the Second Week after Easter
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New American Standard Bible
Habakkuk 1:2
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How long, Lord, must I call for helpand you do not listenor cry out to you about violenceand you do not save?
LORD, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you "Violence!" and will you not save?
O Lord, howe long shall I crie, and thou wilt not heare! euen cry out vnto thee of violence, and thou wilt not saue?
O Lord , how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!
O Lord , how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?
Lord , how long must I ask for help and you ignore me? I cry out to you about violence, but you do not save us!
O LORD, how long will I call for help And You will not hear? I cry out to You, "Violence!" Yet You do not save.
O Lorde, howe long shall I crye, and thou wilt not heare! euen crye out vnto thee for violence, and thou wilt not helpe!
How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, "Violence!" Yet You do not save.
How long, O Yahweh, will I call for help,And You will not hear?I cry out to You, "Violence!"Yet You do not save.
How long, O LORD, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to You, "Violence!" but You do not save?
Our Lord , how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from all this violence?
Adonai , how long must I cry without your hearing? "Violence!" I cry to you, but you don't save.
Jehovah, how long shall I cry and thou wilt not hear? I cry out unto thee, Violence! and thou dost not save.
Lord , I continue to ask for help. When will you listen to me? I cried to you about the violence, but you did nothing!
O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? I cry to thee because of the plunderers, and thou wilt not deliver!
O Lord , how long must I call for help before you listen, before you save us from violence?
O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? How long will I cry out to you, "Violence!" and you will not save?
O Jehovah, until when shall I cry for help, and You will not hear? I cry out to You, Violence! But You do not save.
O Jehovah, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? I cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save.
How long, O Lord, will your ears be shut to my voice? I make an outcry to you about violent behaviour, but you do not send salvation.
How long, O LORD, shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear? I cry out unto Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save.
O Lorde, howe long shall I crye, and thou wilt not heare? [euen] crye out vnto thee for violence, and thou wilt not helpe?
How long, O Lord, shall I cry out, and thou wilt not hearken? how long shall I cry out to thee being injured, and thou wilt not save?
O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? I cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save.
Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you "Violence!" and will you not save?
Hou longe, Lord, schal Y crye, and thou schalt not here? Y suffrynge violence schal crie an hiy to thee, and thou schalt not saue?
O Yahweh, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you of violence, and you will not save.
O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! [even] cry out to thee [of] violence, and thou wilt not save!
How long, Lord , must I cry for help? But you do not listen! I call out to you, "Violence!" But you do not intervene!
O LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, "Violence!" And You will not save.
How long, O Lord , must I call for help? But you do not listen! "Violence is everywhere!" I cry, but you do not come to save.
O Lord, how long must I call for help before You will hear? I cry out to You, "We are being hurt!" But You do not save us.
O Lord , how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?
How long, O Yahweh, have I called out, and thou wouldst not hear me? Have I kept crying unto thee of violence, and thou wouldst not save?
How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? shall I cry out to thee suffering violence, and thou wilt not save?
O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? Or cry to thee "Violence!" and thou wilt not save?
Till when, O Jehovah, have I cried, And Thou dost not hear? I cry unto Thee -- `Violence,' and Thou dost not save.
O LORDE, how longe shal I crie, & thou wilt not heare? How longe shall I complayne vnto the, suffrynge wronge, and thou wilt not helpe?
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
how: Psalms 13:1, Psalms 13:2, Psalms 74:9, Psalms 74:10, Psalms 94:3, Revelation 6:10
and thou wilt not save: Psalms 22:1, Psalms 22:2, Jeremiah 14:9, Lamentations 3:8
Reciprocal: Genesis 6:11 - filled Job 19:7 - I cry Psalms 140:1 - violent man Ecclesiastes 5:8 - thou seest Isaiah 14:4 - How Isaiah 59:6 - their works Acts 21:35 - for
Cross-References
The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years;
"He stretches out the north over empty space And hangs the earth on nothing.
"Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; And how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?"
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their lights.
For this is what the LORD says, He who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it as a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited): "I am the LORD, and there is no one else.
She is emptied! Yes, she is desolate and waste! Hearts are melting and knees wobbling! Also trembling is in the entire body, And all their faces have become pale!
Gill's Notes on the Bible
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!.... The prophet having long observed the sins and iniquities of the people among whom he lived, and being greatly distressed in his mind on account of them, had frequently and importunately cried unto the Lord to put a stop to the abounding of them, that the people might be brought to a sense of their sins, and reform from them; but nothing of this kind appearing, he concludes his prayers were not heard, and therefore expostulates with the Lord upon this head:
[even] cry unto thee [of] violence, and thou wilt not save! either of violence done to himself in the discharge of his office, or of one man to another, of the rich to the poor; and yet, though he cried again and again to the Lord, to check this growing evil, and deliver the oppressed out of the hands of their oppressors, it was not done; which was matter of grief and trouble to him.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
O Lord, how long shall I cry - Literally, “how long have I cried so intensely to Thee?” Because it is always the cry of the creature to the One who alone can hear or help - its God. Of this cry the Prophet expresses that it had already lasted long. In that long past he had cried out to God but no change had come. There is an undefined past, and this still continues.
How long - as Asaph cries, “how long hast Thou been,” and, it is implied, wilt Thou be “wroth against the prayer of Thy people?” as we should say,” how long shall Thy wrath continue?” The words which the prophet uses relate to domestic strife and wrong between man and man; violence, iniquity, strife, contention Habakkuk 1:3, nor are any of them used only of the oppression of a foreign enemy. Also, Habakkuk complains of injustice too strong for the law, and the perversion of justice Habakkuk 1:4. And upon this, the sentence is pronounced. The enemy is to be sent for judgment and correction Habakkuk 1:12. They are then the sins of Judah which the prophet rehearses before God, in fellow-suffering with the oppressed. God answers that they shall be removed, but by the punishment of the sinners.
Punishment does not come without sin, nor does sin endure without punishment. It is one object of the Old Testament to exhibit the connection between sin and punishment. Other prophets, as commissioned by God, first denounced the sins and then foretold the punishment of the impenitent. Habakkuk appeals to God’s justice, as requiring its infliction. On this ground too this opening of the prophecy cannot be a complaint against the Chaldees, because their wrong would be no ground of the punishment which the prophet denounced, but the punishment itself, requiting wrong to man through human wrong.
Cyril: “The prophet considers the person of the oppressed, enduring the intolerable insolence and contumely of those accustomed to do wrong, and very skillfully doth he attest the unutterable lovingkindness of God, for he exhibits Him as very forbearing, though accustomed to hate wickedness, but that He doth not immediately bring judgment upon the offenders, he showed clearly, saying that so great is His silence and long-suffering, that there needeth a strong cry, in that some practice intolerable covetousness against others, and use an unbridled insolence against the weak, for his very complaints of God’s endurance of evil attest the immeasurable loving kindness of God.”
Cyril: “You may judge hence of the hatred of evil among the saints. For they speak of the woes of others as their own. So saith the most wise Paul 2 Corinthians 11:29, who is weak and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? and bade us Romans 12:15 weep with those who weep, showing that sympathy and mutual love are especially becoming to the saints.”
The prophet, through sympathy or fellow-suffering with the sufferers, is as one of them. He cries for help, as himself needing it, and being in the misery, in behalf of which he prays. He says, “How long shall I cry?” standing, as it were, in the place of all, and gathering all their cries into one, and presenting them before God. It is the cry, in one, of all which is wronged to the God of Justice, of all suffering to the God of love. “When shall this scene of sin, and confusion, and wrong be at an end, and the harmony of God’s creation be restored? How long shall evil not exist only, but prevail?” It is the cry of the souls under the altar Revelation 6:10, “How long, O Lord, Holy and True, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” It is the voice of the oppressed against the oppressor; of the Church against the world; weary of hearing the Lord’s Name blasphemed, of seeing wrong set up on high, of holiness trampled underfoot. It is in its highest sense His Voice, who, to sanctify our longings for deliverance, said in the days of His Flesh Psalms 22:2, “I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not.”
Even cry out - aloud (it is the cry of anguish) Dion.: “We cry the louder, the more we cry from the heart, even without words; for not the moving of the lips, but the love of the heart sounds in the ears of God.”
Even cry out unto Thee. - Whether as an exclamation or a continuance of the question, How long? The prophet gathered in one the prolonged cry of past and future. He had cried out; he should cry on, “Violence.” He speaks as if the one word, jerked out, as it were, wrung forth from his inmost soul, was, “Violence,” as if he said this one word to the God of justice and love.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Habakkuk 1:2. O Lord, how long shall I cry — The prophet feels himself strongly excited against the vices which he beheld; and which, it appears from this verse, he had often declaimed against, but in vain; the people continued in their vices, and God in his longsuffering.
Habakkuk begins his prophecy under a similar feeling, and nearly in similar words, as Juvenal did his Satires: -
Semper ego auditor tantum?
Nunquamne reponam?
Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri?
Sat. i. 1.
"Shall I always be a hearer only?
Shall I never reply?
So often vexed?"
Of violence — The most unlawful and outrageous acts.
