AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
H
A B A K K U K
IT
is a very foolish fancy of some of the Jewish rabbin that this prophet was the
son of the Shunamite woman that was at first miraculously given, and
afterwards raised to life, by Elisha (2 Kings iv.), as they say also that the
prophet Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath, which Elijah raised to
life. It is a more probable conjecture of their modern chronologers that he
lived and prophesied in the reign of king Manasseh, when wickedness abounded,
and destruction was hastening on, destruction by the Chaldeans, whom this
prophet mentions as the instruments of God's judgments; and Manasseh was
himself carried to
Babylon, as an earnest of what should come afterwards. In the apocryphal story of Bel
and the Dragon mention is made of Habakkuk the prophet in the land of Judah,
who was carried thence by an angel to Babylon, to feed Daniel in the den;
those who give credit to that story take pains to reconcile our prophet's
living before the captivity, and foretelling it, with that. Huetius thinks
that that was another of the same name, a prophet, this of the tribe of
Simeon, that of Levi; others that he lived so long as to the end of that
captivity, though he prophesied of it before it came. And some have imagined
that Habakkuk's feeding Daniel in the den is to be understood mystically, that
Daniel then lived by faith, as Habakkuk had said the just should do;
he was fed by that word, Hab. ii. 4. The prophecy of this book is a
mixture of the prophet's addresses to God in the people's name and to the
people in God's name; for it is the office of the prophet to carry messages
both ways. We have in it a lively representation of the intercourse and
communion between a gracious God and a gracious soul. The whole refers
particularly to the invasion of the land of Judah by the Chaldeans, which
brought spoil upon the people of God, a just punishment of the spoil they had
been guilty of among themselves; but it is of general use, especially to help
us through that great temptation with which good men have in all ages been
exercised, arising from the power and prosperity of the wicked and the
sufferings of the righteous by it.
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