Habakkuk 3:4 - Exposition

His brightness was as the light; brightness appeareth like light, The sunlight is meant, as Job 31:26 ; Job 37:21 ; Isaiah 18:4 . He had horns coming out of his hand; i.e. rays of light on either side. The comparison of the first rays of light to the horns of the gazelle, according to Keil, is common in Arabic poetry (comp. Exodus 34:29 , Exodus 34:30 ). In the original passage, Deuteronomy 33:2 , we read, "At his right hand was a fiery Law unto them"—a reference to the two tables of stone, perhaps resplendent with light. The "hand" in our text is a general expression, and is not to be taken with any special reference to lightning launched by the hand (which is not a scriptural expression), nor to works effected by God's agency, but simply as signifying that the light of his presence streamed forth from both sides, i.e. everywhere. There was the hiding of his power. There, in that ineffable light, was the hiding place of his majesty. He clothes himself with light as with a garment ( Psalms 104:2 ), and the splendour is the mantle of that presence which eye of man cannot behold ( Exodus 24:17 ; 1 Timothy 6:16 ). Farrar quotes Psalms 18:11 , "He made darkness his secret place;" and Milton—

"Dark with excess of light his skirts appear."

Septuagint, ἔθετο ἀγάπησιν κραταιὰν ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ , which rendering has arisen from taking the adverb sham as a verb ( sam ) , and mistaking the meaning of the following word.