Hab 3:7 | KingComments | STEP | In these two verses we see what impression the coming of God makes on creation and on mankind. God has come from afar and has positioned Himself here as it were as a war hero to judge the enemies. 1. “He stood” is not a pose, a static posture, but the overwhelming presence of His Person, for Whom nothing can remain motionless. Where He is, everything “trembles” (as the word for “surveyed” also can be translated. 2. “He looked” has the same effect. When He looks, it is a penetrating looking, a complete fathoming. The nations react to that with “startling”. His standing and his looking have a radiance, they do something. They are impressive activities. All that has been created, however long it may exist, such as “the perpetual mountains” and “the ancient hills”, will disappear. It seems as if the long existence cannot be affected, so many centuries they have already defied, so that there is no thought of change. For mankind they exist eternally. But when He comes, even the greatest symbols of stability and immutability do not endure and turn out to be temporary and transient. All this is in opposition to His “everlasting” ways, which truly remain everlasting because they are “ His ways”. The stability and permanence of God’s ways in Christ, as seen in His holy temple, are the trust and joy of faith. Then Habakkuk shows the reaction of two nomadic peoples ( ). If the earth trembles and the nations startle if He shatters perpetual mountains and collapses ancient hills, what then is the reaction of small nations? In their tents there is under distress. When God, in His majesty, passes by them in His march, they are so impressed that they tremble. “Cushan” is the extended form of Cush. Its population lives on the African coast of the Red Sea. The population of Midian lives on the Arab coast of the Red Sea.

‏ Habakkuk 3:7

God’s Ways Are Everlasting

In these two verses we see what impression the coming of God makes on creation and on mankind. God has come from afar and has positioned Himself here as it were as a war hero to judge the enemies.

1. “He stood” is not a pose, a static posture, but the overwhelming presence of His Person, for Whom nothing can remain motionless. Where He is, everything “trembles” (as the word for “surveyed” also can be translated.

2. “He looked” has the same effect. When He looks, it is a penetrating looking, a complete fathoming. The nations react to that with “startling”.

His standing and his looking have a radiance, they do something. They are impressive activities.

All that has been created, however long it may exist, such as “the perpetual mountains” and “the ancient hills”, will disappear. It seems as if the long existence cannot be affected, so many centuries they have already defied, so that there is no thought of change. For mankind they exist eternally. But when He comes, even the greatest symbols of stability and immutability do not endure and turn out to be temporary and transient.

All this is in opposition to His “everlasting” ways, which truly remain everlasting because they are “His ways”. The stability and permanence of God’s ways in Christ, as seen in His holy temple, are the trust and joy of faith.

Then Habakkuk shows the reaction of two nomadic peoples (Hab 3:7). If the earth trembles and the nations startle if He shatters perpetual mountains and collapses ancient hills, what then is the reaction of small nations? In their tents there is under distress. When God, in His majesty, passes by them in His march, they are so impressed that they tremble.

“Cushan” is the extended form of Cush. Its population lives on the African coast of the Red Sea. The population of Midian lives on the Arab coast of the Red Sea.