Interpretation of the book of the prophet Habakkuk

The eighth place among the books of the 12 minor prophets is occupied in both the Hebrew and Greek Bibles by the book of the prophet Habakkuk, Heb. Habacuc, LXX: Αμβακουμ (or: ' Αββακουμ, as in code. 51, 97, 106, 228, 310 in Golmes et al.), Vulg.: Habacuc. The Hebrew name of the prophet is pronounced by the rabbis, Blessed Jerome and many new interpreters from Hebrew. Ch. habak, hug. According to the explanation of Blessed. Jerome, the name of the prophet is understood in the sense of embrace or, as we will use more expressively in Greek: περιληψις i.e. embrace... the prophet is called embrace either because he is the beloved of the Lord, or because he enters into an argument, a struggle and, so to speak, a hand-to-hand competition with God, so that his name comes from a competitor, i.e., clasping (the enemy) with his hands (Blessed Jerome. Two books of interpretations on the prophet Habakkuk to Chromitius. Russian translation. Creation. Part 14. Kyiv 1898, pp. 130–131), based on the prophet’s bold invocation of God to resolve the issue of justice (Hab 1.2–4). Such word production in relation to the name of the prophet Habakkuk is quite common in modern times, but next to it there is now another one, according to which the name of the prophet is derived from the Assyrian root hambakuku, meaning a certain garden plant (just as, for example, the female name Susanna (Dan. 13: 2; Luke 8.3) is also taken from the world of plants - it means lily): the form of the name of the prophet in LXX-ti. However, traditional production has its advantages, since it is not only fully justified by the laws of word formation in the Hebrew language (an analogy in this case is represented, for example, by the word teballul, thorn, in Lev. 21.20), but also corresponds to the general content and main idea of ​​the book of the prophet Habakkuk. Prof. M. A. Golubev (“The Book of the Prophet Habakkuk” in Christ. Reading. 1867, II, 681 ff.) rightly notes: “In the significant name of one who eats with God, sending wicked and terrible people against his people (just as Jacob fought with God, saying with firm faith: “I will not let you go until you bless me” (Gen. 32.26), or as if embraced by God and embracing the people of God - comforting them, after terrible revelations, with hope better future, just as a mother hugs or comforts a crying child (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2.7; Gal 4.19–20), - the name Habakkuk already foreshadows the special property of the proclaimed burden for the Jews and for their enemies: for the former it is the burden of correction or admonition (cf. Hab 1.12), for the latter it is the burden of destruction by fire (cf. Hab. 2.13) or irretrievable destruction (pp. 705–706). Reliable information about the life and activities of the prophet Habakkuk has not been preserved, since neither the prophetic book belonging to him, nor the historical sacred books report anything about this subject. Only the non-canonical part of the book of the prophet Daniel, Dan 14.33–37, contains a legendary story about a certain prophet Habakkuk, a contemporary of the prophet Daniel, to whom the first, at the command of God, brought food from Palestine to Babylon, to the lions’ den. The information reported about the prophet. Habakkuk, partly depend on this apocryphal story, partly are based on arbitrary guesses and, in general, are unlikely. This is, for example, the opinion of the rabbis, who saw in Habakkuk the son of the pious Shunammite, who heard from the prophet Elisha the promise that in a year she would embrace - (Heb. Hobeket) son (2 Kings 4.16); This opinion is contradicted by its chronological inconsistency: the life time of the prophet Elisha - the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 9th century BC. does not fit the time of the prophet Habakkuk, the writer of the book, since, according to the data contained in it, it was written much later, precisely in the 7th century BC. ; Moreover, the supposed connection of this prediction with the name Habakuk is a completely arbitrary guess. There are two different traditions about the origin of the prophet. According to one, in pseudo-Epiphanius and pseudo-Dorotheus and in our Fourth Menaion (on December 2), the prophet Habakkuk came from the tribe of Simeon and was the son of a certain Asaphat, from the village of Bethkhozir. According to another, reflected in one codex (Cod. Chisianus) inscriptions of the Greek apocrypha about Bel and the dragon and defended by some new researchers (especially Delitzsch), the prophet was from the tribe of Levi, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The basis for this latter opinion is the mention in Hab 3.1 of “his stringed instruments” (beginot) musical in the church, but decisive evidence of the Levitical origin of the prophet cannot be seen here, since King Hezekiah is not a Levite, in gratitude for his healing he expresses his intention to praise Jehovah all the days of his life with the sounds of stringed musical instruments of neginot (Isa. 38.20). On the contrary, the failure to mention in the book of the prophet his Levitical origin, while the belonging of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel to the priestly family is directly stated in their books (Jer 1.1; Eze 1.3), may raise serious doubts about the historical correctness of the opinion about the belonging of the prophet Habakkuk to the tribe of Levi. Synagogue and Christian traditions are thoroughly examined and critically illuminated in Delitzsch's book, De Habacuci propheta, vita alque aetate, adiecta ditriba de Pseudodorotheo et Pseudoepiphanio. Leipzig. 1843. With such a paucity of information about the life and work of the prophet Habakkuk, it is quite indisputable, however, those usually accepted in works about the book of the prophet remain. Habakkuk's provisions: 1) that he served as a prophet in the kingdom of Judah, which is proven by the complete absence in his book of any hint of a ten-tribe kingdom; 2) that the placement of his book in the canon after the book of the prophet Nahum and before the book of the prophet Zephaniah indicates the time of Habakkuk’s activity - between the second half of the reign of Manasseh, about half of the 7th century, when the prophet Nahum acted, and the beginning of the reign of Josiah, when Zephaniah began his prophetic activity (Zeph 1.1). In the particular definition of the time of the prophetic ministry of Habakkuk, the opinions of researchers differ, since, according to the remark of Blessed Augustine, three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum and Habakkuk themselves do not speak about the time of their prophecy; it is not indicated when they prophesied in the chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome (De Civit. Del, Lib. XVIII, cap. XXXI, Russian translation, part VI, Kyiv 1887, pp. 49–50). But it is obvious that from the Orthodox Church point of view, the opinion that considers Habakkuk a contemporary of the Babylonian captivity is unacceptable: this opinion clearly sins with rationalistic disbelief in the historical reliability of prophetic predictions of the future. (A similar opinion about the time of the life of the prophet Habakkuk - of course, without these rationalistic premises - was also expressed by Blessed Jerome, p. 132). The book itself contains data that allows us to date its writing to the middle of the 7th century. BC, approx. 650 The prophet threatens in the name of God, ch. I (Hab 1.5–6), to his contemporaries, the Jews, for their wickedness, Hab 1.3–4, an unexpected and amazing disaster - the invasion of the Chaldean people, unprecedented by them. This disaster has not yet arrived, the prophet only foresees its approach (Hab 3.2, 16); Jerusalem and the church still exist (Hab 2.20), and worship is properly performed in the church (Hab 3.1–19), although lawlessness and all kinds of wickedness reign in public life (Hab 1.2–4); God-appointed royal power also exists (Hab 3.13). The external and internal signs indicated here are equally suitable for the second half of the reign of Manasseh, upon his return from the captivity of Babylon (2 Chronicles 33.11). In fact, the prediction about the event of the invasion of the Chaldeans must be attributed earlier than their invasion itself, which took place in the 4th year of the reign of Joachim (2 Kings 24.1–2), i.e., according to the most probable calculation of approx. 604–600 BC (see Interpretation of the Bible vol. II, p. 57, 5), it is necessary to push back several decades, if the very prediction about this to the prophet’s contemporaries seemed incredible (Hab. 1:5). Of course, the Jews heard about the Chaldeans before the time we assume (see Isa. 39:1, 43:14), but in this case the almost literal similarity between the words of the prophet about the invasion of the Chaldeans (Hab. 1:5) with the expression of the sacred writer 2 Kings 21:10–12 about the threats to the Jews of the time of Manasseh, uttered by unnamed prophets (see Commentary. Bible, vol. II, p. 529). In all likelihood, the prophet Habakkuk should also be included among these prophets. The features of internal Jewish life - namely: the normal performance of worship, and on the other hand, lack of rights in public life - fully correspond to the general character of the second half of the reign of Manasseh, when, on the one hand, worship of Jehovah was restored in the Temple of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 33.10-16), after its desecration by idolatry in the first half of Manasseh's reign (2 Kings 21.2-9), on the other On the other hand, the repentant Manasseh could not eradicate violence and oppression among the people (cf. 2 Chronicles 33.17). Whether the prophet Habakkuk survived the destruction of Jerusalem is not known for certain, although pseudo-Epiphanius has news of that. that the prophet Habakkuk not only survived the fall of the kingdom of Judah, but also died just two years before the return of the Jews from captivity. (See Prof. M. A. Golubev, pp. 685–695). During the time of Eusebius, the grave of the prophet was shown at Kiel in Palestine, in the tribe of Judah, near Eleutheropolis. The memory of the Holy Prophet in the Orthodox Church is celebrated on December 2. From what has been said so far, it is clear that, in its content, “the prophecy of Habakkuk is directed against Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldeans; so that, just as before Nahum, followed by Habakkuk, had a prophecy against Nineveh and the Assyrians, who defeated the ten tribes called Israel, Habakkuk receives a prophecy against Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, by whom Judah, Jerusalem and the Church were subjected to pogrom” (Blessed Jerome, p. 132). At the same time, the attention of the prophet, as, undoubtedly, of the pious Jews of his time, was occupied by the thought of the internal disorders of the religious and social life of his fatherland and mainly of the main evil of the time - the predominance of force over law, the wickedness of judges, the complete ruin of positive law and the decline of the very sense of legality (Hab 2.2–4). This was the subject of sad bewilderment and severe grief for the entire community contemporary to the prophet Habakkuk, and he boldly expressed the latter’s thoughts and moods in his “complaint” to Jehovah. This side of Habakkuk’s prophetic view is noted with sufficient prominence in the church service to the prophet (Mineaion, month of December, 2nd day). Here, by the way, we read: “Wonderful Habakkuk, the dawn of the Spirit was received, he was all Divine, and the wickedness of the judges, and the unrighteous judgment in vain is indignant, showing the righteousness of Christ and the Master, kindly and with a warm thought, as if we are oppressed, it flares up” (Stichera on “I cried to the Lord,” 1st); and again: “How long, O Lord, does the prophet say, I will cry to You and you will not hear; What kind of wickedness have you shown me as judges?” (Canon canto 1st, trop. 2nd); “You upheld every virtue, you hated every evil from your mind, and you abhorred the righteously wicked, all-blessed” (canto 2, trop. 2). As a prophet, as a God-appointed “guardian” of the people (Hab 2.1; cf. Isa 52:8, 56:10; Ezek. 3:17, 33:2, 6, 7), Habakkuk was more zealous than others about the holiness of the trampled law of God and, like many God-enlightened men of the Old Testament (cf. Job 21.6–9; Ps 70.2–3; Jer 12.12) especially wondered “why daring people are more successful in the affairs of well-behaved people, and why punishment does not follow the lawless in their footsteps” (Blessed Theodoret, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, Russian translation, 2nd ed., Sergiev Posad, 1907, p. 22). However, “it was not the prophet himself, as some assumed, who suffered from doubt, but he introduces the questions of others, and offers a teaching about what they are seeking... That he did not offer us his own thoughts, but, preparing a preventative medicine for the indignant, presented the prophecy in the form of bewilderment and a solution to it, this is evidenced by the very beginning of the prophecy” (he, pp. 21-22). What gave these bewilderments particular strength and urgency was the fact that the Chaldeans, chosen by God to punish the Jews and other nations, were themselves more wicked than the Jews, they exalted themselves in their own strength, putting it in place of God, and committed unbridled atrocities (Hab 1.9-16). Under such circumstances, the question of the relationship of God's providence to manifestations of the evil human will arose with particular force. That is why the entire first chapter of the book of the prophet. Habakkuk has the appearance or form of the prophet’s bewildered complaints and lamentations about the incomprehensible long-suffering of God towards the oppressors of God’s people (pp. 9–16). Chapter two gives the Divine answer to the groanings of the prophet and the people; The essence of this answer is the thought that “an arrogant soul will not rest, but the righteous will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4), which also implies the inevitability of the death awaiting the Chaldeans according to the judgment of God (Hab. 2.8–17), which together will ensure the subsequent salvation of Israel (cf. Hab. 2:20). The Divine threats and promises received by the prophet lead him into an exalted, inspired mood, which is resolved by a wondrous “prayer” or prayerful song of praise, depicting the most majestic appearance of Jehovah into the world for the judgment of the enemies of His Kingdom and for the salvation of His chosen ones, headed by His anointed one. This is the content of the third and last chapter of the book of the prophet Habakkuk. From this it is clear that, despite its small volume, the book of the prophet Habakkuk has a very important - both historical and doctrinal significance. Just as the book of the prophet Nahum marks the conclusion of the Assyrian period in the history of biblical Israel, so the book of the prophet Habakkuk marks the beginning of Chaldean influence in this history. Then the image of the Epiphany in ch. III, based on the ancient biblical image of the Sinai Legislation (Deut. 33.9, etc.), is very characteristic of the pre-exilic prophetic view, meanwhile, after the captivity of Babylon, God's revelations to the prophets already had a different form - apocalypses. But the internal, ideological side of the book is much more important. Here the most important thoughts of Old Testament biblical theology and Old Testament teaching about the Kingdom of God and the coming salvation in Christ are expressed with great clarity. First of all, the already mentioned question about the relationship of the world-ruling Providence of God to the relationships of human life in general and in particular with the manifestation of evil human will in these relationships is posed and definitely resolved. The prophet testifies that the great world pagan powers are also subject to the authority of Jehovah, that He puts them forward for judgment over other nations, and then, when they do not recognize his world-ruling power and deify their own powers (Hab 1.5–7, 2.16), they themselves become the subject of judgment and punishment of God (Hab 2:5–8, 10–13, etc.), therefore, no God-fighting power can resist. With great certainty, then, the positive internal properties of the members of the Old Testament Kingdom of God are indicated: their firm, alien hesitation, faith and fidelity to God (Hab 2.4), their patience, humility and complacency in sorrow (Hab 3.16), their complete devotion to God with rejoicing at the salvation He has given (Hab 3.18). Particularly remarkable is the prophet’s sublime ethical view of the moral nature of Jehovah, the “Holy One of Israel” (Hab 1.12), the Lord of Hosts (Hab 2.13): “It is not natural for Thy pure eyes (Jehovah) to look at atrocities, and you cannot look at oppression” (Hab 1.13). With such lofty teachings, the prophet, as it were, goes beyond the Old Testament and enters in spirit into the realm of the New Testament. And the Orthodox Church sees in the book of the prophet Habakkuk a particularly clear prophecy about the coming Christ the Savior; in the service to the prophet we read, for example: “On the Divine guard, honorable Habakkuk heard the mystery of Your coming to us, Christ, ineffable: and your preaching prophesies most clearly, having foreseen the wise apostles as well. horses, the tongue of many tribes, disturbing the sea” (verse on the Gospel proclamation 2nd). “Having preached the Lord of glory, and prophesied the coming from the Holy Virgin, which was manifested, and seeing what was shown, blessed Habakkuk rejoiced” (Can. 9, tr. 2). The opening words of the second chapter of the book “on my watch” served as the basis for the irmos of the 4th song of the Easter canon (“On the Divine God-speaking Habakkuk may He become with us”). Especially the third chapter of the book, appointed by the prophet for singing in the church, and already in the Old Testament, undoubtedly, had liturgical use, had a strong influence on the construction of church songs, namely the fourth song of the canon, and many words and expressions The prophet from this (III) chapter is constantly heard in church irmos: “Lord, I heard Thy hearing and feared,” “Thou camest from the shadowy thickets of the mountain,” “Thy virtue covered the heavens, O Christ,” and many others. etc. Not without significance, therefore, the remark of one commentator (Kleinert) that after Isaiah, the most powerful evangelist among the prophets was Habakkuk. However, this does not at all give grounds to attribute the origin of the book to a later time and split it into parts written at different times (as, for example, Rosenmuller, Marty, etc. do). In addition to what was said above about the historical situation, the origin of the book of the prophet shortly after the book of the prophet Nahum, generally no later than the half of the 7th century. BC is evidenced by the universally recognized purity and correctness of the book’s language and the form of speech, thanks to which it comes closer to the ancient prophetic era, for example, the time of the prophet. Isaiah than to being close to captivity. Delitzsch’s remark is absolutely correct: “If we divide all the prophets, according to the features that appear in them, into two kinds, into the prophets of the school of Isaiah and the prophets of the school of Jeremiah: then Habakkuk, obviously, belongs to the most ancient one - the school of Isaiah. The form of his language is always classical, full of rare, partly peculiar to him, words and phrases; his view and presentation bear the imprint of independent strength and modern beauty. Despite the strong desire and high flight of his thoughts, his prophetic book represents a finely demarcated, skillfully rounded whole; nowhere (from other books of the Bible) is the form of mutual conversation between God and the prophet so well carried out, nowhere is prophetic speech so closely fused with lyrical speech (even before the construction of stanzas, Chapter II, and before musicality, Chapter III). In content and form, he, like Isaiah, is relatively much more independent of his predecessors than other prophets: everything reflects the time of the highest prosperity of prophecy, the time when, in place of the sacred lyricism, in which the religious shadow of the church had hitherto been expressed, prophetic poetry with its trumpet voice appeared, through the most powerful action of God, in order to reawaken the disappearing consciousness in the spiritually dying church, so that if time The prophetic activity of a prophet should be determined solely from the form of his prophecy, then we would feel forced to attribute him to Hezekiah, or at least to Manasseh” (Cit. cit. s. XII-XIII, see prof. Golubeva, s. 689, note. ). And according to another researcher, the book of the prophet Habakkuk “in its individual lyrical parts belongs to the most significant works of biblical literature. For Havakuk, form and content are always in the purest harmony. Complaint and consolation, suffering and joy complement each other; a wonderful sense of proportion and imperturbable clarity are combined with fiery fantasy, and thus we can say that these speeches emanate Greek beauty, which is especially strong in the prayer of the prophet ch. III" (Gustav Karpeles. History of Jewish Literature. Translation edited by A. Ya. Garkavi. T. I (St. Petersburg 1896), p. 104). Of the German commentaries and studies about the book of the prophet Habakkuk, one can name (except for the already mentioned work of Delitzsch). 1) Cumpach, Der Prophet Habakuk. Brixen. 1870. Also in the series: a) Lange Bibelwerk. Th. XIX, U. Kleinert (Bielef and Leicz, 1868 (ss. 126–157 and b) K. Marti, Das Dodecapropheton. Tubingen. 1904, ss. 326–356. Of the rabbinic commentaries, the most remarkable are: W. Aearbanel, Comment air le livre, de Habakkuk, ed. 5. Munk. Paris. 1843. In Russian - more or less brief remarks about the book of the prophet Avvakum in the manuals of the Horde, Smaragdov, Metropolitan. Arseny Khergozersky, prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, Spassky. An extensive and serious isagogical-exegetical work (already mentioned above) belongs to the late professor of St. Petersburg. Spirit. Academy to M. A. Golubev: “The Book of the Prophet Habakkuk” in Christ. Read 1867 vol. II, p. 681–743, 861–919. You might be interested in: