render them intelligible. Gesenius (Thes. p. 877) has explained the prophet's words in a similar manner, jurejurando firmatae sunt castigationes promissae (the threatened rods, i.e., chastisements, are sworn), even without noticing the allusion to Deu 32:40. upon which these words are founded. Delitzsch was the first to call attention to the allusion to Deu 32:40.; but in his explanation, “the darts are sworn through his word of power (jurejurando adstricta sunt tela verbo tuo),” the swearing is taken in a sense which is foreign to Deuteronomy, and therefore conceals the connection with the original passage. Of the other explanations not one can be vindicated. The rabbinical view which we find in the Vulgate, juramenta tribubus quae locutus es, is overthrown by the fact that שׁבעות without a preposition cannot mean per, or ob, or juxta juramenta, as we should have to render it, and as Luther actually has rendered it in his version (“as Thou hadst sworn to the tribes”). Ewald's rendering, “sevenfold darts of the word,” is precluded by the combination of ideas, “darts of the word,” which is quite foreign to the context. According to our explanation, the passage does indeed form simply a parenthesis in the description of the judicial interposition of God, but it contains a very fitting thought, through which the description gains in emphasis. In the last clause of the verse the description is continued in the manner already begun, and the effect indicated, which is produced upon the world of nature by the judicial interposition of God: “Thou splittest the earth into rivers.” בּקּע is construed with a double accusative, as in Zec 14:4. This may be understood either as signifying that the earth trembles at the wrath of the Judge, and rents arise in consequence, through which rivers of water burst forth from the deep, or so that at the quaking of the earth the sea pours its waves over the land and splits it into rivers. The following verses point to an earthquake through which the form of the earth's surface is changed.
Verse 10
Hab 3:10“The mountains see Thee, they writhe: a shower of waters passes along: the abyss lifts up its voice, it lifts up its hands on high. Hab 3:11. Sun, moon, enter into their habitation at the light of Thine arrows which shoot by, at the shining of the lightning of Thy spear.” The effect of the coming of God upon the mountains was already referred to in Hab 3:6. There
