Habakkuk 3:1-6
Habakkuk 3:1
(KJB)
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
Habakkuk now prays a prayer upon Shigionoth.
It is uncertain what Shigionoth is as it could be an instrument, a
cadence, or some type of melody. It
may also be an interlude in the writing of the liturgy.
Habakkuk 3:2
(KJB)
O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD,
revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known;
in wrath remember mercy.
Habakkuk remembers the works of the past done by God and
he states that he heard the reports.
The word “speech” in the Hebrew carries with it the meaning of
“announcement or report.” When
Habakkuk heard these reports he became fearful of what he heard.
He was asking God to bring a fresh strength to his work in the midst of
years which could refer to any time within the seventy years of captivity.
He also asked God to make known to the people this renewal and
re-strengthening so the people will know they have not been abandoned and that
they will have renewed hope. He
asks God when bringing the discipline on the people that he does with the air of
compassion attached to it.
Habakkuk 3:3
(KJB)
God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran.
Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
Habakkuk now reminisces on the past actions of God on
behalf of Israel while they were wandering in the wilderness for forty years.
Teman was a mountain not far from Mt. Sinai where Israel received the law
of God.
Deuteronomy 33:2 (KJV) And he said, The
LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from
mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went
a fiery law for them. Paran was
a wilderness which was located on the east side of the Sinai Peninsula.
It was from here that God commanded Moses to send out spies to spy out
the land of Canaan. It was here the
ten spies did not want to go into the land of Canaan because the men of Canaan
were bigger and they feared them.
It was now that began their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
Habakkuk mentions Paran because it reminds them of how God appeared to
their fathers in the wilderness.
They saw the glory of God as the cloud led them by day and the pillar of fire
led them by night. They all saw the
glory of God as he worked through the miracles such as the opening of the Red
Sea.
Habakkuk 3:4
(KJB)
And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming
out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.
When God met with the people of Israel at Sinai his
brightness was pure light as if on a clear, bright day but even more bright and
purer. The horns in scripture
represent power, so this part of the verse is speaking about the awesome power
of God being done in his mighty acts.
God did not use all of his power or else the world could take it and it
would be destroyed so God uses enough of his power for each situation or event
at hand.
Habakkuk 3:5
(KJB)
Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went
forth at his feet.
Exodus 23:27-28
(KJV) I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom
thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
{28} And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the
Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
God sent a plague of hornets ahead of Israel when they went into the
Promised Land to drive out the people who were living there plus Israel would
have remembered the plague of flies which God sent upon Egypt when he was in the
middle of the ten plagues. The
burning coals can be understood as “burning fevers” which may have been the
result of the pestilences which caused much sickness among the people groups in
Canaan.
Habakkuk 3:6
(KJB)
He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove
asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual
hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.