The prophecy [massa] that Habakkuk the prophet envisioned. Literally, massa means a burden. It is used here to mean a prophecy, as the prophets often experienced prophecy as a burden. No information is given here about Habakkuk himself. Even the meaning of his name, which appears nowhere else in the Bible, is obscure.

Unlike other books of prophecy, which begin with prophecies that relate a message from God to the people, Habakkuk begins with the prophet addressing God: Until when, Lord, will I cry and You not heed? Because I receive no response, it feels as though You do not hear me. Until when will I shout of villainy to You, and You not save?

Why will You show me iniquity and injustice and look at suffering, yet do nothing about it? Looting and villainy are before me; there is quarrel in the world, and contention increases. The world is corrupt and full of evil, with wars and conflicts everywhere.

Therefore, due to the violence, evil, and conflicts, the Torah will languish; it is weak and fading, and in such a culture, justice will never emerge. For the wicked surround the righteous, overwhelming them and blocking their path everywhere; therefore, justice will emerge distorted. Even when a righteous person intends to do good, he is outnumbered by evil people, more powerful than he, who prevent him from realizing his praiseworthy intentions.

The prophet addresses his listeners, describing the state of distress revealed to him: See what occurs among the nations, in the geopolitical sphere, and look and be astounded, for He is performing a deed in your days; you will not believe when it is related. When you are informed of future events, you will be incredulous.

God declares: For behold, I am raising up, or awakening, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, the bitter and impetuous, or quick, nation, which travels across the open spaces of the earth to take possession of dwelling places not its own.

It, this nation, is terrifying and awesome; from it will emerge its justice and its prominence. The Babylonians assume a superior status and follow their own systems of law and justice while disregarding those of other nations.

Its horses are swifter than leopards, which are known for their speed, and fiercer than wolves of the evening, and its horsemen will spread. Its horsemen come from afar, they fly like a vulture hastening to eat. A flock of vultures can rush without warning at a corpse lying several kilometers away.

It comes in its entirety for villainy. Their faces’ direction is forward. It gathers captives like the sand before continuing onward. This small kingdom is already developing a voracious appetite.

It, the Babylonian Empire, scoffs at kings, and noblemen are a mockery to it. It mocks every stronghold, heaps earth to besiege a city, and captures it. The Babylonians were experts at laying siege. They conquered city after city using various siege techniques.

Then it passes, a wind, it comes like a storm; and it transgresses and is guilty, ascribing its power to its god. The Babylonians are a destructive and evil force and are compared to a storm because of their speed, relentlessness, and conquering power. They are described here as guilty because they attribute their might to their god.

Habakkuk again speaks to God: Aren’t You the ruler of the world from ancient times, from time immemorial, Lord my God, my Holy One? Let us not die. Lord, You set them, the Babylonians, for the sake of judgment, to be Your rod of punishment for the wicked, and You, Rock, established them for rebuke, to smite and exact vengeance upon the wicked.

You of eyes too pure to see evil and, therefore, You who are unable to look on at wrongdoing with approval, why do You look on at traitors, remain silent when the wicked one swallows one more righteous than he? How can You stand by as the wicked dominate the righteous?

You made man like the fish of the sea, like crawling creatures, with no ruler over him. You appear to treat humans like fish; powerless, defenseless creatures that can be caught and eaten by anyone who wishes.

He, a fisherman, meaning the Babylonians, raises all of them with the rod, amasses them in his net, and gathers them in his trawl. The prophet refers to different types of fishing tools; some kinds of fishing nets hold the fish, while others are used to trap them. Therefore, he, the fisherman, rejoices and exults, indifferent to the fate of the fish, and glorifying the tools he uses for fishing.

Therefore, he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his trawl, treating them as gods; because through them his portion is fat, and his food is a fattened animal. The Babylonians attribute their military might, through which they are rich with plunder, to their idols, and therefore, they sacrifice offerings to them.

Will he, therefore, empty his net, filling nets over and over again with plunder, and continually slay nations without compassion?

After posing his questions to God, the prophet awaits a response: Upon my watch I will stand, and I will station myself upon the fortification [matzor]. Some maintain that matzor means a narrow [tzar] place. I will look out to see what He will speak through me and what I will respond to my rebuke. I will see what I will answer myself with regard to my claim.

The Lord answered me, and He said: Write the following vision and explain on the tablets, as an inscription on hide or paper is often unclear; so that one may read it swiftly.

For there is yet a vision, a prophecy, that is for the appointed time, and it speaks, testifies, of the end, the appointed time, and does not deceive; if it tarries, wait for it, as it will come; it will not delay.

Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him is conceited [uppela], or is insatiable, or feels faint. But the righteous one, whose soul is upright, will live by his faith and witness the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Indeed, wine is treacherous, as one who is drunk becomes confident about unfounded matters, so a haughty man will not find repose, he will not live in peace. Haughtiness, like wine, betrays and robs a person of his peace, security, and stability. He, this individual in question, is one who broadens his soul like the netherworld, and he, like death, will not be satisfied no matter how much he swallows. He gathers to him all the nations and assembles to him all the peoples to take control of the entire world.

Won’t all of them, these nations, ultimately take up a derisive parable against him and a lyrical riddle concerning him, saying: Woe! He amasses that which is not his? Until when does he burden himself with thick mud? This verse likely refers to Babylonia’s debt to the foreign armies that provided aid for its conquests, specifically manpower. Just as a person covered in thick mud appears larger than he actually is, and his true dimensions are only revealed when the mud is washed off, so too, Babylonia appears to have great power, but this is only an illusion, as the nation relies on others for its strength. The foreign nations that support Babylonia will eventually abandon it, and it will return to its true, diminished, power.

Won’t those who will bite you [noshekhekha], the nations that you have annexed and have thus far submitted to you, arise suddenly to exact interest [neshekh] of you, in addition to the principal amount you owe them? And those who will shake you, those nations, will awaken, or destroy you. You will be plunder for them.

Because you despoiled many nations, all the remnants of the peoples will despoil you, for your greatness was established by the spilling of men’s blood, and villainy to the land, the city, and all its inhabitants, which you plundered.

Woe! He gains evil, illicit, profit for his house, to place his nest on high, expecting to be rescued from the harmful hand. You erroneously assume that by becoming wealthy your life will be better and more secure.

However, you have actually devised and caused shame for your house in eliminating many peoples and sinning against your soul.

For the stone itself will cry from the wall of your palace, proclaiming the injustices and thefts you employed in the palace’s construction, and the beam from the wood in the building will answer it, responding to the cry of the stone, and they will rise up against you.

Woe! He builds a city with the spilling of blood and establishes a city with iniquity.

Behold, isn’t it a punishment from the Lord of hosts that peoples weary themselves laboring for you, or building up your cities, only for the fire to consume the fruits of their labor? And the nations that have joined you, likewise tire for nothing.

For the earth will ultimately be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, like water covers the sea. Habakkuk alludes here to Isaiah 11:9.

Woe! He forcibly gives drink to his neighbor, adds your venom, and intoxicates him, so that you may look upon their nakedness. The verse is referring to a great king, identified by the Sages as Nebuchadnezzar, who would bring together the rulers and ministers of other nations in order to degrade and humiliate them.

You are ultimately satiated with shame more than glory; you too drink from the poisonous cup and are revealed as uncircumcised; the cup of the Lord’s right hand, His anger and punishment, will be turned upon you, and the vomit of shame [kikalon], a combination of the words ki, “vomit,” and kalon, “shame,” will be upon your glory. You sought to be an emperor who abuses all his subjects, but the shame will eventually return and fall upon you.

For the villainy, the destruction that you brought, against the forests of Lebanon, as described in the book of Isaiah, will come back to cover and overwhelm you, and the looting of animals will break you as well, due to the blood of man and the villainy to land, city, and all its inhabitants. As in verses 8 and 12, blood and theft are mentioned together.

The prophet now adds a general prophecy against idolatry and idol-makers, between the stanzas of his verse: What use is an idol, that its maker carves it? What good is the cast image and teacher of falsehood, from whom worshippers expect to be taught truth, but instead are told lies, that the maker trusts his passion to it, making mute gods? The one who fashioned the idol trusts it to help him, but it is a lifeless, powerless object.

Woe! He, an idol worshipper, says to wood: Awaken; to the mute stone: Arise. Will it, his idol, instruct? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, decorated with expensive materials and jewelry, and there is no spirit in it at all. It is futile to expect the idol to rise to life and speak.

But the Lord, by contrast, is in His holy Sanctuary; let all the earth be silent before Him and listen to Him. The prophet calls out here to all the nations, who will witness the collapse of the great empire that trusted in its idols.

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on shigyonot. This word could denote thoughts or mistakes. Alternatively, it could refer to a type of song or musical instrument.

Lord, I heard Your renown; I was afraid, Lord; your deeds that You have performed in the midst of, over the course of the years, throughout history; revive them! This work that You carry out in the midst of the years, make it known, reveal its meaning. The significance of historical events sometimes only becomes clear many years after the fact. This statement might refer to the redemption of Israel, or humanity as a whole. In wrath, remember mercy. When the meaning of the historical process is revealed, it will become apparent that even events that appeared to be purely expressions of God’s wrath actually incorporated His compassion.

The great revelation depicted here is usually interpreted as the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. God will come from Teman, the southern edge of the inhabited world, and the Holy One will emerge from the distant Mount Paran, Selah. This follows the Torah’s own description of the giving of the Torah. The word “Selah” means forever or, alternatively, serves as a musical sign for ancient singers of biblical poetry. The word Selah is found in only two books of the Bible: in Habakkuk, where it is used three times, and in the book of Psalms, where is it used throughout. His light and glory covered the heavens, and His praise and splendor filled the earth.

An aura will be like the sunlight; rays of light from His hand will be His, and there will be the hiding place of His might.

When God will appear, before Him will go pestilence, and a flame, a general name for various disasters, will emerge at His feet.

He stood and assessed the earth. He saw and disbanded nations; he destroyed the unity of nations and covenants between nations. Endless, very high, mountains exploded; eternal hills were laid low. In revealing Himself, God reveals that the ways of the world are His.

On account of their iniquity I saw the tents of Kushan, nomadic Midyanite tribes, or Kushan Rishatayim, the king of Aram at the beginning of the era of the judges and an enemy of Israel; the curtains of the tents of the land of Midyan tremble; Midyan too attacked Israel in that era. God’s revelation disrupts the existing world order.

Was it against the rivers that the rage of the Lord was incensed? Was Your wrath against the rivers? Was Your ire against the sea? Clearly, Your anger is not with the rivers and the sea; rather, You will ride on Your horses; Your chariots are salvation, as You emerge as a fierce warrior to bring about salvation.

When You go out to war, Your bow will be bared as You remove it from its case. You will reveal your strength so that You can fulfill the oaths that You have said to the tribes, Selah. Then the earth, the continent, will be split by rivers.

Having seen You, the mountains will shudder; the current of water has passed; the deep sounded its voice; it raised its hands upward, as its water rose or flooded the earth. The verse possibly alludes to certain past events, such as the splitting of the Red Sea or the stopping of the flow of the Jordan River in the time of Joshua.

The sun, the moon stand in their abode; by the light of Your arrows they will go, by the glow of the flash of Your spear. The entire natural order is disrupted. Nothing remains as it once was, not the mountains nor the seas and rivers, while enemies are crushed and destroyed.

With fury you will march upon the earth; with wrath You will thrash the nations.

You subsequently emerged to save Your people, to save Your anointed, Your king; You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, baring the foundation to the neck, Selah.

You pierced with his, the enemy’s, own staffs the head of his leaders, the mayors of his cities or the heads of his army. You have subdued those who come storming to scatter me; they rejoice as though to devour the poor in secret. They are not concerned that retribution might befall them, just like one who destroys a poor person secretly. An alternate interpretation is that their rejoicing has been shattered, the people have scattered and gone into hiding, and they have been rendered poor, with nothing left to eat but a small portion of food in their hiding place.

You trampled the sea with Your horses, in the roiling of mighty waters.

The prophet describes his own experience: I heard this statement, and then my stomach trembled in fear, my lips quivered at the sound of the voice speaking this matter; rot, terror, will come into my bones, and I tremble, frozen in my place that I may persist to, or survive on, the day of trouble, the day when God will decide to come and wage war against a people aligned against both Him and it, Israel, surrounding it in troops.

For at that time the fig tree will not blossom and there will be no fruit on the vines; the produce of the olive tree will fail, and the fields will yield no food; the flock will be severed from the fold and there will be no cattle in the barns.

But I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult in the God of my salvation. The prophet prays as he experiences a vision in which the entire world is destroyed. Nothing remains, neither the kingdoms and great powers of the world, nor the bases of human subsistence. Habakkuk declares that although he sees this calamity occurring, he rejoices in the fulfillment of God’s will in the heavens and the earth.

With my power alone, I cannot do anything; but the Lord, my Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer’s, so that I can run away when necessary, and He guides me on my heights in peace. This song is directed to the conductor, with my melodies. When God’s wrath is revealed, the entire world will be insignificant in His presence. None will be able to resist the revelation. Even those who cleave to God sometimes have to flee from Him like deer, while at other times they remain peacefully on the hilltops. One who experiences this revelation must accept it submissively.