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Chapter 1
This burden following was revealed to the prophet Habacuc. Lord, must I ever cry out to you, and gain hearing never? Plead against tyranny, and no deliverance be granted me? Must I nothing see but wrong and affliction; turn where I will, nothing but robbery and oppression; pleading at law everywhere, everywhere contention raising its head? What marvel if the old teachings are torn up, and redress is never to be found? Innocence by knavery circumvented still, and false award given!
Have you no eyes for the world about you? Look upon it with wonder and awe; in your own days here be strange deeds a-doing, so strange, a man would scarce credit them if they were told in story. What a nation is this I am spurring on to battle, the Chaldaean folk, so implacable, so swift! Ready to march the wide world over, so there be lands, not theirs, to covet! A grim nation and a terrible; no right they acknowledge, no title, but what themselves bestow. Not leopard so lithe as horse of theirs, not wolf at evening so fast; wide the sweep of their horsemen, that close in, close in from afar, flying like vultures hungry for their prey. Plunderers all; eager as the sirocco their onset, whirling away, like sand-storm, their captives. Here be men that hold kings in contempt, make princes their sport; no fortress but is a child's game to such as these; let them but make a heap of dust, it is theirs. Veers wind, and he is gone; see him fall down and ascribe the victory to his god!
But you, Lord, my God and all my worship, you are from eternity! And will you see us perish? Warrant of yours they hold, take their strength from you, only to make known your justice, your chastening power! So pure those eyes, shall they feast on wrong-doing? Will you brook the sight of oppression, look on while treason is done? Innocence the prey of malice, and no word from you? As well had men been fishes in the sea, or creeping things, that ruler have none! And indeed it nothing spares, hook of yonder Chaldaean; seine and drag he spreads for all, and great joy has he of his sport. Nay, seine must have its victims, incense be offered to drag; whom else thanks he for the rich fare on his plate, viands most dainty? Trust me, wider still yonder net shall be flung; sword of his will never have done with massacre.
Chapter 2
What message, then, is entrusted to me? What answer shall I make when I am called to account? Here on the watch-tower my post shall be; stand I on the battlements, and await his signal. Write down your vision, the Lord said, on a tablet, so plain that it may be read with a glance; a vision of things far distant, yet one day befall they must, no room for doubting it. Wait you long, yet wait patiently; what must be must, and at the time appointed for it. Foul air the doubter breathes; by his faith he lives, who lives right. Tyrant, like drunkard, is mocked by false dreams of glory. See him whet his appetite, not death itself nor the grave more insatiable; gather up a tribe here, a nation there, heap his plate with them! One day, what a by-word they will make of him! What riddling taunts shall be hurled at him! As here follows:
So you would hoard up the possessions that are none of yours, load yourself with base dross, and it should go on for ever? All unawares the foe shall spring, worry you, harry you, make a helpless prey of you. So many lands you have plundered, plundered yourself shall be; enough nations are left for that; for men's blood shed, and for fields ravaged, plundered the city shall be, and all that dwell there.
Ill-gotten gains you would amass to deck that house of yours; make it an eyrie, too high for envious hands to reach? Nay, with this undoing of many peoples you have done your own house despite, your own life is forfeit; stone from ruined wall cries out against you, and beam from gaping roof echoes the cry.
City you would found, city's walls build up, with deeds of bloodshed and of wrong? What, has not the Lord of hosts uttered his doom, toil of nations shall feed the fire, and all their labour be spent for nothing? It is the Lord's glory men must learn to know, that shall cover the earth, flooding over it like the waters of the sea.
You would pour out a draught for your neighbour, a draught your own hand has poisoned; bemuse him as with wine, to leave him stripped and bare? This was to cover yourself with shame, not with glory; drink you in your turn, and grow dizzy! A round for you, now, from yonder cup the Lord holds in his hand; how shamefully is that glory of yours bespewed! Wrong done to Lebanon, scathe of the roaming beasts, shall recoil on you; fear shall overtake them, city of yours and all that dwell there, for men's blood shed, and for fields ravaged.
What avails image, that carver should be at pains to carve it? In metal his own hands have melted shall a man put his trust? Cheating likenesses, dumb idols all! And your prayer was, stock and stone should wake up and come to your aid, senseless things that cannot signify their will; nay, breath in their bodies have none, for all they are tricked out with gold and silver!
And all the while, the Lord is in his holy temple. Keep silence, earth, before him.
Chapter 3
A prayer of the prophet Habacuc for Shigionoth.
I have heard, Lord, the tale of your renown, awe-stricken at the divine power you have. Reveal that power in these latter days, in these latter days make it known once more! And though we have earned your anger, bethink you of mercy still. God coming near from Teman, the holy One from yonder hills of Pharan! See how his glory overspreads heaven, his fame echoes through the earth; the brightness that is his, like light itself, the rays that stream from his hand, masking its strength; pestilence his outrider, the wasting sickness in his train! There stood he, and scanned the earth; at his look, the nations were adread; melted were the everlasting mountains, bowed were the ancient hills, his own immemorial pathway, as he journeyed. I saw the Ethiop quail in his tent, the dwellings of Madian astir with terror.
Is it the rivers, Lord, that have awaked your anger; should it be the rivers? Or has the sea earned your vengeance, that you come thus mounted on your horses, on your victorious chariot; that bow of yours brought into full play, which grants to Israel the assurance of your succour? Earth is torn into ravines; the mountains tremble at the sight. Fierce falls the rain-storm, the depths beneath us roar aloud, the heights beckon from above; sun and moon linger in their dwelling-place; so bright your arrows volley, with such sheen of lightning glances your spear.
Nay, if you ride through the world so angrily, with your disdain striking the nations dumb, it is to rescue your own people, rescue your own anointed servant, that you go out to battle. Down fall the turrets in yonder castle of godlessness, down sink the foundations to their very base; lights your ban on its princes, on the heads of its warriors, whose blustering rage would overthrow me, confident now as some petty tyrant who oppresses the poor in secret. Over the sea, over the ooze beneath its waves, you have made a path for your horses to tread.
Such was the tale that set my whole frame trembling; at the rumour of it my lips quivered with fear; there was a faintness overcame my whole being, my steps faltered as I went. Now with tranquil heart let me await this day of doom; upon the enemies of our people it is destined to fall. What though the fig-tree never bud, the vine yield no fruit, the olive fail, the fields bear no harvest; what though our folds stand empty of sheep, our byres of cattle? Still will I make my boast in the Lord, triumph in the deliverance God sends me. The Lord, the ruler of all, is my stronghold; he will bring me safely on my way, safe as the hind whose feet echo already on the hills.
(For the chief singer, to the harp's music.)