An ideal theophany: 1. The onward march of the Deity.
I. HIS PERSON DESIGNATED.
1. God, or Eloah, the Strong or Powerful One. A name for the Supreme used for the first time by Moses (Deuteronomy 32:15) to portray God as the Creator of Israel, and employed by Habakkuk "to designate God as the Lord and Governor of the whole world" (Keil). Omnipotence an essential attribute of Divinity (Genesis 17:1; Joshua 4:24; 1 Chronicles 29:12; Job 36:5; Job 42:2; Psalms 62:11); the impotence of heathen idols was the best proof that they were no gods (Isaiah 45:20; Jeremiah 2:28).
2. The Holy One. An appellation given to God at least three times in the Psalter (Psalms 71:2; Psalms 78:41; Psalms 89:18), twice in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 50:29; Jeremiah 51:5), once in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 39:7), once in Hosea (Hosea 11:9), twice in Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:12; Habakkuk 3:3), and occurring frequently in Isaiah. Equally with strength is purity an indispensable quality in the Supreme; and this no less than that in an infinite measure and degree. An unholy God could not be all-powerful, all-wise, all-just, or all-good. Holiness the guarantee and guardian of the other attributes of his nature. Least of all could an unholy God be either a Saviour or a Judge of men.
II. HIS GLORY DEPICTED.
1. Its extent. All-pervading, irradiating the entire universe, covering the heavens and spreading over the earth (Ezekiel 43:2), What is here declared of the material or symbolic presence of Deity is true of his real, though unseen, presence (Psalms 8:1; Psalms 19:1; Isaiah 6:3).
2. Its brightness. Resembling the light, i.e. the sun, to which Scripture likens God himself (Psalms 84:11), and Christ (Matthew 4:2; John 9:5), who is God's Image (2 Corinthians 4:4), the Brightness of his Father's glory, and the express Image of his Person (Hebrews 1:3). In exact accordance with the prophet's thought, God is represented as covering himself with tight as with a garment (Psalms 104:2), and as dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto (1 Timothy 6:16); white Christ is ever set forth as the highest expression of the uncreated glory of the Supreme (John 1:14).
3. Its manifestation. Emitting rays or shooting forth beams on all sides, like the rising sun (Keil, Delitzsch), an emblem suggestive of the partial and gradual, though universal, manner in which the Divine glory unveils itself to intelligent spectators on earth (Job 26:14).
4. Its power. Emanating from his hand, like rays darting forth from the sun's disc, or like horns shooting out from the head of a gazelle (Pusey, Fausset). The allusion may have been to the lightnings which flashed forth from the cloud upon Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16); but the underlying thought is that one principal aspect of God's glory is the exhibition of power which he furnishes to men in the material creation (Isaiah 40:26, Isaiah 40:28), in the phenomena of nature (Job 36:22, etc.), and in the scheme of grace (1 Corinthians 1:24).
5. Its essence. Hidden, unsearchable, unfathomable, the above-mentioned coruscations of his glory being not so much unveilments as concealments of his ineffable Personality, not so much exhibitions as hidings of his power. That which may be known of God from the outshinings of his glory is the fact, not the fulness, of his power and Godhead, The grand truth symbolized by the cloudy pillar infolding brightness, viz. that Israel's God was a God that, while discovering, yet hid himself (Isaiah 45:15), was in the Incarnation exemplified and emphasized (cf. John 1:14 with John 7:27), and is receiving confirmation by every advance the human mind makes in knowledge (Job 11:7-9; Job 26:9; Job 37:23; Psalms 145:3; Psalms 147:5; Isaiah 40:28; Romans 11:33). Agnoscticism a witness to the truth here stated.
III. HIS ADVANCE DESCRIBED.
1. The quarter whence he comes. Teman and Paran, i.e. the country south of Judah or Idumea, and Paran the desert region lying between Judah and Sinai (see Exposition). Separated only by the Wady-el-Arabah, the two localities were intended to indicate the Sinaitic region as the spot whence this sublime theophany of the future should proceed. In so defining its starting point, the prophet probably wished to suggest a variety of thoughts, as e.g. that the future glorious manifestation of Jehovah was rendered possible, and even probable, by what had in the past occurred at Sinai; that it would proceed in the line of that earlier theophany, and be a carrying out of the Divine policy therein revealed a policy of mercy and judgment, of salvation and destruction; and that in it, as in the ancient Apocalypse, both the power and the holiness of God would be signally displayed. True of the Divine advent in the overthrow of Babylon, these thoughts were also realized in the advent of the fulness of the times, and will be conspicuous in the final advent at the close of human history.
2. The purpose for which he comes. To execute judgment upon the ungodly world, and so to effect the deliverance of his people. This was to be the object of his interposition in the overthrow of Babylon, as it had been in the destruction of Egypt; this was the end aimed at in the first coming of the Saviour, the redemption of his Church by the annihilation of her foes; this will be the purpose of his appearing at the end of the world, to complete the redemption of his people by completing the punishment of the ungodly.
3. The attendants by whom he is served. Pestilence in front, and fiery belts in the rear, signifying that God will be accompanied with sufficient instruments to effect his purpose. "Death and destruction of all sorts are a great army at his command (Pusey).
Learn:
1. The certainty of a future manifestation of Jehovah in the Person of the glorified Christ.
2. The double object for which that glorious manifestation of Christ will take place.
An ideal theophany: 2. The wonderful acts of the Deity.
I. MEASURING THE EARTH, AND DRIVING ASUNDER THE NATIONS.
1. Measuring the earth; i.e. either surveying it with his all-seeing glance whereat there is universal consternation (Fausset), or measuring it out among the peoples on its surface, as Joshua partitioned the Holy Land after its conquest among the tribes (Pusey). Both ideas are historically true, no Divine interposition of any magnitude occurring among earth's inhabitants without bringing with it to thoughtful minds a conviction that the hand and eye of God are at work, and leaving after it, as a result, a rearrangement of the map of the globe. The marginal reading, "shaking the earth," causing it to reel (Delitzsch, Keil), as David says it trembled on the occasion of Jehovah's coming down on Mount Sinai (Psalms 68:8), presents also a valuable truth that the Divine providential government of the world, especially when it takes to deal with long established iniquity for the purpose of punishing and destroying the same, is calculated to inspire awe among earth's inhabitants (Psalms 99:1), as it did when it broke the pride of Egypt (Exodus 15:14), as it was to do when it overthrew the Chaldean power, and as it will do when it hurls the mystical Babylon to the abyss (Revelation 18:19). This the thought contained in the parallel clause.
2. Driving asunder the nations. "He beheld and drove asunder [or, 'made to tremble'] the nations." He so paralyzed them with fear that he drove them asunder, rendering combination amongst them impossible.
II. SCATTERING THE MOUNTAINS AND BOWING THE HILLS. Not the lesser heights of comparatively recent formation, but the primeval altitudes, whose hoary peaks have witnessed the passing by of millenniums, and whose roots go down amid the granite bars of the earth (Psalms 90:2). These by his encampment on their summits he causes to crumble, resolve themselves into dust, and vanish into nought (Nahum 1:5; Micah 1:4). The image may point to "the convulsions on Mount Sinai and to the earthquake which announced the descent of the Most High" (Adam Clarke), but it signifies the utter impossibility of even the strongest forces of nature, whether in matter or in man, resisting the advance of God, and that because his ways are older than even the everlasting hills (Psalms 90:2) are the only things on earth to which everlastingness belongs. "The everlasting ways of the everlasting God are mercy and truth" (St. Bernard, quoted by Pusey).
III. TERRIFYING THE HEATHEN AND PUNISHING THE ADVERSARIES OF HIS PEOPLE.
In prophetic vision Habakkuk beheld the impression made upon the neighbouring nations through which Jehovah passed on his march from Teman to the Red Sea—the Cushites or African Ethiopians on the west "in affliction;" and the Midianites towards the east, "trembling." A different interpretation makes Cushan the Mesopotamian king, Chushan-Rishathaim, who oppressed Israel eight years in the time of the Judges ( 3:8-10), and Midian the last enemy who seduced Israel into sin when on the borders of the promised land (Numbers 25:17), and came up against them after they had settled in it ( 6:4-11). In this case the prophet selects the judgments executed upon these—upon the first by Othniel, upon the second by Gideon—as typical of the inflictions that would fall upon Jehovah's enemies at his future coming.
Learn:
1. The sovereignty of God over men and kings.
2. The duty and wisdom of recognizing God's hand in the movements of nations and in the phenomena of nature.
3. The impossibility of defeating the ultimate realization of God's purposes, whether of judgment or of mercy.