June 28

Habakkuk

It has sometimes appeared to us matter of regret that this prophet had not a more sonorous name. No people ever had finer proper names than the Hebrews, whether we regard the sound or the signification. But this, as regards the sound, is certainly an exception, and it seems the very worst of all their names—it is, in fact, difficult to pronounce such a collocation of syllables with gravity; and so offensive was it to the delicate organs of the Greeks, that translators and others who had occasion to produce it, modified it almost beyond recognition. Persons who like to give Scripture names to their children, have shunned this one; while it has been eagerly seized by novelists and play-wrights as a suitable denomination for characters they designed to exhibit in some absurd point of view. The poet asks, “What is there in a name?” But there is something in a name, and the longer any one lives, the more cause he has to find that names are things.

We apprehend that this name has been a great disparagement to our prophet; and has in no faint degree operated in causing many readers unconsciously to hold the book in less regard than they might otherwise have done, and to entertain a very inadequate notion of the peculiar claims of this great prophet to their attention. We call him “great,” because it is only in the small extent of his book of prophecy, that he is in anything behind the very chiefest of the prophets.

The subject of which the prophet treats is in itself grand, and had a peculiar interest to an Israelite.

In prophetic vision, Habakkuk beholds the foe invade his native land—the temple and its worship abolished—the sacred land and the free nation given over to devastation and to opprobrium. A prospect like this was well suited to plunge any sensitive heart into the most bitter grief; and when realized in all the sharpness of prophetic perception, it could not but rend asunder a heart so warm and ardent as that of Habakkuk. It was not to be expected that a soul like his should make its inspirations heard in soft and plaintive notes—it must speak in the loud sound of the trumpet. It were difficult to find words to set forth adequately the exalted claims and peculiar merits of this high minstrel of grief and joy, of desolateness and hope, of scorn and derision. In the small compass of this prophet’s book may be found, as in a compendium, all the glories and excellencies of prophetic poetry. Nothing can be more magnificent and sublime than the divine hymn which terminates his book—nothing more terrible than his threats—nothing more biting than his scorn—nothing more sweet and safe than his consolations. On Habakkuk God had bestowed in large measure all the qualities which belong to a great poet—an imagination equal to the reception and transmission of the grandest ideas—an exquisite judgment, which imparts to his figures and pictures the utmost regularity and delicacy, and the most exact proportions; and a power over language, which gives so much harmony and softness, so much brilliancy and strength to all his utterances.

Habakkuk begins his poem with one animated portraiture, and closes it with another. Surely there is no poet who ever described the march of a conqueror—mighty and full of arrogance, in more vivid colors than he has done that of the Chaldeans—“That bitter and impetuous nation, which traverseth the wide regions of the earth, to seize upon habitations belonging not to it,” etc.; riding upon horses “swifter than leopards, and fiercer than evening wolves,” Note: Habakkuk 1:6-11. etc. Who has ever uttered more derisive taunts than those in which the prophet proclaims the eventual triumph of the oppressed people over their proud tyrants—fallen from the height of their grandeur, and trodden beneath the feet of their enemies. Note: Habakkuk 2:8-17. What poet has traced with so much force and sublimity as this one, the dread solemnity of universal nature when the Lord descends upon the earth. Note: Habakkuk 3:3-15. All the ancient history of the Hebrews opens up to afford the images and pictures of his great and marvelous scenes. All that nature has of the dreadful and magnificent becomes subservient to the aim of his inspired pen. When He came in his Almightiness, “His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.” “Before Him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.” At his presence “the everlasting mountains were scattered, and the perpetual hills did bow.” The “sun and moon stand still in their habitation,” at the greater brightness of his arrows as they flew, at the gleam of his glittering ring spear. Yet amid all these terrors, there is rest for the faithful soul. “The Lord God is my strength,” and “although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

Language is at best an imperfect instrument of thought—still more imperfect as the vehicle of high inspirations from heaven. And, in the case of Habakkuk, we seem to see the prophet grasping to seize words worthy to express his great conceptions, and images which may adequately represent them. Sometimes he adopts the expressions of earlier prophets, but he does not imitate them; and all that he takes becomes his own, fused up in the solid and glowing mass of his golden prophecy.

This view Note: It is mainly based on that of Eichhorn, who, in his Einleitung in der Alle Testament (Introduction to the Old Testament), has given more attention to the special characteristics of Habakkuk than any other writer. We have not exactly translated his remarks, but have reported them with such alterations and additions as seemed desirable for the English reader. of Habakkuk’s prophetic poem, is in substantial agreement with that of most writers who have critically studied the poetry of prophecy.