Habakkuk 3:19

Habakkuk THE IDEAL DEVOUT LIFEHabakkuk 3:19 . So ends one of the most magnificent pieces of imaginative poetry in Scripture or anywhere else. The singer has been describing a great delivering manifestation of the Most High God, which, though he knew it was for the deliverance of God’s people, shed awe and terror over his soul. Then he gathers himself together to vow that in this God, thus manifested as the God of his salvation, he ‘will rejoice,’ whatever penury or privation may attach to his outward life. Lastly, he rises, in these final words, to the apprehension of what this God, thus rejoiced in, will become to those who so put their trust and their gladness upon Himself. The expressions are of a highly metaphorical and imaginative character, but they admit of being brought down to very plain facts, and they tell us the results in heart and mind of true faith and communion with God. It is to be noticed that a parallel saying, almost verbatim the same as that of my text, occurs in the 18th psalm, and that there, too, it is the last and joyous result of a tremendous manifestation of the delivering energy of God. Without any attempt to do more than bring out the deep meaning of the words, I note that the three clauses of our text present three aspects of what our lives and ourselves may steadfastly be if we, too, will rejoice in the God of our salvation. I. First, such communion with God brings God to a man for his strength.

The 18th psalm, which is closely parallel, as I have remarked, with this one, gives a somewhat different and inferior version of that thought when it says, ‘It is the Lord that girdeth me with strength.’ But Habakkuk, though perhaps he could not have put into dogmatic shape all that he meant, had come farther than that with this: ‘The Lord is my strength.’ He not only gives , as one might put a coin into the hand of a beggar, while standing separate from him all the while, but ‘He is my strength.’ And what does that mean? It is an anticipation of that most wonderful and highest of all the New Testament truths which the Apostle declared when he said: ‘I can do all things in Christ which strengtheneth me within.’ It is the anticipation in experience-which always comes before dogmatic formulas that reduce experiences into articulate utterances, of what the Apostle recorded when he said that he had heard the voice that declared, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee, and My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Ah, brother!

Habakkuk 3:19 . The Lord God is my strength — He that is the God of our salvation in another world, will be our strength in this world, to carry us on in our journey thither, and help us over the difficulties and oppositions we meet with in our way, even then when provisions are cut off, to make it appear that man does not live by bread alone, but may have the want of bread supplied by the graces and comforts of God’s Spirit. Observe, reader: 1st, We may be strong for our spiritual warfare and work, The Lord God is my strength, the strength of my heart, Psalm 73:26 . 2d, We may be swift for our spiritual race, He will make my feet like hinds’ feet, that with enlargement of heart I may run the way of his commandments. 3d, We may be successful in our spiritual enterprises, He will make me to walk upon my high places: that is, I shall gain my point, shall be restored unto my land, and tread upon the high places of the enemy: see the notes on Psalm 18:33 ; Deuteronomy 32:13 ; Deuteronomy 33:29 . Thus the prophet, who began his prayer with fear and trembling, concludes it with joy and triumph; for prayer is the support and consolation of a pious soul. And as he seems to have had the beginning of Moses’s blessing in his eye, at Habakkuk 3:3 , so in this he alludes to the conclusion of it. Some think it appears from the last words, To the chief singers, &c., that this prayer was sung in the temple service.

(19) The Lord God .—This is an adaptation from Psalm 18:33 . The “hinds’ feet” indicate the strength and elasticity of the prophet’s confidence; the “high places” are, as Kleinert observes, “the heights of salvation which stand at the end of the way of tribulation, and which only the righteous man can climb by the confidence of faith.” To the chief singer—i.e., to the precentor, or presiding singer. The rubric may be interpreted either “To the precentor. (To be performed) on my stringed instruments,” or, “To him who presides over my stringed instruments.” The fact that the same direction occurs with the words in the same order in six Psalms perhaps favours the latter rendering in all cases. The preposition al would, however, in this case be appropriate rather than b’ On the terms used, see Psalm 4:1. It has been inferred from the use of the possessive pronoun, “my stringed instruments,” that Habakkuk was a Levite, and therefore himself entitled to accompany the Temple music. But see Introduction, § 1.