Habakkuk 1:6

For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans,.... A people still of late mean and low, famous only for their soothsaying, divination, and judicial astrology; but now become a powerful and warlike people, rising

For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.

For lo: now the prophet declares particularly what it is that the Lord will work. I raise up; awaken to action, animate them in it, and strengthen them to accomplish their design. The Chaldeans, who had subdued other nations, and had already ruined the Assyrian monarchy. Bitter; cruel, and without mercy, 21:7. Hasty; speedy and quick in executing their merciless purposes, as ,27. Which shall march, Heb. walk without fear, and in order, as a conqueror doth in his conquests. Through the breadth of the land; through all parts of the land, no corner shall escape his search or cruelty. To possess; not to spoil and be gone, but to take and keep possession, as lord and proprietor in the right of conquest. The dwelling-places; houses, towns, cities, Jerusalem itself, which they had no right to, till Jewish sins gave occasion for the dispossessing of the Jews, and the introducing of the Chaldeans.

Habakkuk 1:6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, [that] bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces [that are] not theirs.Ver. 6. For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation] The Chaldeans were anciently the philosophers of the Babylonians: Babylon was a province of the Assyrian empire; but not the same with Nineveh (only walled about by Semiramis, and by her called Babylon), as Suidas noteth. Nineveh was the metropolis, Babylon ruled by prefects. One of whom, viz. Merodach-Baladan, rebelling against Esarhaddon, King of Nineveh, translated the whole kingdom to the Babylonians, using the help and counsel of the Chaldeans, famous for their wisdom and authority; which yet was not done without the Lord, who then stirred them up, and now sent them against the Jews, to avenge the quarrel of his covenant. In like manner God hath in these last times raised up the Turks, "that bitter and hasty nation," bitter and bloody, hasty and headlong, υηδεναναβαλλομενην, pursuing their victories and subduing in a short time many nations and kingdoms to their empire. Hence the Jews are in the former verse called upon to view among the heathen what havoc the Chaldeans had made; that is, should shortly make by overrunning Syria, the greater part of all Asia, and some part also of Africa. In the greatness of the Turkish empire is swallowed up at this day both the name and empire of the Saracens, the most glorious empire of the Greeks, the renowned kingdoms of Macedonia, Peloponnesus, Epirus, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, Judaea, Tunis, Algiers, Media, Chaldea, with a great part of Hungary; as also of the Persian kingdom, and all the Churches and places so much spoken of in Scripture (the Roman only excepted, which yet he daily threateneth), and, in brief, so much in Christendom, as far exceedeth that which is thereof at this day left. In fine, no part of the world is left untouched by the Ottoman monarchy but America only; not more happy in her rich mines than in that she is so far from so great and dangerous an enemy. The King of Spain, of all other princes, Mahometan or Christian, that border upon the Turk, is best able to wage war with him. How far and with what bitterness and haste he hath carried on his Catholic monarchy is better known than that it need here to be related. Queen Elizabeth put a stop to him. Captain Drake and his soldiers, when they took Saint Domingo, A.D.

(6) I raise up the Chaldeans—i.e., I am bringing up the Chaldζan or Babylonian armies into Judζa. The phrase implies that the Chaldζans were not yet in Judζa, but there is no occasion to find an allusion to the recent rise of the Chaldζan nation. We notice this point because an ethnological theory (now generally abandoned) has regarded the Chaldζans of the prophetic period as raised to national existence only a little time before the date of Habakkuk. It was supposed that they were a race distinct from the Chaldζans of earlier Scripture; being, in fact, an association of northern hordes who had but recently penetrated the lower Mesopotamian valley. Habakkuk 1:6 and Isaiah 23:13 were therefore interpreted as illustrating the fact that these new nationalities “were on a sudden ‘raised up,’ elevated from their low estate of Assyrian colonists, to be the conquering people which they became under Nebuchadnezzar.” The confutation of this theory may be found in Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, i. 57, 59. It appears that Babylon was peopled at this time, not, as was formerly supposed, with hordes of Armenians, Arabs, Kurds, and Sclaves, but with a mixed population, in which the old Chaldζan and Assyrian elements preponderated. The Chaldζans of the seventh century B.C. were, in fact, as legitimate descendants of the people of Nimrod’s empire as we are of the Saxons. Certainly, the rapidity with which Babylon rose from the position of an Assyrian colony to that of ruler of Asia was marvellous. But the work which is to make the Jews wonder is not God’s choice of an agent, but that agent’s proceeding; not the elevation of one Gentile power in the place of another, but the attack which that new power is to make upon the sacred city. Bitter and hasty.—Better, fierce and impetuous. The association of these two epithets, mar and nimhβr, is the more forcible, because of their similarity in sound. With respect to the whole passage Habakkuk 1:6-11, Kleinert well remarks, “The present passage is the locus classicus for the characteristics of this warlike people, just as Isaiah 5:26 seq. is for the characteristics of the Assyrians.”

Verse 6. That bitter and hasty nation] Cruel and oppressive in their disposition; and prompt and speedy in their assaults and conquests.

6. raise up the Chaldeans] The reference in “raise up” can hardly be to the first entrance of the Chaldeans upon the stage of history; it is rather to their advance against Israel. Some MSS. of Sept. add “against you.” On Chaldeans see after Habakkuk 1:11. bitter and hasty nation] Spoken of temper or disposition “bitter” is vehement and passionate, Judges 18:25; 2 Samuel 17:8; and “hasty” is sudden in action, driven headlong by violent impulse. shall march … the land] which marcheth through the breadth of the earth. His operations extend over the world, and his object is conquest, to seize for a possession the dwelling-places of other peoples. Job 18:21; Jeremiah 9:19; Jeremiah 30:18; Isaiah 32:18. The phrase “that are not his” again ch. Habakkuk 2:6; cf. Deuteronomy 6:10-11.

For lo - So God announces a future, in which His Hand shall be greatly visible, whether more or less distant. In His sight it is present.

JEHOVAH’S REPLY TO THE PROPHET’S CRY, Habakkuk 1:5-11.Jehovah meets the perplexity of his servant by declaring that he is not indifferent, and that punishment is about to be meted out by his agents,