Commentary on the Twelve Minor Prophets 8.2.1–9.0.1

1. "I will stand upon my watch, and mount upon a rock, and look out to see what he will say in me, and what I shall answer to my reproof." This resembles what was said by the blessed David: "This is trouble before me, until I enter the sanctuary of God and understand their last end." For here too the prophet says: I will remain at the post to which I was assigned; I will not abandon my firmness; but standing on such a rock as that on which God set the great Moses, I shall behold with prophetic eyes the solution of the questions raised. From this too we have learned clearly that such propositions are not the divine prophet's but others'. For he said: "I will look out to see what the Lord will say in me, and what I shall answer to my reproof." For it befits me, he says, to learn what answer I ought to give to those who wish to learn such things from me. (2–3) "And the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision clearly on a tablet, so that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is still for a long time, and it will rise at the end, and not [in vain]." Do not offer the words, he says, only to those who now doubt about these things, but send on a written record of them to those who will come later; indeed what will be said suits those more than these, for the prophecy will receive its fulfillment after a long time. Then he exhorts them to wait for the end and not to doubt because of the time spent in between: "If it delays, wait for it, for it will surely come and will not tarry." The word of the prediction, he says, is true; do not doubt, then, even if after much time has passed you do not see the end; for it will certainly be accomplished and will not remain unfulfilled.

4. "If he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him; but my righteous one will live by faith." For one who holds a doubtful opinion about the predictions I make is unworthy of my care; but one who believes what I say and pursues a life fitting for faith will gather the fruit of life. Knowing these things, then, receive in faith what is revealed in advance about the Babylonian. Then he describes his conceit and his insatiable greed.

5. "But the conceited man and the despiser, the arrogant man, will accomplish nothing." Know, then, that the one who indulges conceit, thinks great things of himself, and despises my long-suffering, will not use this power of his against others for long. "He has widened his soul like Hades, and he is like death, never satisfied; and he will gather to himself all the nations and receive to himself all the peoples." For like Hades and death he refuses to be sated, and though he brings all human beings under himself, his power does not satisfy his desire.

6. "Will not all these take up a parable against him, and a riddle to tell about him? And they will say: Woe to him who multiplies what is not his own! How long? And he who makes his collar heavy, harshly!" For everyone of sound mind will compare his insatiability to Hades and death, and will lament him as one who increases his wealth from the misfortunes of others, will not be sated, and burdens his subjects with tribute and tax; and he will say: How long will you not be sated in your insatiability? But he will cease from injustice against his will.

7–8. "For suddenly those who bite him will rise up, and those who plot against you will wake up, and you will be plunder for them. Because you despoiled [many] nations, [all the remaining] peoples [will despoil you]." For having overcome most [nations] … those who endured your tyranny for a very long time will contrive your destruction, and you will pay the penalty for your countless slaughters, your great impiety, and your lawlessness against the cities, which … of their inhabitants

9. "O he who covets an evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be drawn out of the hand of evils!" Wretched truly, and thrice wretched, is the one who desires more and tries to enlarge his house from such sources, and strives to become higher than all human beings; for such a one will suffer a greater fall, since he is carried from a greater height into the depth. (10) "You have counseled shame for your house; you have finished off many peoples, and your soul has sinned." For having done countless dreadful things against many nations, you have pierced your soul through with sins and clothed your whole house in shame.

11. "For a stone will cry out from the wall, and a beetle from the wood will utter these things." For not only those who share in reason, but perhaps even lifeless and irrational things, will cry out these things about your folly and madness. It is clear that the stone and the beetle are put by way of hyperbole. For the Lord too said to the Jews about the children: "Amen I say to you, if these are silent, the stones will cry out." Instead of "beetle", Symmachus [has] "a wooden joint" …

12–14. "Woe to him who builds a city with blood and prepares a city with injustice! Are not these things from the Lord Almighty? And many peoples have failed in fire, and many nations have lost heart. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as much water to cover seas." You are truly worthy of laments and wailing, since you enlarged your own kingdom from unjust slaughters and did not understand that the God of all calls lawbreakers to account. For had you received this knowledge, you would not have used your power like a fire against many nations, bringing incurable punishments upon them. And do not think that acquiring the knowledge of God is a difficult thing; know well that all the races of human beings will very soon receive this ray and be lit up by the brightness of the knowledge of God, so that the bitter sea of unbelief will be covered by the sweet waters of knowledge. (15–16) "O he who gives his neighbor a muddy overthrow to drink, and makes him drunk, so as to look upon their caves! A fill of dishonor instead of glory. Drink, you too, and be shaken and quake." For since you brought the punishment upon others like some muddy drink, searching out the buried treasures, you too receive what you mixed; and having drunk it, put off your former good fame and … with dishonor. "The cup of the Lord's right hand has come round to you, and dishonor has gathered upon your glory." A just punishment from God has overtaken you. For he calls the punishment a cup and wine, as we have often said. (17) "For the impiety of Lebanon will cover you, and the misery of beasts will terrify you, because of the blood of human beings and the impieties of the land and of the city and of all who dwell in it." You will pay the penalty, he says, for what you dared against Jerusalem, for he called it Lebanon; and you will be handed over to enemies as to beasts, made to pay the penalty for all your manifold evils. (18) "What does a carved image profit, that they carved it? They fashioned it a molten thing, a false appearance; for the one who fashioned it has trusted in his own handiwork, to make dumb idols." What is more senseless than those who worship idols made by hands? They see both the material and the craft, and yet offer them reverence as gods.

19. "Woe to him who says to the wood, Wake up, [arise]! and to the stone, Be lifted up! And it is an appearance; it is a plating of gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in them." Who would not rightly lament those who … of gold …? For they rouse them as though they were asleep, though they know that they are wholly lifeless, unable to act through the sense organs they appear to have.

20. "But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be reverent before his face." For the idols are dumb and devoid of all power; but our Master has heaven as a kind of temple, and on earth too he has the place consecrated in Jerusalem; and on every account he is entitled to receive reverence from the whole creation. It is clear that this too is said to the Babylonian, who despised the God who is and handed over to the fire the temple [built] for him, while giving worship to those [made] by [hands]. Having thus shaped the character of his discourse and cast it into question and answer, into the difficulty and the solution of the questions raised, and having shown the justice of God and how he exacts penalties from the Jews through the Babylonians and from the Babylonians through others, the blessed prophet turns his discourse into a hymn and a prayer, once again foretelling what will be under the form of a prayer.

[Hab 3:2] "O Lord, I have heard the report of you and was afraid; O Lord, I have considered your works and was astonished." I was filled with fear, O Master, on hearing your words; but beholding the justice of your sentence, and each thing that happens being judged justly, I continue to marvel greatly. "In the midst of two living creatures you will be known." This has been understood differently by different people. Some have understood the two living creatures as angels and human beings; others as those bodiless powers that draw near to the divine glory, the cherubim and the seraphim; others as Jews and Babylonians. To me it seems that the prophet spoke not of "living creatures" but of "lives", the present and the future, between which the just Judge appears. "When the years draw near you will be recognized; when the time is present you will be shown." For as time goes on and the events appear, the truthfulness of your predictions is shown. "When my soul is troubled, in wrath you will remember mercy." And while you trouble the souls of human beings by chastisements, you again [deal with them] in mercy.

[Hab 3:3] "God will come from Teman, and the Holy One from a shady mountain." Some have interpreted Teman as "south-west", others as "south". The prophet foretells and proclaims in advance the incarnation of our God and Savior that took place in Bethlehem, which lies to the south and south-west of Jerusalem; and he calls Jerusalem itself the shady mountain, which of old flourished with all manner of gifts, was shaded by the cloud, and dwelt in the shelter of the God of heaven. "His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise." The blessed David also said this: "O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth! For your magnificence is lifted up above the heavens." For the only-begotten Word of God, having become man, scattered the darkness of ignorance, enlightened human beings with the rays of the knowledge of God, and taught all that he is the Maker of heaven and earth and of all things.

[Hab 3:4] "And his brightness will be as light." For he sent forth a most brilliant ray, by which he lit up the world. "Horns are in his hands, and he has set a strong love of his strength." Not only by using the light of teaching did he show the truth, but by the power of his wonder-working he also moved every tongue to wonder; and he did both out of great love for the nature of human beings. The Lord himself said this too in the holy Gospels: "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." And: "No one can show greater love than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." He called power "horns", since these are the weapons of the animals that have them. Such is what was said by the blessed David: "In you we will gore our enemies."

[Hab 3:5] "Before his face a word will go, and it will go out for discipline at his feet." For the word leads the deeds, and foretelling what will be, he then brings on events in close agreement with the words. As for "for discipline", some of the copies have it with the nu, and this indicates that the God of all uses both words and deeds for the discipline and instruction of human beings; some have it without the nu, and this signifies that with great ease, as on a plain fit for riding, events run on following the prophecies.

[Hab 3:6] "He stood, and the earth was shaken; he looked, and nations melted; the mountains were shattered by force, the everlasting hills melted, at his everlasting goings." Through all these words he taught us the ineffable power of God: for the deed follows his will, and by merely willing (for this is what he meant by "he stood" and "he looked") he shakes the earth, dissolves the nature of human beings, breaks the mountains, and melts the hills like wax. For he has continually done these and similar things for the benefit of human beings; he calls his works "goings". Through these words he also signifies the cross that made salvation spring forth for all human beings, on which the Master Christ stood, and shook the earth, and split the mountains with the shaking, and struck the races of demons with fear, and destroyed the sacred precincts on mountains and hills. These things he determined from above, from the foundation of the world, and fulfilled in the last of the days.

[Hab 3:7] "Instead of troubles which I saw, the tents of the Ethiopians will be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian." But after the saving sufferings I saw the race of demons fallen, who imitate by their choice the natural color of the Ethiopians and deceive the souls of human beings. And if anyone wishes to understand this of human beings, he will not miss the aim of divine Scripture; for after the saving cross, the passion, and the resurrection, the divine choir of the apostles beheld the tents of Midian and the dwellings of the Ethiopians, and filled the whole world with divine knowledge.

[Hab 3:8] "Were you angry with rivers, O Lord, or was your wrath against rivers, or your onrush against the sea?" Shaking the earth, O Master, he says, and crushing the mountains, are you angry with all the nations, and bringing total destruction on all human beings? For he called the nations rivers and sea. "For you will mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation. (9) Bending, you will bend your bow against scepters, says the Lord." But it is clear that you accepted these sufferings out of care for the salvation of human beings. Therefore, riding upon the holy apostles as upon horses, you will provide salvation to all who believe; but you will use your punishing weapons against those who speak against you, among whom the tribes of Israel come first; for he called the tribes "scepters". Like this is what the Lord said to Ananias in Damascus about the blessed Paul: "Go, for this man is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before nations and kings and the sons of Israel." And "Bending, you will bend your bow" agrees closely with what was said by the blessed David: "[Bend your bow], and prosper, and reign"; and a little after: "Your arrows are sharpened, O Mighty One; peoples will fall under you, in the heart of the king's enemies." "The earth will be split with rivers." For just as farmers divide rivers into channels, contriving irrigation for the land, so you will divide the divine apostles and their followers like rivers, and will bring spiritual irrigation to human beings.

[Hab 3:10] "Peoples will see you and be in travail." This has a double meaning. Those who have believed, seeing your power shown in advance, love it and are, as it were, in travail, longing to see your eternal kingdom; while those held by unbelief will be stricken with the pangs of a woman in labor, envying and begrudging your glory. "Scattering the waters of his course." This too agrees with what has been said; for he distributed the waters of his divine teaching to all the nations through the divine apostles. "The abyss gave its voice; the height of its appearance was lifted up. (11) The sun and the moon stood still in their order." He has kept to the figure and preserved the sequence of thought. For having called the holy apostles rivers, he names the nations the sea of impiety. … For [just as when rivers flow] into the open sea much roaring and noise is produced, as the sea waves hold back and check their inflow, so, when the divine apostles went around the nations and ferried across the message of salvation, the unbelievers spoke against them and tried to quench the flame of the teaching. The history of the Acts teaches us this clearly. For in Ephesus Demetrius the silversmith stirred up the tumult against the apostles; in Corinth others shouted, "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too." And in Jerusalem the Jews, having stirred up the whole city against the inspired Paul, finally handed him over to the Romans. And one can find countless other such things. "Your darts will go into light, into the brightness of the lightning of your weapons. (12) In threatening you will trample the earth, and in wrath you will strike down nations." Though these things are done to the heralds you sent to the nations, he says, you are long-suffering, though you have ineffable power, abound in punishing weapons of every kind, and could destroy the whole earth with its inhabitants by a threat alone. …

[Hab 3:13] "You went out for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones." This too resembles what our Savior said in the holy Gospels: "The Son of Man came into the world not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him." He calls "anointed ones" those who were counted worthy of the calling, received the preaching in faith, and enjoyed the grace of the divine Spirit. "You cast death upon the heads of the lawless; you raised bonds up to the neck, to the end." To those who believed, then, you held out salvation; but those who remained in unbelief to the end you handed over to death, having put its bonds around them.

[Hab 3:14] "You cut off in amazement the heads of the mighty; [they will be shaken by it; they will open their bridles] like a poor man eating in secret." When your power has become plain to all human beings, even those invested with great dominions will be in such fear as not to [speak] the opposing words with [boldness] …; whom one might fairly compare to a poor man who … his mouth and grinds his food small inside.

[Hab 3:15] "And you mounted your horses into the [sea, troubling many waters]." [There] he said that a surge arises when rivers flow into the sea; here he has again named "horses" those whom he called rivers. While they went around the nations, the billows rose, but a deep calm succeeded them. The Lord too said this in the holy Gospels: "I did not come to cast peace upon the world, but a sword, to set a man against his neighbor, a son against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a bride against her mother-in-law." For since they embraced impiety in concord, he dissolves the evil concord by a good division, and after the praiseworthy discord [establishes] the [concord] of piety.

[Hab 3:16] "I kept watch, and my belly was terrified at the sound of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered into my bones, and beneath me my frame was troubled." The prophet, reckoning from what had been said what would happen to the Jews in their unbelief while the nations believed, felt sympathy for his kinsmen and said that he trembled and was afraid on account of the predictions spoken through the prayer. But nevertheless, he says, I have a consolation: that I shall not become an eyewitness of their misfortune. "[I shall rest in the day of affliction], to go up to the people of my sojourning." For before the outcome of the predictions I shall receive the end of life and be released from the sojourning of the present life. (17) "For the fig tree will not bear fruit, and there will be no produce on the vines; the work of the olive will fail, and the plains will yield no food; the sheep have failed from [the pasture], and there will be no oxen at the mangers." I shall not see, he says, the barrenness of fig or olive, nor the vine robbed of its clusters, nor the plains bare of ears of grain, nor the cattle perishing with famine. And each of these is said figuratively. He called Jerusalem the fig tree; for so the Lord taught us to understand it, [the fig tree] which the planter wished to cut down for its unfruitfulness, while the vinedresser begged that a little time be granted. The divine Scripture often called the people a vine; and, to leave aside the other testimonies, God says through Isaiah: "For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the house of Judah a beloved new plant. I waited for it to do justice, but it did lawlessness, and not righteousness, but a cry." One would not be wrong to call the Pharisees and Sadducees a barren olive: they prided themselves on the name of righteousness but were devoid of its fruits. That the olive is taken as an image of the righteous, the great David is witness, crying: "But I am like a fruitful olive in the house of God; I have hoped in the mercy of my God forever." The plains are those to whom Jeremiah too cries: "Break up fallow ground for yourselves, and do not sow among thorns." And he calls the subjects sheep, whom he threatens with famine: "For behold," he says, "I will bring a famine upon the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord." By the oxen that are not at the mangers he means the priests …; for just as oxen till the land, so the priests tilled the souls of the people, receiving from it as a kind of food what [is offered] to the divine … About these the blessed Paul too said: "You shall not muzzle an ox that treads out the grain." And again: "Those who attend the altar share with the altar." But these will fall into such misfortunes; …

[Hab 3:18–19] "But I will exult in the Lord; I will rejoice in God my Savior. The Lord God is my strength, and he will set my feet like a deer's, and set me upon the heights, so that I may conquer by his song." For even if I was filled with despondency and fear because of them, yet because of the glory of my God [that shines] on all human beings [I rejoice]. For he will support the weakness of my nature, and will make me, like a deer, trample on snakes and scorpions and the spiritual forces of wickedness, until, having reached the height of virtue, I sing the hymn of victory to the Savior and Maker. I know, then, that some have understood the whole prayer of Habakkuk historically and said that the prophet foretold these things about the return from Babylon. For my part, if anyone wishes these things to have been foretold of those events typologically, I will not quarrel; for such a meaning also agrees with what we have interpreted, since the old things are truly a clear type of the new. But I thought it out of place, when the truth prevails and the shadow has been covered by the body, to take the prophecy to other things that do not fit them at all. If anyone wishes to learn precisely, let him search the prophecy, and he will see that most of it in no way fits the types. But about these things let each judge as he wishes; I exhort my readers to gather the benefit from what has been interpreted, and, helped by the divine power, to finish the race and to long for the crowns of victory, which the Master Christ [gives], to whom be all glory to the ages of ages. Amen.

After Hezekiah, the pious and God-loving king, his son Manasseh became king and went to the utmost of impiety; he also made the people run aground into lawlessness and the worship of idols. His son Amon, who reigned a short time, followed his father's impiety but did not emulate his repentance; he too likewise trained the people in every kind of wickedness. From him sprang the thrice-blessed Josiah, who chose the path of virtue diametrically opposed to theirs, preferring the worship of God to everything. Under him the inspired Zephaniah made this prophecy; and the most divine Jeremiah began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of his reign. This wonderful prophet foretells what would happen to Jerusalem and the tribe of Judah; he also predicts grievous things for the foreigners who were their neighbors, and prophesies total destruction for the Assyrians. Then he announces in advance the recall of the people and the salvation given to all the nations after the Lord's incarnation. This, in summary, is the theme of the prophecy; and he begins the prediction thus: (1–3) "The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah. Let all things utterly fail from the face of the earth, says the Lord. Let man and beasts fail; let the birds of the heaven fail, and the fish of the sea." And showing the justice of the prophecy, he adds: "And the stumbling blocks with the ungodly; and I will remove the lawless from the face of the earth, says the Lord." For because of the impiety and lawlessness of human beings, I will destroy also the kinds of irrational creatures that came to be on their account and were made for their use. For just as I made birds, swimming creatures, and cattle for their service, so I will destroy these too together with them; for there is no use for them when those who enjoy them no longer exist. And teaching with whom he is angry and against whom he is wrathful, he adds: