They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand.
Habakkuk had cried out to God about the violence filling Judah. God's reply describes an army built for violence, with every face set one way and prisoners scooped up like grains of sand. Why would God answer a complaint about cruelty by naming a crueller nation?
Violence Answered by Violence
Habakkuk's complaint centred on one word. God's reply picks up the same word and makes it the punishment.
H. L. RossierIt was an attack filled with rage... "They come all of them for violence." The prophet is terrified about the state of the people. He calls to the Lord: "Violence!" God showed him that this violence would find its just punishment in the violent behaviour of Babylon.
So the answer to the prayer is not rescue but reckoning.
The Sword God Raised Up
The Chaldeans — that is, the Babylonians — marched for their own plunder. Yet God was the one who put them to work. They were a tool in His hand.
William KellyThey were plunderers whom God used in His providence. Their work was to break down Judah's turning away from Him, and also to punish the pride of other nations.
So the invasion is not random politics. God Himself has a case to settle.
J. G. BellettHe lets the prophet know that this evil would not go unpunished. It had been troubling his soul, and he had been crying to God about it. The Chaldean sword would soon enter the land to avenge the quarrel of His holiness.
Faces Set Forward
Older English Bibles rendered the line about their faces as "their faces shall sup up as the east wind." Scholars read the key word two ways.
The Bible Treasury"Their faces shall sup up as the east wind." The word is met with only here. According to Lee it means "desire"; Fuerst reads it as "direction." So the desire, or the direction, of their faces is eastward. As they come on the land of Canaan, their aim is to move eastward with their spoil.
Either way, desire or direction, the picture is an army with one fixed aim. The ESV reads "all their faces forward." Commentators differ: the word may mean the army's craving, or the eastward line of its march with the plunder.
Captives Like Sand
People usually picture sand at the seashore. This verse names neither sea nor shore, and the image loses nothing.
William KellyIn Psalm 139 and Habakkuk 1:9 the sea or shore is not added. Here it was the less necessary, as the sand of the desert is no less countless.
Prisoners beyond counting, handled like loose grains — that is the sweep of this invasion.
The Instrument Is Not Innocent
God using a nation does not mean God approves of it. The day came when the same hand that used the Chaldeans brought them down.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinBut as he wins, the Chaldean becomes proud. He forgets that God only used him as an instrument to deal with those who had done evil. So they credited their power to their own god, and did not give God the honour and the glory. His own might is his god. Then comes the day when the Lord takes the Chaldean in hand for judgment. He deals with him as He dealt with other nations.
Rossier notes the same reversal. When Babylon's power began to fall, its kings and rulers became the laughingstock of others, just as the kings of the nations had been before.
Summary
- Cry. Habakkuk shouted "Violence!" about his own nation. God answered by naming a people who "all come for violence." The sin he complained about became the shape of the punishment.
- Rod. The Chaldeans were "plunderers whom God used in His providence." He sent them to break down Judah's turning away and to punish the pride of other nations.
- Holiness. The invasion was no political accident. God acted "to avenge the quarrel of His holiness," so the evil troubling the prophet would not go unpunished.
- Reach. Faces fixed forward, captives gathered "like sand." Desert sand is no less countless than the sand of the sea.
- Reversal. The instrument grew proud and credited its power to its own god. Then "the Lord takes the Chaldean in hand for judgment," and Babylon's kings became the laughingstock other kings had been to them.