Habakkuk now changed from describing the manifestation of God and the inanimate and animate reactions to it to a description of His acts on the earth.
3:8 With rhetorical questions Habakkuk affirmed that Yahweh was not angry with the (Nile and Jordan) rivers and the (Red) sea when He transformed them. He was demonstrating His power for the salvation of His people, as a divine warrior riding His chariot.
3:9 He pulled His powerful bow out and prepared to use it. He called for many arrows to shoot at His enemies (cf. Deut. 32).32
"God had enlisted weapons and pledged them on oath for the destruction of his enemies."33
Selah. Think of that.
The prophet envisioned the rivers as God's instruments in dividing portions of the earth.
3:10 Habakkuk personified the mountains and described them as shaking when they saw the Lord. Torrential rainstorms that resulted in flooding swept by Him (cf. Gen. 7:11, 19-20). The sea lifted up its waves like hands in response to His command (cf. Ps. 77:15-17, 20).
3:11 The sun and moon stood still at His word (cf. Josh. 10:12-13), and they paled when He sent forth flashes of lightning like arrows and shining spears (cf. Deut. 32:23, 42).
3:12 The Lord had marched through the earth like a cosmic giant subduing Israel's enemies. He had trampled hostile nations as an ox does when it treads grain.
3:13 He had gone forth as a warrior to save His people and to deliver His anointed one. This may refer to Moses in his battles with Israel's enemies, or it may refer to a coming anointed one: Cyrus (cf. Isa. 45:1) or Messiah (cf. Ps. 2:2; Dan. 9:26), or more than one of these. The Lord had also smitten the leaders of many evil nations that opposed the Israelites, beginning with Pharaoh. He had disabled their nations as thoroughly as when someone slits a body open from bottom to top or tears a building off its foundation. Selah.
3:14 The Lord used the weapons of His enemies to slay their leaders in retribution. Israel's enemies had stormed into the Promised Land with great enthusiasm to scatter God's people, like those who kill oppressed people in secret.
3:15 Yahweh had trodden down the Red Sea as though He rode through it on cosmic horses causing it to surge away and leave a dry road for His people to tread out of Egypt (cf. v. 8).
