Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Habakkuk 3:14
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages - The destruction comes not upon himself only, but upon the whole multitude of his subjects; and this not by any mere act of divine might, but “with his own staves,” turning upon him the destruction which he prepared for others. So it often was of old. When the Midianites and Amalekites and the children of the east Judges 6:3-4 wasted Israel in the days of Gideon “the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host” Judges 7:22; and when God delivered the Philistines into the hand of Jonathan 1 Samuel 14:12, 1 Samuel 14:16, 1 Samuel 14:20 so it was with “Ammon Moab and the inhabitants of Mount Seir,” at the prayer of Jehoshaphat and his army 2 Chronicles 20:22-23. And so it shall be, God says, at the end, of the army of God; “every man’s sword shall be against his brother,” Ezekiel 38:21. and Isaiah says, Isaiah 9:20, “every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm,” and Zechariah Zechariah 14:13, “a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay every man hold on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.” So Pharaoh drove Israel to the shore of the sea, in which he himself perished; Daniel’s accusers perished in the den of lions, from which Daniel was delivered unharmed; Daniel 6:24. and so Haman was hanged on the gallows which he prepared for Mordecai Esther 7:10. So it became a saying of Psalmists (Psalms 7:5, add Psalms 9:15; Psalms 10:2; Psalms 35:8; Psalms 57:6; Psalms 94:23; Psalms 141:10; Proverbs 5:22; Proverbs 26:27; Ecclesiastes 10:8.) “He made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made; his mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate:” and this from above, sent down by God. The pagan too observed that there was “no juster law than that artificers of death by their own art should perish.” This too befell him, when he seemed to have all but gained his end. “They came (out) as a whirlwind to scatter me,” with whirlwind force, to drive them asunder to all the quarters of the heavens, as the wind scatters the particles of Job 37:11. cloud, or (Jeremiah 13:24, add Jeremiah 18:17; Isaiah 41:16, Delitzsch) “as the stubble which passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.” Pharaoh at the Red Sea or Sennacherib, sweep all before them. Pharaoh said Exodus 15:9. “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.” Their rejoicing - It is no longer one enemy. The malice of the members was concentrated in the head; the hatred concentrated in him was diffused in them. The readiness of instruments of evil to fulfill evil is an incentive to those who conceive it; those who seem to ride the wave are but carried on upon the crest of the surge which they first roused. They cannot check themselves or it. So the ambitious conceiver of mischief has his own guilt; the willing instruments of evil have theirs. Neither could be fully evil without the other. Sennacherib had been nothing without those fierce warriors who are pictured on the monuments, with individual fierceness fulfilling his will, nor the Huns without Attila, or Attila without his hordes whose tempers he embodied. Satan would be powerless but for the willing instruments whom he uses. So then Holy Scripture sometimes passes from the mention of the evil multitude…
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