How does Habacuc question conquest?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Violence and the Chaldean announcement lead to a complaint about the wicked devouring the more just.

Chapter breakdown

The heading presents Habacuc’s complaint and vengeance by the Chaldeans. Habacuc cries about violence, iniquity, rapine and opposition. The law is torn and wrong judgment prevails because the wicked overcome the just. God announces an astonishing work: the bitter, swift Chaldeans will possess dwellings not their own. Their judgment and burden come from themselves; their horses are lighter than leopards and swifter than evening wolves, their distant horsemen like an eagle hastening to eat. Faces like burning wind accompany captives gathered like sand. Their prince triumphs over kings and princes and takes strongholds by a mount.

The conqueror’s spirit changes, he passes and falls, attributing strength to his god. The edition relates this to Nabuchodonosor’s pride, humiliation in Daniel 4 and the speedy fall of Babylon’s empire. Habacuc addresses the holy God from the beginning, saying they shall not die and that judgment and correction are appointed. He asks why God, whose eyes are pure, looks upon wicked men devouring someone more just. People resemble fish and creeping things without a ruler. The captor takes them with hook and dragnet, rejoices, offers victims to the drag and sacrifices to the net because his portion and food are rich. The ending says he spreads the net and continually slays nations without sparing; it does not describe incense or emptying the net.

The story inside

Horses are swifter than evening wolves. The edition relates the conqueror’s fall to Nabuchodonosor. The ending says the net is spread continually.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Horses are swifter than evening wolves.
2
The edition relates the conqueror’s fall to Nabuchodonosor.
3
The ending says the net is spread continually.

Test your recall

What does the captor sacrifice to?

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 102275–102285
1:1. The burden that Habacuc the prophet saw. Burden.... Such prophecies more especially are called burdens, as threaten grievous evils and punishments. 1:2. How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? shall I cry out to thee suffering violence, and thou wilt not save? 1:3. Why hast thou shewn me iniquity and grievance, to see rapine and injustice before me? and there is a judgment, but opposition is more powerful.
Lines 102287–102297
1:4. Therefore the law is torn in pieces, and judgment cometh not to the end: because the wicked prevaileth against the just, therefore wrong judgment goeth forth. 1:5. Behold ye among the nations, and see: wonder, and be astonished: for a work is done in your days, which no man will believe when it shall be told. 1:6. For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching upon the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not their own.
Lines 102302–102319
1:8. Their horses are lighter than leopards, and swifter than evening wolves; and their horsemen shall be spread abroad: for their horsemen shall come from afar, they shall fly as an eagle that maketh haste to eat. 1:9. They shall all come to the prey, their face is like a burning wind: and they shall gather together captives as the sand. 1:10. And their prince shall triumph over kings, and princes shall be his laughingstock: and he shall laugh at every strong hold, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take it. 1:11. Then shall his spirit be changed, and he shall pass, and fall: this is his strength of his god. Then shall his spirit, etc.... Viz., the spirit of the king of Babylon. It alludes to the judgment of God upon Nabuchodonosor, recorded Dan. 4., and to the speedy fall of the Chaldean empire.
Lines 102325–102338
1:13. Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest thou upon them that do unjust things, and holdest thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more just than himself? 1:14. And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler. 1:15. He lifted up all them with his hook, he drew them in his drag, and gathered them into his net: for this he will be glad and rejoice. 1:16. Therefore will he offer victims to his drag, and he will sacrifice to his net: because through them his portion is made fat, and his meat dainty.