Habakkuk 1:3
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Why dost thou show me iniquity, and look upon perverseness? for destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention riseth up.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Why do you make me see evil-doing, and why are my eyes fixed on wrong? for wasting and violent acts are before me: and there is fighting and bitter argument.
Webster's Revision
Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for devastation and violence are before me: and there are that raise strife and contention.
World English Bible
Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and look upon perverseness? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there is strife, and contention riseth up.
Definitions for Habakkuk 1:3
Clarke's Habakkuk 1:3 Bible Commentary
And cause me to behold grievance - עמל amal, labor, toil, distress, misery, etc., the common fruits of sin.
Barnes's Habakkuk 1:3 Bible Commentary
Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold - , or rather, "Why beholdest Thou grievance?" God seemed to reverse what He had said by Balaam Numbers 23:21, "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, and hath not seen grievousness in Israel"; and in the Psalms Psa 10:14, "Thou hast seen, for thou (emphatic) beholdest grievousness and wrong, to put it in Thy hand," i. e., Thou layest it up in Thy hand, to cast it back on the head of the evildoer. Now He seemed to behold it and leave it unpunished, which yet Habakkuk says to God below, He could not do Habakkuk 1:13; "Thou canst not look upon iniquity." What then did this mean? What was the solution?
All forms and shapes of sin are multiplied; oppressive "violence" , such as "covered the earth" before the flood, and brought it down; which Nineveh had to put away Jonah 3:8, and it was spared; "iniquity," i. e., what is unequal and contrary to truth, falsehood.
Grievance - literally, burdensome wearisome "toil"; "spoiling," or open robbery; "strife and contention," both through perversion of the law and, without it, through endless jarrings of man with man. Sin recoils on the sinner. So what he beholds is not "iniquity" only, but (in the same word) "vanity"; "grievance"; which is a burden both to him who suffers, and yet more to him who inflicts it. For nothing is so burdensome as sin, nothing so empty as wickedness. And while to him who suffers, the suffering is temporal, to him who inflicts it, it is eternal. And yet the prophet and whose prays against ungodliness, "must commiserate him who doth wrong yet more, since they hurt what is most precious, their own soul, and that eternally" . All then is full of evil. Wherever the prophet looks, some fresh violence is before him; it confronts him on every side; "strife hath arisen" , come up, exists where it was not before; "contention lifteth itself" on high, bowing down all beside.
