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That bitter and hasty nation - Cruel and oppressive in their disposition; and prompt and speedy in their assaults and conquests.

For lo - So God announces a future, in which His Hand shall be greatly visible, whether more or less distant. In His sight it is present.

I raise up - God uses the free will and evil passions of people or devils to His own ends; and so He is said to “raise up” those whom He allows to be stirred up against His people, since the events which His Providence permits, favor their designs, and it rests with Him to withhold them. They lift themselves up for some end of covetousness or pride. But there is a higher order of things, in which God orders their actions to fulfill His righteousness by their iniquities.

The Chaldaeans, that bitter - מר . In Judges 18:25; 2 Samuel 17:8, the less concise נפשׁ מר.

And hasty nation - נמהר as Isaiah 32:4. Jerome: “To its might and warlike boldness almost all the Greeks who have written histories of the barbarians, witness.”

Which shall march through the breadth of the land - rather, “the earth,” literally “to the breadths of the earth,” reaching to its whole length and breadth, all its dimensions as in the description of Gog and Magog Revelation 20:8-9, “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea; and they went up on the breadth of the earth; unhindered, not pent up, but spreading abroad, where they will, over the whole earth.” All before it, is one wide even plain which it overspreads and covers, like a flood, and yet is not spent nor exhausted.

To possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs - As God‘s people had done, so should it be done to them. Spoiling and violence within Habakkuk 1:2-4 attract oppression from without. The overcharged atmosphere casts down the lightning upon them. They had expelled the weak from their dwelling Micah 2:9; others shall possess theirs. Yet this scourge too shall pass by, since, although the Chaldaean did God‘s Will, He willed it not, but His own (See Isaiah 10:6-7). The words, “not theirs,” literally, “not to him” stand with a mysterious fullness of meaning. The dwelling places not being his by right, shall not remain his, although given to him, while God wills.

The servants of the Lord are deeply afflicted by seeing ungodliness and violence prevail; especially among those who profess the truth. No man scrupled doing wrong to his neighbour. We should long to remove to the world where holiness and love reign for ever, and no violence shall be before us. God has good reasons for his long-suffering towards bad men, and the rebukes of good men. The day will come when the cry of sin will be heard against those that do wrong, and the cry of prayer for those that suffer wrong. They were to notice what was going forward among the heathen by the Chaldeans, and to consider themselves a nation to be scourged by them. But most men presume on continued prosperity, or that calamities will not come in their days. They are a bitter and hasty nation, fierce, cruel, and bearing down all before them. They shall overcome all that oppose them. But it is a great offence, and the common offence of proud people, to take glory to themselves. The closing words give a glimpse of comfort.

These anxious questionings were voiced by the prophet Habakkuk. Viewing the situation of the faithful in his day, he expressed the burden of his heart in the inquiry: “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save! Why dost Thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.” Habakkuk 1:2-4. PK 385.1

God answered the cry of His loyal children. Through His chosen mouthpiece He revealed His determination to bring chastisement upon the nation that had turned from Him to serve the gods of the heathen. Within the lifetime of some who were even then making inquiry regarding the future, He would miraculously shape the affairs of the ruling nations of earth and bring the Babylonians into the ascendancy. These Chaldeans, “terrible and dreadful,” were to fall suddenly upon the land of Judah as a divinely appointed scourge. Verse 7. The princes of Judah and the fairest of the people were to be carried captive to Babylon; the Judean cities and villages and the cultivated fields were to be laid waste; nothing was to be spared. PK 385.2

Confident that even in this terrible judgment the purpose of God for His people would in some way be fulfilled, Habakkuk bowed in submission to the revealed will of Jehovah. “Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?” he exclaimed. And then, his faith reaching out beyond the forbidding prospect of the immediate future, and laying fast hold on the precious promises that reveal God's love for His trusting children, the prophet added, “We shall not die.” Verse 12. With this declaration of faith he rested his case, and that of every believing Israelite, in the hands of a compassionate God. PK 386.1

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