Habakkuk 1:4

4 That is why your teaching is numbed, and justice is never carried out. Wicked people surround righteous people so that when justice is carried out, it's perverted.

Habakkuk 1:4 Meaning and Commentary

Habakkuk 1:4

Therefore the law is slacked
Is not put into execution against offenders: the civil magistrates, whose office it is to do justice according to law, are dilatory, and do not proceed with vigour and spirit against the transgressors of it, and in favour of honest and good men oppressed: or "it intermits" F18, or is "intermitted"; it is like a man whose pulse beats low, and is scarce perceived, which is a sign that he is not in good health as the body politic is not, when the law, which is the soul of it, is not suffered to take place, and do its office. So the Targum,

``the law languishes;''
loses its force and vigour, and is ready to expire; which is a sad symptom of the bad estate of a commonwealth. And judgment doth never go forth;
at least not right, to the justifying of the righteous, acquitting the innocent, and giving the cause on the right side; condemning the wicked, and punishing offenders as their crime deserves: it never appears as it should do; it is either not done at all, or done badly and perversely: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous;
to hurt him or ensnare him, and by frauds and wicked artifices, and false witnesses, to carry a cause against him: therefore wrong judgment proceedeth;
the cause is given on the wrong side, against a good man, and for a wicked man; all these things the prophet saw with grief, and complained of to the Lord, from whom he has an answer in the following words:
FOOTNOTES:

F18 (gwpt) "intermittitur", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Burkius; (gwp) "est, animi deliquium pati", Tarnovius.

Habakkuk 1:4 In-Context

2 How long, O LORD, am I to cry for help, but you will not listen? I cry out to you, "There's violence!" yet you will not come to the rescue.
3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing? And why do you watch wickedness? Destruction and violence are in front of me. Quarrels and disputes arise.
4 That is why your teaching is numbed, and justice is never carried out. Wicked people surround righteous people so that when justice is carried out, it's perverted.
5 Look among the nations and watch. Be amazed and astonished. I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if it were reported to you.
6 I am going to send the Babylonians, that fierce and reckless nation. They will march throughout the earth to take possession of lands that don't belong to them.
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