Habakkuk 3:14 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Thou, O God, didst strike through with his staves; either meant of the staves or arms of the Canaanitish kings which they lifted up against Israel, thereby provoking Israel to fight, in which being overcome, they perished by their own arms taken from them; or it may be meant of the weapons of Joshua and Israel, called staves, for that they were arrows and spears, which are armed staves: or it might be translated tribes; so with the tribes of Israel, the tribes of God's anointed, or by them, were these Canaanites destroyed. The head of his villages; all the cities, and all the unwalled towns; for so Israel destroyed the daughters with the mothers, i.e. the villages with the cities. They; the inhabitants of Canaan, but particularly the five kings, Habakkuk 3:11; of whose conspiracy you read Jos 10, which see. Came out as a whirlwind; with violence invading every side; a tempest made up of contrary winds and exhalations, moving as violently as irregularly. To scatter; to disperse and drive away from the earth. Their rejoicing was as to devour; the joy they took was such as is the joy of men who take the spoil of enemies, and come to feast, not fight; they dreamed of nothing else but eating up God's people as they would eat bread. The poor; helpless and friendless as they seemed to be, poor Israel. Secretly; either by secret conspiracy, or by secret execution of the plot they laid against Israel.