1:5
Paul quotes these words in Psidian Antioch in Acts 13:41. There he is speaking to the Jews, warning them of their need to repent and believe in Jesus. Here God is telling Habakkuk that He is going to do something amazing, and that something will turn out to be judgement upon Judah. In Antioch Paul warns his hearers that judgement will come upon them unless they put their faith in Jesus.
Habakkuk’s focus had been on Judah and Jerusalem, God orders him to look at the nations and watch. God was going to do something among the nations. A similar thing happened with Jesus. The nation of Israel failed to recognise Him, so the gospel went out to the nations and great things were done there, and are being done there. As Paul tells us in Romans 11:11-24 part of God’s purpose is to make Israel jealous by what He does among the nations.
1:6
The Hebrew refers to the Babylonians as the Chaldeans. The Babylonians gained independence from Assyria in 626 BC, and destroyed Assyria in 612-605 BC. The Babylonians were the regional superpower and were greatly feared.
“They sweep across the whole earth”. This phrase does give us an important clue to interpreting the Bible. The “whole earth” clearly does not mean literally the whole earth, it does mean they were completely dominant in the region. We do well to remember this when interpreting verses like those about the flood. There are those who take great offence to any suggestion that when the Bible says the whole earth was flooded it could just mean the region was flooded. There is nothing inconsistent with the notion that the flood was regional rather than global, and it is not an affront to Biblical authority to suggest that it was regional.
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