nature of men shall differ in nothing from the irrational creatures that dwell in the waters, which have neither lawgivers nor judges;

but the weaker are set forth as food for the stronger.

For after their manner this one too, using his power wickedly—

'He drew him up with a hook as an end, and dragged him in his casting-net, and gathered him in his drag-nets.'

'Because of this he shall be glad, and his heart shall rejoice.'

'Because of this he shall sacrifice to his drag-net, and burn incense to his casting-net;'

'for by them he made his portion fat, and his meats choice.' For he is invested with such great power that he hunts whole nations as with some drag-net and hook, and revels in the catch.

But falling from this into the passion of arrogance, he supposes his own power to be the sole cause of what comes to pass, and bids that divine honours be offered to it.

And the divine Isaiah too, portraying in tragic strain both his arrogance and his punishment together, and making his reasonings manifest, says:

'I will ascend upon the clouds, above the stars of heaven I will set my throne;'

'I will seize the inhabited world as a nest, and I will take it up as eggs that have been left.' Upon which he straightway adds:

'Beneath thee they shall spread rottenness, and thy covering shall be the worm.' And the blessed prophet Habakkuk says:

'He shall sacrifice to his drag-net, and burn incense to his casting-net, for by them he made his portion fat, and his meats choice.'

'This is labour before me, until I go in to the sanctuary of God, and understand their latter end.' For here too the prophet says:

'In the rank in which I was appointed,' he says, 'I will remain; the firm ground I will not forsake;'

'but standing upon such a rock, upon which God also set Moses the great, I will behold with prophetic eyes the solution of the things being inquired into.'

And from this too we have clearly learned that such propositions are not those of the divine prophet, but of others.

'I will keep watch to see what the Lord will speak in me, and what I shall answer concerning my reproof.' For it befits me to learn what kind of answer I ought to render to those who wish to learn such things from me.

'The Lord answered me, and said:'

'Write the vision plainly upon a tablet, that he who reads it may run.'

or rather, the things about to be said befit those rather than these;

for after a long time the prophecy shall receive its fulfilment.

Then he also exhorts them to await the end, and not to waver on account of the time consumed in the interval.

'If it should tarry, wait for it, for coming it shall surely come, and shall not delay.' 'True,' he says, 'is the word of the prediction;'

'therefore do not waver, even if, when much time has passed, thou dost not behold the end;'

'for it shall by all means be brought to completion, and shall not remain unfulfilled.'

'If he should draw back, my soul takes no pleasure in him;'

'but my righteous one shall live by faith.' For he who, concerning the predictions made by me, holds a wavering judgment, is unworthy of my care;

but he who believes the things spoken by me, and passes a life befitting his faith, shall reap the fruit of life.

Knowing these things, therefore, receive with faith the things being foreshown to thee concerning the Babylonian.

Then he describes his pride and his insatiable greed.

'But he who is presumptuous and a despiser, an arrogant man, shall by no means accomplish anything.' Know, therefore, that he who is given to conceit, and thinks great things of himself, and despises my long-suffering, shall not for long use this power against others.

'Who has enlarged his soul like Hades, and is himself insatiable as death;'

'and he shall gather to himself all the nations, and shall receive to himself all the peoples.' For like Hades and death he is unwilling to take his fill, and while subjecting all men beneath himself, he does not sate his power's desire.

'Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a riddle for his story? And they shall say:'

'Woe to him who multiplies what is not his own!'

'how long, even loading his yoke-collar heavily?' For everyone of sound mind shall compare his insatiability to Hades and death;

and shall lament him, as one increasing his abundance from the evils of others, and unwilling to take his fill, but burdening his subjects with tribute and tax;

'How long wilt thou not take thy fill of insatiability?' But indeed, unwillingly shall he cease from his injustice.

'For suddenly there shall arise those who bite him, and thy plotters shall wake up, and thou shalt be for a spoil to them.'

and as though rising from sleep, those who for a very long time endured thy tyranny shall contrive thy destruction, and thou shalt pay the penalty for the countless slaughters, and for thy great ungodliness, and for thy lawlessness against the cities, which thou didst render bereft of their inhabitants.

'O he who greedily seeks an evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be delivered from the hand of evils.' Wretched indeed, yea thrice wretched, is he who longs for more, and attempts to enlarge his house from such sources, and strives to become superior to all men;

for such a one shall undergo the greater fall, inasmuch as he is borne from a greater height into the depth.

'Thou hast devised shame to thy house, thou hast made an end of many peoples, and thy soul has sinned.' For having wrought countless dreadful deeds against many nations, thou didst pierce thine own soul through with sins, and didst clothe thy whole house with shame.

For indeed the Lord said to the Jews concerning the little children:

Symmachus has rendered it 'wooden.'

'Woe to him who builds a city with blood, and prepares a city with iniquities!'

'Are not these things from the Lord Almighty? And sufficient peoples have failed in fire, and many nations have grown faint of soul.'

'For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as much water covers the seas.' Worthy indeed art thou of lamentations and wailings, having enlarged thine own kingdom by unjust slaughters, and not understanding that the God of all exacts a reckoning from those who transgress the law;

for if thou hadst received this knowledge, thou wouldst not have used thy power like some fire against many nations, bringing incurable punishments upon them.

And do not suppose that the acquisition of divine knowledge belongs among the things that are hard;

for know well that all the races of men shall most swiftly receive this ray, and shall be illumined by the radiance of the knowledge of God, so that the bitter sea of unbelief shall be covered over by the sweet waters of knowledge.

'Woe to him who gives his neighbor a turbid draught to drink and makes him drunk, that he may gaze upon their caves.'

'And a fullness of dishonor instead of glory.'

'Drink you also, and be shaken, and be made to totter.' For inasmuch as you brought punishment upon others like some turbid drink, seeking out the treasures that had been buried, receive you also the draught that you mixed; and having drunk it, lay aside your former renown, and, clothed with dishonor, lament your sudden reversal.

'The cup of the Lord's right hand has come round upon you, and dishonor has been gathered upon your glory.' A just punishment from God has overtaken you.

For he calls the punishment a cup and wine, as we have often said.

For he named it 'frankincense.'

And you shall be handed over to the enemy as to certain wild beasts, being required to pay the penalties for all your manifold evils.

'What profit is a graven image, that they have carved it? They have fashioned it as a molten thing, a false phantom.'

'For the maker has trusted in his own handiwork, in making dumb idols.' What could be more senseless than those who worship idols made by hand, who, though they behold both the material and the craftsmanship, foolishly offer them reverence as to gods?

'This is a beaten thing of gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in them.' Who would not fittingly lament over gods fashioned out of gold and silver? For they do not blush to rouse them up, as it were, when they are asleep.

and this though they know that they are utterly lifeless, unable to act through the sense-organs that appear on them.

'But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth stand in awe before his face.' For the idols are dumb, and destitute of all power;

and on all accounts he alone is worthy to receive reverence from the whole creation.

And these things too, it is plain, are spoken against the Babylonian, who despised the true God and delivered his divine temple to the fire, but rendered all worship to idols fashioned by human hands.

Having thus shaped the character of his discourse, the blessed prophet, and having cast it into the form of question and answer, of raising difficulties and resolving the matters in question, and having shown the justice of God, and how he exacts penalties from the Jews by means of the Babylonians, and from the Babylonians by means of others, changes his discourse into a hymn and a prayer, once again under the guise of prayer foretelling the things to come.

'Lord, I have heard the report of you, and I was afraid.'

and beholding the justice of your verdict, and each of the things that come to pass being dispensed with equity, I continue to marvel exceedingly.

'In the midst of two living creatures you shall be known.' This has been understood by various persons in different ways.

Some have understood the two living creatures as angels and men;

others as those among the incorporeal powers which draw near to the divine glory, the Cherubim and the Seraphim;

and yet others as Jews and Babylonians.

But to me it seems that the prophet spoke not of 'living creatures' (zōa) but of 'lives' (zōas), namely the present life and the life to come, in the midst of which the righteous Judge is revealed.

'When the years draw near, you shall be recognized;'

when the appointed time comes, you shall be made manifest. For as time advances, and the events appear, the infallibility of your predictions is displayed.

'When my soul is troubled, in wrath you shall remember mercy.' And though by your chastisements you throw the souls of men into turmoil, yet again, having recourse to mercy, you transform their misfortunes.

'God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from a shady mountain.' Teman some have interpreted as the southwest wind, others as the south.

The prophet foretells and announces beforehand the incarnation of God our Savior, which took place in Bethlehem, which lies to the south and southwest of Jerusalem;

and he calls Jerusalem itself the shady mountain, since of old it flourished with graces of every kind, and was overshadowed by the cloud, and lodged under the shelter of the God of heaven.

'Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth!'

'for your magnificence has been exalted above the heavens.' For when the only-begotten Word of God became man, he scattered the gloom of ignorance, and illumined men with the rays of the knowledge of God, and taught all that he is the Maker of heaven and earth and of all things.

'And his radiance shall be as light.' For he sent forth a most brilliant ray, by which he lighted up the whole inhabited world.

'There are horns in his hands;'

'and he set a mighty love of his strength.' For not only by using the light of his teaching did he point out the truth, but also by the power of his wonder-working he moved every tongue to marvels;

and he did both because he loved exceedingly the nature of men;

and this the Lord himself also said in the sacred Gospels;

'I am the good shepherd;'

'the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.' And:

'Greater love than this can no one show, than that a man lay down his life for his friends.' And he named the power 'horns,' since these are the weapons of the animals that possess them.

'In you shall we gore our enemies.' (5)

'Before his face a word shall go forth, and it shall issue into chastisement at his feet.' For the word goes before the works, and, foretelling the things that shall be, thus brings on the deeds, which correspond very closely to the words.

As for the phrase 'into chastisement' (eis paideian): some of the copies have it with the letter nu, and it signifies that the God of all uses both his words and his works for the chastisement and instruction of men;

but others have it without the nu, and it signifies that with great ease, as on a plain suited for driving horses, events run their course, following upon the prophecies.

'He looked, and the nations melted;'

for the deed follows upon his counsel, and by merely willing (for this is what it means, 'he stood and looked'), he shakes the earth, dissolves the nature of men, rends the mountains, and melts the hills like wax.

For these and such-like things he has continually done for the benefit of men.

For he calls the works 'goings.'

And by the things spoken he signifies also the Cross, which welled forth salvation for all men;

these things which he approved of old, even before the constitution of the world, but which he accomplished in the last of the days.

'Instead of the labors that I saw, the tents of the Ethiopians shall be dismayed, and the tabernacles of the land of Midian.' For after the saving Passion I saw the race of demons fallen down, who, imitating in their choice the natural color of the Ethiopians, deceive the souls of men.

But if anyone wishes to understand these things also of men, he will not fall away from the aim of the divine Scripture;

'For you shall mount upon your horses, and your horsemanship shall be salvation.'

(9) 'Bending, you shall bend your bow against the scepters, says the Lord.' But indeed it is plain that, in providing for the salvation of men, you accepted these sufferings;

and against the gainsayers you shall use your punitive weapons, chief among whom are the tribes of Israel;

for he named the tribes 'scepters.'

'Bend, and prosper, and reign.' And a little after:

so, like certain rivers, you shall distribute the divine apostles and those who follow after them, and shall bring the spiritual irrigation to men.

For those who have believed, seeing your power foreshown, are in love, and, as it were, travail in birth, longing to see your eternal kingdom;

while those who are held fast by unbelief shall be smitten with the pangs of a woman in travail, envying and grudging your glory.

'Scattering the waters of his going.' And this too accords with what has been said.

For the waters of his divine teaching he distributed through the divine apostles among all the nations.

'The deep uttered its voice; the height of its imagination was lifted up.'

(11) 'The sun and the moon stood still in their course.' It abode in its revolution, and preserved the sequence of the conceptions.

For having called the sacred apostles 'rivers,' he names the nations 'sea,' held fast as they were by the bitterness of impiety.

But just as, when rivers rush into the deep, much noise and clamor is produced, the waves of the sea checking and holding back their inrush;

so, when the divine apostles went about among the nations and ferried across the saving proclamation, tumults were stirred up against them, and factions of the unbelievers gainsaying, and trying to quench the flame of the teaching.

And this the history of the Acts clearly teaches us.

and in Corinth others cried out:

'These men who have turned the world upside down are come here also.' And in Jerusalem the Jews, having stirred up the whole city against the God-inspired Paul, at last delivered him over to the Romans.

And countless other such things one may find. 'Your arrows shall go forth into light;'

(12) 'In indignation you shall tread down the earth, and in wrath you shall smite the nations.' And while these things are happening to the heralds sent by you to the nations, you show forbearance, he says, having a power beyond words, and being abundantly furnished with punitive weapons of every kind, and able by a mere threat to destroy the whole earth together with its inhabitants.

But you have made use of this longsuffering, since [column] 13.

You went forth for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones. And these words resemble what was said by our Saviour in the sacred Gospels:

The Son of Man came into the world, not that he might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And he calls 'anointed ones' those who have been deemed worthy of the calling, who have received the proclamation with faith, and who have enjoyed the grace of the divine Spirit.

You cast death upon the heads of the lawless; you raised up bonds even to the neck, unto the end. To those, then, who have believed you have extended salvation;

but those who to the end have disbelieved you delivered over to death, having bound about them its fetters.

And you set your horses upon the sea, troubling many waters. Above, then, he said that the tempest would arise from the rivers pouring into the sea;

but here, those whom he called rivers he now again names horses;

and while the nations of these were in existence, the surging waves were forming, but a deep calm succeeded them.

This too the Lord declared in the sacred Gospels:

I came not to cast peace upon the world, but a sword, to set a man at variance against his neighbour, a son against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a bride against her mother-in-law. For since they had in concord embraced impiety, by the good division he dissolves the evil concord, and after the praiseworthy discord he works the harmony of true religion.

I kept watch, and my belly trembled at the sound of the prayer of my lips;

and trembling entered into my bones, and my frame was troubled beneath me. The Prophet, reflecting from what had been said upon the sort of things that would befall the disbelieving Jews while the nations believed, and being moved with compassion for his own kinsmen, said that he trembled and was afraid on account of the predictions uttered in the prayer.

Yet nevertheless, he says, I have this consolation: that I shall not be an eyewitness of their calamity.

For I shall rest in the day of my affliction, so as to ascend to the people of my sojourning. For before the fulfilment of the predictions I shall receive the end of my life, and shall be released from the sojourning of the present life.

The labour of the olive shall fail, and the plains shall yield no food;

the sheep have failed from feeding, and there shall be no oxen at the stalls. I shall see, he says, neither the barrenness of the fig tree, nor the unfruitfulness of the olive, nor the vine deprived of its clusters, nor the plains stripped of their ears of grain, nor the cattle perishing by famine.

And each of these things is spoken figuratively.

For he called Jerusalem a fig tree;

for thus the Lord taught us to understand through the parable, when he showed a barren fig tree which the planter wished to cut down because of its unfruitfulness;

but the vinedresser besought that a little time be granted, so that, having been deemed worthy of care, it might either yield its fruit or be uprooted from the root.

The vine, moreover, the divine Scripture has often named the people;

and, to leave aside the other testimonies, through Isaiah God says:

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the house of Judah is a beloved new plant;

he looked for it to bring forth judgement, but it brought forth lawlessness, and not righteousness but an outcry. And the barren olive—one would not err in so naming the Pharisees and Sadducees, who, though puffed up with the name of righteousness, were destitute of its fruits.

But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God; I have hoped upon the mercy of my God for ever. And the barren plains he calls those who are under these men's rule, to whom Jeremiah also cries out:

Break up for yourselves fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. And by sheep he calls those who are ruled, to whom he threatens famine.

For behold, he says, I will bring a famine upon the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. And by the oxen that are not present in the stalls he means the priests, of whom the once much-celebrated altars have remained bereft;

for just as the oxen till the earth, so the priests worked upon the souls of the people, receiving as a kind of nourishment from him the things offered at the divine altars, as at certain stalls.

Concerning these things the blessed Paul also said: