Expository Notes on the Bible (Constable)

• The length of the exile and Babylon's fate 25:1-14
  Chapter 25 serves as a capstone for all of Jeremiah's previous prophecies. The prophet's perspective now broadens quickly to include the whole world and divine judgments ordained for it.25:1-2 Jeremiah received another prophe...
• Audience and Purpose
  The people to whom Habakkuk ministered were Judeans who apparently lived under the reign of King Jehoiakim. During his reign the Israelites were looking for help in the wrong places, Egypt and Assyria, in view of growing Baby...
• Literary form
  This book contains a variety of literary forms. The first part of the book contains a dialogue between Habakkuk and his God that alternates between lament and oracle (1:2-2:5). The second part is a taunt or mocking song that ...
• Outline
  I. Heading 1:1II. Habakkuk's questions and Yahweh's answers 1:2-2:20A. Habakkuk's question about Judah 1:2-4B. Yahweh's answer about Judah 1:5-11C. Habakkuk's question about Babylonia 1:12-17D. Yahweh's answer about Babylonia...
• Judgment for oppression 2:12-14
  2:12 The Babylonians could expect distress because they had built their cities at the expense of the lives of their enemies. We speak of "blood money"as money obtained by making others suffer, even shedding their blood. Babyl...
• Judgment for rapacity 2:15-17
  2:15 God would judge Babylon because the Babylonians had deceived their neighbor nations with the result that they were able to take advantage of them. The Babylonians had behaved like a man who gets a woman drunk so she will...
• B. The prayer for revival 3:2
  The prophet acknowledged that he had received the Lord's revelation (cf. 2:1). It was essentially a revelation of Yahweh, His justice, sovereignty, and power, and it had filled him with awe. Reception of divine revelation res...
• E. The concluding musical notation 3:19b
  The final footnote to this book gives direction to the choir director who used this chapter as part of Israel's formal worship. Habakkuk specified the use of stringed instruments to accompany the singing undoubtedly because t...
• 1. Jesus' forerunner 3:1-12 (cf. Mark 1:2-8; Luke 3:3-18)
  It was common when Jesus lived for forerunners to precede important individuals to prepare the way for their arrival. For example, when a king would visit a town in his realm his emissaries would go before him to announce his...
• 1. Jesus' requests for Himself 17:1-5
  17:1 "These things Jesus spoke"(NASB, Gr. tauta elalesen Iesous) clearly connects what follows with what Jesus had just been saying (cf. 14:25; 16:1, 4, 25, 33). Lifting up the eyes to heaven indicated prayer, as did Jesus' w...
• 2. The seriousness of the error vv. 10-13
  v. 10 The things the false teachers did not understand but reviled probably refer to aspects of God's revealed will that they chose to reject (cf. 1 Cor. 2:7-16)."Jude, like his brother James, denounces the sins of the tongue...