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years of Josiah's reign, by the fact that Habakkuk represents this work of God as an incredible one: “Ye would not believe it, if it were told you” (Hab 1:5). Moreover, it is expressly related in 2Ki 21:10-16 and 2Ch 33:10, that in the time of Manasseh Jehovah caused His prophets to announce the coming of such a calamity, “that both ears of all who heard it would tingle” - namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and rejection of Judah. In all probability, one of these prophets was Habakkuk, who was the first of all the prophets known to us to announce this horrible judgment. Zephaniah and Jeremiah both appeared with the announcement of the same judgment in the reign of Josiah, and both took notice of Habakkuk in their threatenings. Thus Zephaniah quite as certainly borrowed the words הס מפּני אדני יהוה in Zep 1:7 from Hab 2:20, as Zechariah did the words הס כּל־בּשׂר מפּני יהוה in Zec 2:1-13 :17; and Jeremiah formed the expressions קלּוּ מנּשׁרים סוּסיו in Jer 4:13 and זאב ערבות in Jer 5:6 on the basis of קלּוּ מנּמרים סוּסיו וחדּוּ מזּאבי ערב in Hab 1:8, not to mention other passages of Jeremiah that have the ring of our prophet, which Delitzsch has collected in his Der Proph. Hab. ausgelegt (p. xii.). This decidedly upsets the theory that Habakkuk did not begin to prophesy till the reign of Jehoiakim; although, as such resemblances and allusions do not preclude the contemporaneous ministry of the prophets, there still remains the possibility that Habakkuk may not have prophesied till the time of Josiah, and indeed not before the twelfth year of Josiah's reign, when he commenced the extermination of idolatry and the restoration of the worship of Jehovah, since Habakkuk's prayer, which was intended according to the subscription for use in the temple, presupposes the restoration of the Jehovah-worship with the liturgical service of song.
But the possibility is not yet raised into a certainty by these circumstances. Manasseh also caused the idols to be cleared away from the temple after his return from imprisonment in Babylon, and not only restored the altar of Jehovah, and ordered praise-offerings and thank-offerings to be presented upon it, but commanded the people to serve Jehovah the God of Israel (2Ch 33:15-16). Consequently Habakkuk might have composed his psalm at that time for use in the temple service. And this conjecture as to its age acquires extreme probability when we look carefully at the