English Standard Version
Habakkuk 1:9
9They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand.
Habakkuk 1:9 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
- New International Version (NIV)they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
- New King James Version (NKJV)“They all come for violence; Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand.
- New Living Translation (NLT)“On they come, all bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind, sweeping captives ahead of them like sand.
Context of Habakkuk 1:9
7They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. 8Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. 10At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. 11Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!"
Read all of Habakkuk 1Habakkuk 1:9 word by word
כֻּלֹּה֙ לְחָמָ֣ס יָב֔וֹא מְגַמַּ֥ת פְּנֵיהֶ֖ם קָדִ֑ימָה וַיֶּאֱסֹ֥ף כַּח֖וֹל שֶֽׁבִי׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
- They shall comeבּוֹאbô' · to come (in): comeH935
- all for violenceחָמָסchâmâs · violenceH2555
- their facesפָּנֶהpânîym · faceH6440
- shall sup upמְגַמָּהmegammâh · hordeH4041
- the east windקָדִיםqâdîym qâdim · eastH6921
- and they shall gatherאָסַף'âsaph · to gatherH622
- the captivityשְׁבִיshebîy · captivityH7628
- as the sandחוֹלchôl · sandH2344
Cross-references for Habakkuk 1:9
- Habakkuk 1:6For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
- Habakkuk 2:5"Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples."
- Deuteronomy 28:51It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.
- Jeremiah 4:7A lion has gone up from his thicket, a destroyer of nations has set out; he has gone out from his place to make your land a waste; your cities will be ruins without inhabitant.
- Jeremiah 5:15Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, declares the Lord. It is an enduring nation; it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say.
- Jeremiah 25:9behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.
- Isaiah 27:8Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them; he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
- Jeremiah 4:11At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "A hot wind from the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse,
- Ezekiel 17:10Behold, it is planted; will it thrive? Will it not utterly wither when the east wind strikes it—wither away on the bed where it sprouted?"
- Ezekiel 19:12But the vine was plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground; the east wind dried up its fruit; they were stripped off and withered. As for its strong stem, fire consumed it.
- Hosea 13:15Though he may flourish among his brothers, the east wind, the wind of the Lord, shall come, rising from the wilderness, and his fountain shall dry up; his spring shall be parched; it shall strip his treasury of every precious thing.
- Genesis 41:49And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.
- Judges 7:12And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance.
- Job 29:18Then I thought, 'I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand,
- Psalms 139:18If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.
- Jeremiah 15:8I have made their widows more in number than the sand of the seas; I have brought against the mothers of young men a destroyer at noonday; I have made anguish and terror fall upon them suddenly.
Commentaries on Habakkuk 1:9
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 9Their faces shall sup up as the east wind - This may be an allusion to those electrical winds which prevail in that country. Mr. Jackson, in his overland journey from India, mentions his having bathed in the Tigris. On his coming out of the river one of those winds passed over him, and, in a moment, carried off every particle of water that was on his body and in his bathing dress. So, the Chaldeans shall leave no substance behind them; their faces, their…Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 9They shall come all for violence - “Violence” had been the sin of Judah Habakkuk 1:3-4, and now violence shall be her punishment. It had been ever before the prophet; all were full of it. Now should violence be the very end, one by one, of all the savage horde poured out upon them; they all, each one of them come for violence. Their faces shall sup up as the east wind - קדומה occurs else only in Ezekiel 11:1, and Ezekiel 11:16 times in Ezekiel 4048 of the…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 9The Babylonians took many people from Judah into exile between 605 and 586 BC (see Daniel 1:1–3).Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 99. all for violence--The sole object of all is not to establish just rights, but to get all they can by violence. their faces shall sup up as the east wind--that is, they shall, as it were, swallow up all before them; so the horse in Job 39:24 is said to "swallow the ground with fierceness and rage." Maurer takes it from an Arabic root, "the desire of their faces," that is, the eager desire expressed by their faces. Henderson, with Symmachus and Syriac…Read the comment
Topics related to Habakkuk 1:9
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Habakkuk 1
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Calvin’s Commentaries
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
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Commentaries