Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Habakkuk 2:4
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Behold, his soul which is lifted up - literally, swollen Is not upright in him - The construction is probably that of a condition expressed absolutely. Lo, swollen is it, not upright is his soul in him. We should say, “His soul, if it be swollen , puffed up, is not upright in him.” The source of all sin was and is pride. It is especially the sin of all oppressors, of the Chaldee, of antichrists, and shall be of the antichrist. It is the parent of all heresy, and of all corruption and rejection of the gospel. It stands therefore as the type of all opposed to it. Of it he says, it is in its very inmost core (“in him”) lacking in uprightness. It can have no good in it, because it denies God, and God denies it His grace. And having nothing upright in it, being corrupt in its very inmost being, it cannot stand or abide. God gives it no power to stand. The words stand in contrast with the following, the one speaking of the cause of death, the other of life. The soul, being swollen with pride, shuts out faith, and with it the Presence of God. It is all crooked in its very inner self or being. Paul gives the result, Hebrews 10:39, “if any man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him.” The prophet’s words describe the proud man who stunts aloof from God, in himself; Paul, as he is in the Eyes of God. As that which is swollen in nature cannot be straight, it is clean contrary that the soul should be swollen with pride and yet upright. Its moral life being destroyed in its very inmost heart, it must perish. Alb.: “Plato saith, that properly is straight, which being applied to what is straight, touches and is touched everywhere. But God is upright, whom the upright soul touches and is touched everywhere; but what is not upright is bent away from God, Psalms 73:1. “God is good unto Israel, the upright in heart;” Song of Solomon 1:4, “The upright love thee;” Isaiah 26:7, “The way of the just is uprightness, Thou, most Upright, doth weigh the path of the just.” But the just shall live by his faith - The accents emphasize the words , “The just, by his faith he shall live.” They do not point to an union of the words, “the just by his faith.” Isaiah says that Christ should “justify” many by the knowledge of Himself,” but the expression, “just by his faith,” does not occur either in the Old or New Testament. In fact, to speak of one really righteous as being “righteous by his faith” would imply that people could be righteous in some other way. “Without faith,” Paul says at the commencement of his Old Testament pictures of giant faith, Hebrews 11:6, “it is impossible to please God.” Faith, in the creature which does not yet see God, has one and the same principle, a trustful relying belief in its Creator. This was the characteristic of Abraham their father, unshaken, unswerving, belief in God who called him, whether in leaving his own land and going whither he knew not, for an end which he was never to see; or in believing the promise of the son through whom theft Seed was to be, in whom all the nations of the world should be blessed; or in the crowning act of offering that son to God, knowing that he should receive him back, even from the dead. In all, it was one and the same principle. According to Genesis 15:6, “His belief was counted to him for righteousness,” though the immediate instance of that faith was not directly spiritual. In this was the good and bad of Israel. Exodus 4:31 : “the people believed.” Exodus 14:31 : “they believed the Lord an…
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