Purer Eyes Than to See Evil
12 Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. 13 You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, 14 and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them? 15 He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good. 17 Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?
The second complaint is sharper than the first, and it is built entirely out of things the prophet believes about God.
Aren't you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? The complaint opens by confessing, and every clause of the confession becomes part of the problem. God is eternal, holy, and a Rock; he has appointed the Chaldeans for judgment. None of that is disputed, which is precisely why the question that follows is unanswerable on its own terms.
You who have purer eyes than to see evil — why do you tolerate the treacherous and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? The comparison is careful. Habakkuk does not claim Judah is righteous, only that Babylon is worse, and the objection is to the ratio rather than to the punishment.
Verses 14 to 17 give the picture that most offends him: men made like fish, hauled up with hook and dragnet by a fisherman who then sacrifices to his net and burns incense to it. The conqueror worships his own equipment. And the closing question is about limit — will he empty his net forever, killing nations without mercy?
settled What this mark means