Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Habakkuk 3:9
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Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
God has already made bare the bow, to shoot His arrows at the foe. תּעור, third pers. imperf. niph. of עוּר, equivalent to ערר ( Isa 32:11), and the more usual ערה, to be naked. To strengthen the thought, the noun עריה is written before the verb instead of the inf. abs. (cf. Mic 1:11). The bow is made bare, not by the shooting of the arrows, but by its covering (γωρυτός, corytus) being removed, in order to use it as a weapon. The reference is to the bow used in war, which God carries as a warrior; so that we are not to think of the rainbow, even if the chariots might be understood as signifying the clouds, as in Isa 19:1 and Psa 104:3, since the rainbow is a sign of peace and of the covenant, whereas God is represented as attacking His enemies. The next clause, שׁבעות מטּות אמר, is very obscure, and has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Of the two meanings which may be given to mattōth, viz., branches, rods, or staffs, and tribes of the people of Israel, the latter can hardly be thought of here, since mattōth would certainly have been defined by either a suffix or some determining clause, if the tribes of Israel were intended. On the other hand, the meaning staffs or sticks is very naturally suggested both by the context - viz. the allusion to the war-bow - and also by Hab 3:14, where mattı̄m unquestionably signifies staves or lances. At the same time, the meaning spears or darts cannot be deduced from either Hab 3:14 or Sa2 18:14. In both passages the meaning staves, used as lances or weapons, is quite sufficient. Matteh, a stick or staff with which blows were struck, might stand, as an instrument of chastisement, for the punishment or chastisement itself (cf. Isa 9:3; Isa 10:5), and in Mic 6:9 it denotes the rod. שׁבעות may be either the plural construct of שׁבוּע, the seventh, the heptad, or the plural of שׁבוּעה, an oath, or the passive participle of שׁבע, to be sworn, like שׁבעי שׁבעות in Eze 21:23. There is no material difference in the meaning obtained from the last two; and the view we take of the word אמר must decide between them and the first explanation. This word, which is peculiar to poetry, denotes a discourse or a word, and in Job 22:28 the affair, or the occasion, like דּבר. Here, at any rate, it signifies the address or word of God, as in Psa 68:12; Psa 77:9, and is either a genitive dependent upon mattōth or an adverbial accusative. The Masoretic pointing, according to which mattōth is separated from 'ōmer by tiphchah, and the latter joined to selâh by munach, is connected with the evidently false rabbinical rendering of selah as eternity (in sempiternum), and being decidedly erroneous, cannot be taken into consideration at all. But the interpretation of שׁבעות as the seventh, does not suit either of these two possible views of 'ōmer. We therefore prefer the second meaning, chastising rods or chastisements. אמר, however, cannot be a genitive dependent upon mattōth; since chastisements of speech would hardly stand for chastisements which God had spoken, but, according to the analogy of שׁבט פּיו in Isa 11:4, would point to chastisements consisting in words, and this does not agree with the present train of thought. 'Omer is rather an adverbial accusative, and belongs to שׁבעות, indicating the instrument or media employed in the swearing: sworn with the word or through the word, like חרבּך in Psa 17:13 (for the use of the accusative to describe the substance or the instrumental medium of an action, see E…
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