HABACUC (Heb. Hâbaqqûq; Septuagint: Ἀμβακούμ, confusing him with the character in Dan. 14:32). - Eighth among the "minor" prophets of the Old Testament. The name is connected with the Assyrian hambaququ (the plant cassia tora), or with the Hebrew root hâbaq meaning "embrace."
1. LIFE
Of the person of H. we know only that he lived in Judea (Hab. 3:17) at the end of the 7th century B.C., and wrote a prophecy of three chapters in an elegant style rich in bold images drawn largely from nature. The inference (from 3:19) that he was a Temple singer is unfounded, since the choral indications of ch. 3 are probably late additions; legendary is his identification with the namesake of Dan. 14:32-38, who must be assigned to a different period.
2. THE PROPHECY
a) Content. - To the prophet who laments the unjust oppression of the good by the wicked (1:2-4) the Lord responds by announcing their future punishment through the Chaldeans (1:5-10). The prophet, still more troubled by these insatiable invaders, laments that God makes all men like "the fish of the sea and the creeping things that have no ruler to defend them" (1:11-17). But God assures him that the just will be protected and saved by him, while the invaders will in the end also be struck down (2:1-5). There follow five imprecations intended to raise up the oppressed good (2:6-20): the enemies sucked human blood, but the victims will awaken to torment them (2:6-8); the edifice of their power built with crimes will cry out for vengeance (9-11); above the magnificence of their bloodstained cities the glory of God will rise (12-14), who will hand the invaders the cup of infamy (15-17), causing their foolish idolatry to vanish (18-20). A poetic description of the advent of God as judge (Canticle of H.) closes the book (3:1-19).
b) Date. - Following O. Happel, B. Duhm leans toward the period of the conquests of Alexander the Great (336-24 B.C.). To support this, in 1:6 the Chaldean invaders (Kaidim) are corrected to Kittim (Macedonians) and γογν (wine: 2:5) is changed to ievani (Joni). But K. Budde, who wants to see predicted in the book the destruction of the Assyrians and not of the Chaldeans, places it before 612 B.C., the year of the fall of Nineveh. From the "erratic block" of 1:5-11 (Chaldean invasion), which is out of place and which only intends to point to the Chaldeans as the future punishers of the Assyrian people, he even draws a proof on the basis of which he would go back to 625 B.C., the year in which Chaldean power began. Junker, on the other hand, leans toward 612. More probably H. pronounced and wrote his oracles shortly after the battle of Carchemish (605), when, having defeated Egypt near the Euphrates (Jer. 46), the Chaldeans, having become all-powerful, were about in 602/1 to undertake with Nebuchadnezzar the campaign against Judea. The prophecy, which according to P. Humbert would be a sacred service to be pronounced in the temple of Jerusalem, stigmatizing the sovereign Jehoiakim (the "tyrant" of 2:6), seeks to console his countrymen, asserting the future ruin of the ferocious Chaldean power. In subject matter and age the book of H. stands alongside the book of Nahum (v.).
3. THE DOCTRINE
H. teaches the unity of God (2:18-20), his holiness and justice (1:12 ff.); he poses the problem of evil - why does God permit the oppression of his people by the wicked "who devours one more just than he"? (1:13) - and insists on the Providence of the universal Lord, ruler of nature and of peoples, defender of Israel in whom he will establish his kingdom. The messianic restoration is not deliberately described ("thy anointed" in 3:12 is not the Messiah); but it is hinted at in 2:14: "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jahweh" and still more in 2:4 "the just shall live by his faith," the core of the whole book, cited three times by St. Paul (according to the Septuagint) as "Scripture" (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:37-38). The Apostle further cites (Acts 13:41) the passage 1:5 among the group of "prophetic" books.
Bibliography7 works
Faustino Salvoni
4. HABAKKUK IN ART
The oldest representations of this prophet, inspired by the tragic and vehement tone of the biblical text, are found in the 5th century, almost simultaneously in East and West. H., with a senile, bearded and pensive appearance, appears in the apse mosaic of Hosios David in Thessalonica, in a theophany that would become of a common type in the Byzantine cultural area, and, at the same time with the same features, but accompanied by the angel, in one of the panels of the wooden door of S. Sabina in Rome. In the fantastic repertoire of Romanesque sculpture H. finds new favor, first in a portal of S. Fedele of Como, then in a capital of the screen of the cathedral of Modena and finally, through the work of followers of Antelami, in a capital of the baptistery of Parma and in a relief in the cathedral of Fidenza. Among contemporary examples outside Italy, the one in a capital of the cloister of Arles deserves to be remembered. He is often found united with the other prophets, as in a dome of S. Marco in Venice and perhaps in the cathedral of Milan and in the panels of S. Petronio in Bologna, although in these last examples the lack of inscriptions does not permit a certain identification of H. among figures having more or less the same characteristics. Without altering the data of tradition, Donatello conferred on the statue carved for one of the niches of Giotto's campanile an unusual intensity of thought and dramatic vitality. Later the representation of H. becomes quite rare. Among the few, a certain interest is presented by the beautiful group by Bernini in the Chigi chapel at S. Maria del Popolo in Rome. v. plate I.
(Int. Anderson)
For H. in Christian archaeology, v. DANIELE.