16. Respecting Habakkuk's personal history we have no information. The apocryphal notices of him are unworthy of credence. From the fifth and sixth verses of the first chapter it is evident that he prophesied not long before that series of invasions by the Chaldeans which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people; that is, somewhere between 640 and 610 years before Christ, so that he was contemporary with Jeremiah and Zephaniah. The theme of his prophecy is, first, the overthrow of Judea by the Chaldeans, and then the overthrow in turn of the Chaldean monarchy, each power in turn for its sins. In the first chapter he predicts in a dramatic form--that of expostulation with God on the part of the prophet, and God's answer--the approaching desolation of the land by the Chaldean armies, whose resistless power he describes in bold and striking imagery. In the second chapter the prophet appears standing on his watch to see what answer Jehovah will give to the expostulation with which the preceding chapter closes. He receives a comforting message, but one that will try the faith of God's people by its delay. Verse 3. It is an announcement of the overthrow of the Chaldean oppressor, carried out in a series of bold and vivid descriptions in which woe upon woe is pronounced against him for his rapine, covetousness, iniquitous oppression, and idolatry. The third chapter is a lyric ode in which the prophet, in view of both the judgments that God is about to execute on his countrymen through the Chaldeans (chap. 1), and the promised deliverance from them at a future period (chap. 2), supplicates and celebrates the future interposition of Jehovah for the redemption of his people in language borrowed from their past history. Thus this sublime song is both a prayer for the renewal of God's wondrous works in the days of old and a prophecy of such a renewal. The apostle Paul quotes the words of Habakkuk: "The just shall live by his faith" (2:4), and applies them to all believers (Rom. 1:17). The language of chap. 1:5 implies that the desolation of the land by the Chaldeans would be a _surprising_ event, which could not have been the case after the victory of Nebuchadnezzar over the Egyptians and his capture of Jerusalem in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, B.C. 606. It was also to be in the day of that generation--"in your days." Consequently we cannot date the prophecy earlier than B.C. 640, probably not before B.C. 630. The dedication of Habakkuk's ode (3:19) "to the chief musician"--the Hebrew word is the same that so often occurs in the titles of the Psalms--implies that this ode was to be used in the solemn worship of God. The added words, "on my stringed instruments," are most naturally understood of those under his charge as a leader in the service of song in the sanctuary. Hence we infer with probability that Habakkuk was a Levite. IX. ZEPHANIAH.