What Does Habakkuk 1:5 Mean?

(5-11) Jehovah’s answer to Habakkuk’s complaint. These disorders are to be punished by an invasion of Chaldæaus. The appearance, character, and operations of these invaders are described. (5) **Among the heathen.**—These words are emphatic. They imply—Jehovah will no longer manifest Himself among His chosen people, but among the Gentiles. Let them look abroad, and they shall see Him using the Chaldæans as His instrument for their own chastisement. They are to “wonder,” not at God’s choice of an agent, but at the consequences of the visitation, which resulted in the sack of the Temple, and the deportation of 10,000 captives; a work which the Jews might well not have credited, though it were told them. The words “among the heathen” (*bag-gôyim*) were, probably, misread by the LXX. translators *bôg*’*dîm.* Hence the translation, Καταϕρονηταί, “ye despisers.” In Acts 13:41 St. Paul is represented as citing the verse in its LXX. form, as a warning to his Jewish hearers at Antioch. This citation, of course, gives no authority whatever to the variant. Nor is it certain that St. Paul did not actually quote the Hebrew form of the verse, which would seem more appropriate to the circumstances than the other. (Comp. Acts 13:42; Acts 13:46 *seq.*)*.* That St. Luke should substitute the Greek variant is intelligible enough.