Habakkuk 1:9-11

9. Their purpose is to rob and to destroy.

For violence They are without humane feelings; their only object is to do violence.

Their faces shall sup up as the east wind R.V., “the set of their faces is forwards”; margin, “the eagerness of their faces is towards the east.” A.V. attempts to get from the original the thought that the Chaldeans will devour everything like the destructive east wind (Hosea 13:15); R.V., that their faces are set forward and cannot be turned aside; so also margin R.V. The Hebrew is obscure and the English translations all do more or less violence to it. The original has east, “but as the spectator when reckoning the quarters of the heavens faces the east, it is supposed that eastwards became equivalent to forwards or onwards.” The intention of the prophet is evidently to describe the fierceness of the advance, but it is not unlikely that the text has suffered in transmission. Nowack considers the corruption so hopeless that he does not even attempt a restoration; Marti reads, “They advance in the very face of those who rise up against them”; that is, they are without fear or hesitation. Their captives are “as the sand,” which means numberless. The Assyrian kings frequently boast that they took captives and booty “without number.”

The verbs of Habakkuk 1:10-11 should be rendered, with R.V. in Habakkuk 1:10, as present tenses. Kings and princes are objects of mockery to them, fortresses are taken with the greatest ease.

They shall heap dust [“he heapeth up dust”] Refers to the casting up of embankments, so that the besiegers may be on a level with the defenders behind the walls (2 Samuel 20:15; Jeremiah 32:24). This is done quickly, and the city falls.

In Habakkuk 1:11 the translation of A.V. is not impossible, but the context favors R.V.: “Then he shall sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over, and be guilty, even he whose might is his god.”

Then With the fortresses leveled to the ground the victorious army rushes on like a wind to new triumphs.

He passeth over Irresistibly they sweep through the lands overcoming all obstacles. The two verbs are used together in Isaiah 8:8, of the onward rush of the Assyrians, likened to an overwhelming flood. The translation of margin R.V., “transgresseth,” is not so suitable.

Be guilty (R.V.) Through the acts just described, equivalent to “and thus he becometh guilty.” The cruelties and outrages constitute a part of their guilt. Another indictment is implied in the last clause.

Even he whose might is his god (R.V.) This is not a literal translation, but it expresses the thought of the original: “His success intoxicates him, and in his pride of heart he deifies his own might.” Literally it is, “this his might becometh his god”; the construction is peculiar, and the text may be corrupt. For “and be guilty, even he whose might is his god,” Wellhausen, Nowack, and others read, with some changes in the text, “and he maketh his might to be his god,” which gives good sense.