Ver. 1. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet] Habakkuk signifieth a wrestler, that by closing striveth to get the better, as hath been before noted on Habakkuk 1:1. To close with the adversary is the best way to supplant him, or to avoid the blow: so is running into God the way to escape him. The prophet had heard God’s speech and was afraid, Habakkuk 3:2. He saw his wrath ready to break forth, and therefore gets in with him by this prayer. He knew that, “ Flectitur iratus voce rogante Deus ” (Ovid). God suffereth himself often to be overcome by the prayers of his people; and yieldeth much unto them when most bitterly bent, Matthew 24:20; he therefore sets shoulders and sides to work, and wrestles lustily in this chapter. He knew it was a prophet’s work to pray as well as preach; and between these two to divide his time. “God forbid” (saith Samuel, who is reckoned the first of prophets, Acts 3:24), “that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: I will also teach you the good and right way,” 1 Samuel 12:23. So doth this prophet; he both preferreth a prayer (the word הלפת say some, signifieth such a prayer as is made by a mediator before a judge; we have an advocate with the Father, 1 John 2:1), and dedicated the same to the people, to be used by them in the time of the captivity: which yet they shamefully neglected to do, as Daniel acknowledgeth, Daniel 9:13; or if they did anything towards it, they merely sought themselves in it, and so lost their labour, Zechariah 7:5; whereas had they prayed as here is prescribed, confessing their sins, and beseeching God not to deal with them after their deserts, but according to his ancient lovingkindnesses, that never fail, they might have found mercy, Lamentations 3:22. The altar of incense stood against the mercy seat; and, Revelation 9:13, the prayers of the saints from the four corners of the earth sound and do great things in the world, make it ring. It was the speech of a learned man; If there be but one sigh come from a gracious heart it fills the ears of God, so that God hears nothing else. Upon Shigionoth] Vocabulum musicum est, cuius ratio Hebraeis ignota, saith Buxtorf; it is a musical term, the reason whereof is unknown to the Hebrew doctors to this day. Yet Rabbi Salomon (and with him most interpreters) rendereth it pro ignorantiis, for ignorances, or as touching his own and his people’s errors; which the prophet here (convinced by God’s former answer to his expostulation) confesseth with confusion of face. Ignorance surely is a blushful sin; especially if affected and delighted in (as the Hebrew word seemeth to imply, confer Proverbs 5:1 20:1). Private ignorance, though it do somewhat excuse a man (sc. a tanto from so much not a tote, from everything, Luke 12:47), yet is it a sin to be confessed and bewailed; for Christ died for the not knowing of the people, Hebrews 9:7, αγνοηματα, and destruction is threatened, pro nonscientia, or lack of knowledge, Hosea 4:6. But Calvin well observeth here, that the prophet by begging pardon for ignorances, doth not omit his own and the people’s more grievous sins; but showeth that men must also be sensible of their lesser lapses, and cry out with David (after whose example this whole song is framed), “Who can understand his errors” (or ignorances, unwitting and inconsiderate sins)? “O cleanse thou me from secret faults,” Psalms 19:12.
Ver. 2. O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid] Audivi auditionem tuam. I have heard (not thy fume or thy report, as some render it, unless it be in the prophet Isaiah’s sense, Isaiah 53:1, but) thy preceding discourse, in answer to my disceptation. I have heard that the Babylonians will come, and that my people must go into captivity. This was no pleasant hearing; for we all naturally shrink in the shoulder when called to carry the cross; but those that do what they should not must look to hear and feel too what they would not. And was afraid] Fear is constrictio cordis ex sensu mali instantis, a passion of the soul shrinking in itself from some imminent evil. The wicked hear and jeer: or their fear driveth them from God, as it did guilty Adam. Contrarily, the godly tremble at God’s judgments while they hang in the threatenings; and draw nigh to him with entreaties of peace. In this fear of the Lord is strong confidence, “and his children have a place of refuge,” Proverbs 14:26. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years] i.e. Preserve alive thy Israel, that work of thine hands, Isaiah 45:11, together with thy work of grace in their hearts; keep that spark alive upon the sea of tribulations and temptations. The angels (saith a reverend man) are kept with much less care, charge, and power, than we; because they have no bias, no weights of sin hung upon them, &c. There is not so much of the glory of God (saith another) in all his works of creation and providence as in one gracious action that a Christian performeth. in the midst of the years make known] sc. Thy power in perfecting thy glory, and not forsaking the work of thine own hands, Psalms 138:8. It was Luther’s usual prayer, Confirm, O God, in us that thou hast wrought; and perfect the work that thou hast begun in us, to thy glory. So be it. So Queen Elizabeth, when prisoner at Woodstock, prayed thus: Look, Lord, upon the wounds of thine hands; and despise not the work of thine hands. Thou hast written me down in thy book of preservation with thine own hand: O read thine own handwriting, and save me, &c. But what meant the Seventy here to transl ate, In the midst of two beasts: which while Ribera striveth to defend, he tells us a tale of the babe of Bethlehem, born in a stable, and laid in a manger between two beasts, an ox and an ass (εν μεσω δυο ζωων). It may very well be that the Church here prayeth for God’s grace and favour during the time of her captivity. In wrath remember mercy] In commotione irae: when thou art most moved against us, and hast as much ado to forbear killing of us as thou hadst to forbear Moses when thou mettest him in the inn, then remember to show mercy, call to mind thy compassions which fail not. “Look then upon us, and be merciful unto us, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name,” Psalms 119:132. The wicked are threatened with an evil, an only evil, without any mixture of mercy; this the prophet here deprecateth, and beggeth mercy, Ezekiel 7:5. Per miserere mei, tollitur ira Dei. through mercy to me, the wrath of God is born away.