God came from Teman.
God poetically portrayed and practically remembered
The Bible contains many grand songs and odes. But this song of Habakkuk stands in peerless splendour amongst them all.
I. Poetically portrayed. God is here presented, not as the Absolute One, whom “no eye hath seen or can see,” nor as He appears to philosophical or logical minds, but as He appears to a lofty imagination Divinely inspired. To the prophet’s imagination He appears as coming from Teman and Mount Paran, which refers to the visible display of His glory when He gave the law upon Mount Sinai amidst thunders and lightnings and earthquakes. Then indeed His glory covered the heavens. But whilst we take this as a poetic representation, we must not fail to notice some of the grand truths which it contains.
1. That God’s glory transcends all revelations. The brightness of the Shekinah, in which He appeared on Sinai and elsewhere to the Jews, however effulgent, was but a mere scintillation of the infinite splendour of His being, the mere “hiding of His power.” All His glory as seen in nature, both in the material and the spiritual universe, is but as one ray to the eternal sun.
2. That God’s power over the material universe is absolute. He makes the mountains tremble, and the seas divide, and the orbs of heaven stand still
3. That God’s interest in good men is profound and practical. All His operations, as here poetically described, are on behalf of His chosen people.
II. Practically remembered. Why did the prophet recall all these Divine manifestations to the Hebrew people in past times? Undoubtedly to encourage in himself and in his countrymen unbounded confidence in Him, in the critical and dangerous period in which they were placed. The Chaldean hosts were threatening their ruin. Under these perilous circumstances he turns to God, he calls to mind and portrays in vivid poetry what He had been to His people in ancient times.
1. He recalls the fact that God had delivered His people m ancient times from perils as great as those to which they were now exposed. From the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines, etc.
2. That God had done this by stupendous manifestations of His power. Manifestations of His power in the sea, in the mountains, in the orbs of heaven, etc.
3. That what God had done for His people, He would continue to do. “His ways are everlasting,” or, as Kiel renders it, His are ways of the olden times. The idea perhaps is, that He has an eternal plan, fixed and settled. What He has done for them, He will still do. Thus the prophet remembered the days of old and took courage. (Homilist.)