Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

1:5 Look among the nations. Habakkuk lived in a time of political turmoil--the Assyrians were losing power, whereas the Babylonians were gaining it. you would not believe. Habakkuk refused to believe that a just God would allow the cruel Babylonians to punish his people.

1:6 I am raising up. God controls the political scene and uses nations for his own purposes (cf. Isa. 44:28; Dan. 2:21). Chaldeans. Another name for the Babylonians, but technically they were an ethnically diverse Aramean tribe in southern Babylon that began to take control as the Assyrians weakened. The Babylonians gained independence from Assyria in 626 b.c. and, continuing to increase in power, defeated Assyria in 605. Nebuchadnezzar led the Babylonians in this victory and consolidated the Babylonian Empire. After his father's death in 605 b.c. he became king over the vast empire, which flourished until the Persians defeated it in 539. bitter and hasty nation. God knows the Babylonians well and uses their character traits to punish Judah.

1:7 their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. In pursuit of domination, the Babylonians were not bound by Judean legal systems, or even common decency. In their pride and arrogance they abused their power.

1:8 The Babylonians conquered their enemies so quickly that their horses seemed to come faster than swift leopards. Using horses allowed them to overtake their enemies before they had time to prepare. eagle. A bird of prey, depicting the Babylonians' fierceness and voracious appetite for conquest.

1:9 violence. Habakkuk had seen violence in the land (v. 2), but the Babylonians took it to a whole new level. They gather captives like sand. The Babylonians continued the Assyrian policy of deporting captives to their land to discourage and disorient them.

1:10 scoff . . . laugh. The powerful Babylonians had little regard for weaker kings or rulers whose meager fortifications offered little resistance. they pile up earth. One of the primary means of capturing a walled city was to construct earthen ramps so that movable towers could be pushed close enough to the walls to breach them (see Isa. 29:3; Jer. 32:24).

1:11 whose own might is their god. The Babylonians had become so successful and powerful that they relied on their military might for protection, as others would have relied on their gods.