How does the prayer join fear and joy?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Habacuc recalls divine power and seeks mercy, concluding with joy despite failed food and flocks.

Chapter breakdown

The heading calls this a prayer of praise; the prayer is for ignorances, explained by the edition as the people’s sins. The edition gives Sigionoth as an instrument or tune. Habacuc hears and fears, asking God to revive the work in the midst of years and remember mercy in anger; the note relates this to fearful oracles and redemption amid misery. God will come from the south and the holy one from Pharan. Glory covers heavens and praise fills earth. The edition compares future deliverance to the giving of the law and past guidance from Theman and Pharan. Light and horns accompany hidden strength; the note preserves power, beams, or possibly the cross as readings. Death goes before God and the devil before his feet, explained as executioners of justice against Egypt and Chanaan.

God measures earth and melts nations; ancient mountains are crushed and eternal hills bowed. The edition interprets the look through Apocalypse 20:11 and mountains as powerful persecutors. Ethiopian tents and Madian’s curtains are troubled; the note explains enemy peoples. Questions ask whether wrath concerns rivers or sea when horses and salvation chariots appear. The edition recalls Arnon, Jordan and the Red Sea, the oath to tribes, trembling mountains, heaped waters, sun and moon, and a greater deliverance through God’s Son and church. The bow is taken up according to tribal oaths; rivers divide, mountains grieve, waters pass, the deep speaks and raises hands, and sun and moon stand at arrows’ light and spear’s brightness.

God treads earth in anger and astonishes nations, going forth to save his people with his Christ. The wicked house’s head is struck and its foundation exposed to the neck; the edition relates this to Pharao and future Antichrist. Cursed sceptres strike warriors’ heads; those like a whirlwind to scatter the speaker rejoice in secretly devouring the poor. Horses pass through the sea’s muddy waters. The edition relates deliverance from Egypt to future spiritual rescue.

The speaker’s bowels and lips tremble, with rottenness in bones and swarming beneath, seeking rest in tribulation and joining the girded people. The edition applies the oracle to Israel’s current evils and future impenitence, describes willingness to die before trial and join Abraham’s bosom, and looks to Jesus conquering death and hell and heavenly praise. Though fig, vine, olive, field, flock and herd fail, Habacuc rejoices in the Lord and God his Jesus. God gives strength, hart-like feet and high places, leading as conqueror in psalm. The ending does not make Habacuc himself the conquering leader.

The story inside

Edition readings of horns remain alternatives. The text names death and the devil. God leads as conqueror in the ending.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Edition readings of horns remain alternatives.
2
The text names death and the devil.
3
God leads as conqueror in the ending.

Test your recall

What crops and herds fail before the declaration of joy?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 102451–102466
3:1. A PRAYER OF HABACUC THE PROPHET FOR IGNORANCES. For ignorances.... That is, for the sins of his people. In the Hebrew, it is Sigionoth: which some take to signify a musical instrument, or tune; with which this sublime prayer and canticle was to be sung. 3:2. O Lord, I have heard thy hearing, and was afraid. O Lord, thy work, in the midst of the years bring it to life: In the midst of the years thou shalt make it known: when thou art angry, thou wilt remember mercy. Thy hearing, etc.... That is, thy oracles, the great and wonderful things thou hast revealed to me; and I was struck with a reverential fear and awe.—Ibid. Thy work.... The great work of the redemption of man, which thou wilt bring to life and light in the midst of the years, when our calamities and miseries shall be at their height.
Lines 102468–102483
3:3. God will come from the south, and the holy one from mount Pharan: His glory covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. God will come from the south, etc.... God himself will come to give us his law, and to conduct us into the true land of promise: as heretofore he came from the South (in the Hebrew Theman) and from mount Pharan to give his law to his people in the desert. See Deut. 33.2. 3:4. His brightness shall be as the light: horns are in his hands: There is his strength hid: Horns, etc.... That is, strength and power, which, by a Hebrew phrase, are called horns. Or beams of light, which come forth from his hands. Or it may allude to the cross, in the horns of which the hands of Christ were fastened, where his strength was hidden, by which he overcame the world, and drove out death and the devil.
Lines 102485–102501
3:5. Death shall go before his face. And the devil shall go forth before his feet. Death shall go before his face, etc.... Both death and the devil shall be the executioners of his justice against his enemies: as they were heretofore against the Egyptians and Chanaanites. 3:6. He stood and measured the earth. He beheld, and melted the nations: and the ancient mountains were crushed to pieces. The hills of the world were bowed down by the journeys of his eternity. He beheld, etc.... One look of his eye is enough to melt all the nations, and to reduce them to nothing. For all heaven and earth disappear when they come before his light. Apoc. 20.11. Ibid. The ancient mountains, etc.... By the mountains and hills are signified the great ones of the world, that persecute the church, whose power was quickly crushed by the Almighty.
Lines 102540–102556
3:13. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people: for salvation with thy Christ. Thou struckest the head of the house of the wicked: thou hast laid bare his foundation even to the neck. The head of the house of the wicked.... Such was Pharao heretofore: such shall Antichrist be hereafter. 3:14. Thou hast cursed his sceptres, the head of his warriors, them that came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their joy was like that of him that devoureth the poor man in secret. 3:15. Thou madest a way in the sea for thy horses, in the mud of many waters. Thou madest a way in the sea, etc.... To deliver thy people from the Egyptian bondage: and thou shalt work the like wonders in the spiritual way, to rescue the children of the church from their enemies.
Lines 102575–102584
3:17. For the fig tree shall not blossom: and there shall be no spring in the vines. The labour of the olive tree shall fail: and the fields shall yield no food: the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. 3:18. But I will rejoice in the Lord: and I will joy in God my Jesus. 3:19. The Lord God is my strength: and he will make my feet like the feet of harts: and he the conqueror will lead me upon my high places singing psalms.