Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Habakkuk 3:18
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord ] Comp. Psa 5:11; Psa 32:11; Psa 33:1; Isa 61:10. In spite of calamities the people will joy in God; though earthly blessings perish He remains their portion. The joy is partly a present one in the possession of God, as Psa 73:23, “Nevertheless I am continually with thee”; and partly one of hope in His salvation; Psa 18:46; Mic 7:7; Isa 17:12 ff.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. – The words are very impressive, as they stand in the Hebrew. For, he says, the fig tree shall not blossom, and there is no fruit in the vines, the labor of the olive hath failed; (the prophet does not look on, only to these things, but in his mind stands in the midst of them, they are done, and he amid them, feeling their effects) and the field hath yielded no food; the flock hath been cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stall; and I. He relates it as the result of all which had gone before; such and such was the state of fruit-trees, vintage, harvest, flocks and herds; such was the aspect of all nature, living or inanimate; all was barren, disappointing; all had failed and was gone; and then at last he comes to himself, and I; what is he doing, when all nature and every seeming hope is dead? thus and thus it is with them; and I will rejoice.
He almost uses the expression as to the exultation of the enemy, adopting the same word only in a softer form. Their exulting joy was concentrated in this, as to devour the poor secretly; he too had exulting joy. There is a joy against joy – a joy of theirs in the possession of all which their rapacity covets, in the possession of all things: a joy of his amid the privation of all things. He contrasts the two joys, as David had of old; Psa 17:13, Psa 17:15 : the men of the world, whose portion is in this life, whose belly Thou fillest with Thy hid treasure; they are sated of children and leave their substance to their babes: I, he adds, I shall behold Thy Presenee in righteousness, I shall be sated, in the awakening, with Thine image. So Habakkuk, I will not rejoice only, but shout for joy; and not so only, but I will bound for joy; and this not for a time only; both words express a drawing, yearning of the soul, and this yet more and more, I will shout for joy and would shout on; I will bound for joy and would bound on.
But whence the source of this measureless unutterable joy? In the Lord, the Unchangeable God, who is and was and is to come, I am (it is the incommunicable Name); in the God of my salvation: it is almost the Name of Jesus; for jesus is salvation, and the Name means the Lord is Salvation; whence the words are here rendered even by a Jew in God the Author of my redemption, and yet more sweetly by a father. Augustine, de Civ. D. xviii. 32: To me what some manuscripts have; I will rejoice in God my Jesus, seems better than what they have, who have not set the Name itself (but saving) which to us it is more loving and sweeter to name.) in God my Jesus. In Him his joy begins, to Him and in Him it flows back and on; before he ventures, amid all the desolation, to speak of joy, he names the Name of God, and, as it were, stays himself in God, is enveloped and wrapped round in God; sad I (the words stand in this order) and I in the Lord would shout for joy.
He comes, as it were, and places himself quite close to God, so that nothing, not even his joy should be between himself and God; and I in the Lord. All creation, as it had failed, ceases to be; all out of God: he speaks of nothing but himself and God, or rather himself in God; and as He, God, comes before his joy, as its source, so in Him does he lose himself, with joy which cannot be contained, nor expressed, nor rest, but utters itself in the glad motions of untiring love. I would bound for joy in my Saving God. Truly all our joy is, to be in Him in whom is all Good, who is all Goodness and all Love.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
As for my part, I will, saith the prophet, rejoice; look for joy, expect matter of rejoicing
in the Lord, who will preserve a remnant and redeem them, who will rebuke Babylon, and will very strangely destroy it.
I will joy in the God of my salvation: the prophet renews his own faith, and confirms ours. All shall end in salvation to him and believers.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. yet I will rejoiceTheprophet speaks in the name of his people.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,…. In the Word of the Lord, as the Targum; the essential Word of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ; in his person, the greatness and glory of it; in his offices, as Prophet, Priest, and King, the only Mediator and Saviour; in his relations, as head and husband, father, brother, friend; in his fulness, grace, and righteousness; in his spiritual presence, and comfortable communion with him, which may be expected in a remarkable manner after the above day of trouble is over; and in his personal appearance, which will shortly be, and when his tabernacle will be with men on earth:
I will joy in the God of my salvation; in Christ, who is God, and so able to save his people; to make everything he did and suffered in human nature effectual and available to them; to supply all their wants, and to keep what they commit unto him, and to preserve them safe to his kingdom and glory: and who also joy in the salvation of their God, or which he is the author of, both temporal and spiritual, especially the latter; which is so great and glorious in itself, so suitable to their case, so complete and perfect, and makes so much for the glory of all the divine perfections, and is all of free grace, and lasts for ever: this salvation is peculiar to the people of God; it is theirs, and theirs only; it is what they choose and prefer to all other ways of salvation; it is brought and applied to them by the Spirit, and which they appropriate to themselves under his witnessings; and then it is they can and do rejoice: particularly salvation and deliverance from antichristianism, in all the branches of it, may be chiefly pointed at as the matter and ground of joy; and the enjoyment of Gospel privileges in the full extent of them; the word and ordinances in their power and purity; and the presence of Christ in them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Although trembling on account of the approaching trouble, the prophet will nevertheless exult in the prospect of the salvation that he foresees. Hab 3:18. “But I, in Jehovah will I rejoice, will shout in the God of my salvation. Hab 3:19. Jehovah the Lord is my strength, and makes my feet like the hinds, and causes me to walk along upon my high places.” The turning-point is introduced with ht , as is frequently the case in the Psalms. For this exaltation out of the sufferings of this life to believing joy in God, compare Psa 5:8; Psa 13:6; Psa 31:15, etc. , a softened form of , to rejoice in God (cf. Psa 5:12), i.e., so that God is the inexhaustible source and infinite sphere of the joy, because He is the God of salvation, and rises up to judgment upon the nations, to procure the salvation of His people (Hab 3:13). Elohe yish (the God of my salvation), as in Psa 18:47; Psa 25:5 (see at Mic 7:7). The thoughts of the 19th verse are also formed from reminiscences of Psalm 18: the first clause, “the Lord is my strength,” from Psa 18:33. “God, who girdeth me with strength,” i.e., the Lord gives me strength to overcome all tribulation (cf. Psa 27:1 and 2Co 12:9). The next two clauses are from Psa 18:34, “He maketh my feet like hinds’,” according to the contracted simile common in Hebrew for “hinds’ feet;” and the reference is to the swiftness of foot, which was one of the qualifications of a thorough man of war (2Sa 1:23; 1Ch 12:8), so as to enable him to make a sudden attack upon the enemy, and pursue him vigorously. Here it is a figurative expression for the fresh and joyous strength acquired in God, which Isaiah calls rising up with eagles’ wings (Isa 40:29-31). Causing to walk upon the high places of the land, was originally a figure denoting the victorious possession and government of a land. It is so in Deu 32:13 and Deu 33:29, from which David has taken the figure in Psalm 18, though he has altered the high places of the earth into “my high places” ( bamothai ). They were the high places upon which the Lord had placed him, by giving him the victory over his enemies. And Habakkuk uses the figurative expression in the same sense, with the simple change of into after Deu 33:29, to substitute for the bestowment of victory the maintenance of victory corresponding to the blessing of Moses. We have therefore to understand bamothai neither as signifying the high places of the enemy, nor the high places at home, nor high places generally. The figure must be taken as a whole; and according to this, it simply denotes the ultimate triumph of the people of God over all oppression on the part of the power of the world, altogether apart from the local standing which the kingdom of God will have upon the earth, either by the side of or in antagonism to the kingdom of the world. The prophet prays and speaks throughout the entire ode in the name of the believing congregation. His pain is their pain; his joy their joy. Accordingly he closes his ode by appropriating to himself and all believers the promise which the Lord has given to His people and to David His anointed servant, to express the confident assurance that the God of salvation will keep it, and fulfil it in the approaching attack on the part of the power of the world upon the nation which has been refined by the judgment.
The last words, , do not form part of the contents of the supplicatory ode, but are a subscription answering to the heading in Hab 3:1, and refer to the use of the ode in the worship of God, and simply differ from the headings in Psa 4:1-8; Psa 6:1-10; 54:1-55:23; Psa 67:1-7, and Psa 76:1-12, through the use of the suffix in . Through the words, “to the president (of the temple-music, or the conductor) in accompaniment of my stringed playing,” the prophet appoints his psalm for use in the public worship of God accompanied by his stringed playing. Hitzig’s rendering is grammatically false, “to the conductor of my pieces of music;” for cannot be used as a periphrasis for the genitive, but when connected with a musical expression, only means with or in the accompaniment of ( instrumenti or concomitantiae ). Moreover, does not mean pieces of music, but simply a song, and the playing upon stringed instruments, or the stringed instrument itself (see at Psa 4:1-8). The first of these renderings gives no suitable sense here, so that there only remains the second, viz., “playing upon stringed instruments.” But if the prophet, by using this formula, stipulates that the ode is to be used in the temple, accompanied by stringed instruments, the expression bingnothai , with my stringed playing, affirms that he himself will accompany it with his own playing, from which it has been justly inferred that he was qualified, according to the arrangements of the Israelitish worship, to take part in the public performance of such pieces of music as were suited for public worship, and therefore belonged to the Levites who were entrusted with the conduct of the musical performance of the temple.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(18) Yeti.e., in spite of all the afflictions predicted in Hab. 3:17. We are reminded of St. Pauls expression of confidence in Rom. 8:37.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Hab 3:18. Yet Or, But for my part. Instead of, The God of my salvation, the Vulgate reads, In Jesus my God: that Jesus, says Calmet, who is the joy, the consolation, the hope, the life of believers; without whom the world can offer us nothing but false joys; who was the object of the desires, and the perpetual consolation, of the prophets and patriarchs. See Joh 8:56.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Hab 3:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Ver. 18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation ] This joy of the Lord was the prophet s strength, and kept his head above all waters of affliction, Neh 8:10 . So it was David’s at the sack of Ziklag, 1Sa 30:6 , when Saul at the same time for want of it ran first to the witch, and thence to the sword’s point. A good man hath God for his portion; and if any occasion of discontent or trouble befall him he retireth into his counting house, and there seeth himself so well stored with unlosable graces and invaluable privileges that he cannot be greatly moved, Psa 62:2 . His soul in greatest straits can magnify the Lord, and his spirit rejoice in God his Saviour. Disquieted he may be sometimes for a season, till he hath recollected and better bethought himself. We are staggering, saith the apostle, but not wholly sticking, 2Co 4:8 , for not the evenest weights but at their first putting into the balance do somewhat sway both parts thereof, not without some show of inequality, which yet after some little motion do settle themselves in a meet poise and posture.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
God of my salvation. Compare Psa 18:46; Psa 24:5; Psa 25:5; Psa 27:9.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I will rejoice: Deu 12:18, 1Sa 2:1, Job 13:15, Psa 33:1, Psa 46:1-5, Psa 85:6, Psa 97:12, Psa 104:34, Psa 118:15, Psa 149:2, Isa 41:16, Isa 61:10, Zec 10:7, Luk 1:46, Luk 1:47, Rom 5:2, Rom 5:3, Phi 4:4, Jam 1:2, Jam 1:9, Jam 1:10, 1Pe 1:8, 1Pe 4:12, 1Pe 4:13
the God: Exo 15:2, Psa 25:5, Psa 27:1, Psa 118:14, Isa 12:2, Mic 7:7, Luk 2:30
Reciprocal: Deu 16:11 – General Deu 27:7 – rejoice 1Sa 30:6 – David 1Ki 17:6 – the ravens Job 27:10 – delight Psa 9:2 – I will be Psa 9:14 – I will Psa 13:5 – my heart Psa 20:5 – rejoice Psa 27:5 – set me Psa 35:9 – General Psa 43:4 – my exceeding joy Psa 51:14 – thou God Psa 71:22 – psaltery Psa 73:25 – none upon Psa 77:6 – my song Pro 3:26 – Lord Isa 15:6 – the grass Isa 16:10 – General Isa 17:10 – the God Isa 24:15 – glorify Isa 29:19 – rejoice Isa 58:14 – delight Jer 5:17 – And they Joe 1:12 – The vine Joe 1:19 – to thee Joe 2:23 – rejoice Hag 2:19 – as Joh 16:22 – and your Rom 5:11 – but we Rom 12:12 – Rejoicing Phi 3:1 – rejoice 1Jo 1:4 – that
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hab 3:18. These judgments did not weaken the faith or the prophet in his God.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
3:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy {y} in the God of my salvation.
(y) He declares in what the joy of the faithful consists, though they see ever so great afflictions prepared.