CHAPTER IX
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Smith, George Adam and Nicoll, W. Robertson (William Robertson), Sir
THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK
As it has reached us, the Book of Habakkuk, under the title The Oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received by vision, consists of three chapters, which fall into three sections. First:
chap. i. 2—ii. 4 (or 8), a piece in dramatic form; the prophet lifts his voice to God against the wrong and violence of which his whole horizon is full, and God sends him answer. Second:
chap. ii. 5 (or 9)-20, a taunt-song in a series of Woes upon the wrong-doer. Third:
chap. iii., part psalm, part prayer, descriptive of a Theophany and expressive of Israel’s faith in their God. Of these three sections no one doubts the authenticity of the first; opinion is divided about the second; about the third there is a growing agreement that it is not a genuine work of Habakkuk, but a poem from a period after the Exile.