Habakkuk 1:13 [Thou art] of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, [and] holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth [the man that is] more righteous than he?
Ver. 13. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil] sc. With patience, and without punishing it. This I am right sure of; and therefore cannot but conclude that thou wilt take an order with our oppressors, thou wilt one day pay them home, for the new and the old, though for a time they ruffle and revel in our ruins. God, as he is ολοφθαλμος, All-eye, neither can we be at any time from under his view; so εχει θεος εκδικον ομμα, he hath a holy eye that cannot behold evil and bear with it. Hence that of Joshua to the people, Joshua 24:19, "Ye cannot serve the Lord," sc. unless ye first throw all your lusts out of service: "for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your trangressions nor your sins." Now, therefore, if Cave, spectat Cato, was such a forcible watchword among the Romans, and a retentive from evil; Take heed, Cato sees you, and will punish you; how much more should this prevail with Christians, Cave, videt Dominus, Take heed, the Lord beholdeth!
“ Ne pecces, Deus ipse videt, bonus Angelus astat. ”
Surely, as they were wont to say at Rome concerning cowards, that they had nothing Roman in them; so may it be said of such as stand not in awe of God's pure eyes and dreadful presence, that they have nothing Christian in them, whatever they pretend; since it is every godly man's care and comfort to be in the fear of the Lord all the day, to walk evermore in the sense of his presence and light of his countenance.
And canst not look on iniquity] Heb. And to look on iniquity thou canst not do it. Lo, this is one of those things that God cannot do; as he cannot lie, he cannot die, he cannot deny himself; so here, he cannot look on iniquity, sc. with approbation or delight. He cannot but hate it; and (as the next thing to hatred is revenge) he cannot but punish it, such is the holiness of his nature, Psalms 5:4,6. He hateth sin naturally, as we hate poison for itself; and therefore let it be in a toad or in a prince's cabin, we hate it still. Nevertheless, it must be remembered for our comfort, that, like as we hate poison in a toad, but pity it in a man, because in the one it is their nature, in the other their disease; so sin maketh wicked men the object of God's hatred, but the saints of his pity; and accordingly, he chastiseth the one, but plagueth the other.
Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously] And yet, such is thy tolerance, seemest to take no notice of their trespasses and treacheries; which I am sure thou hatest with a perfect hatred. Here then the prophet, disceptat potius secum, quam cum ipso Deo, saith Calvin, contesteth rather with himself than with God about the ordering of things here below. He doth not question the Divine providence, because good men suffer, bad men prosper, as Aristotle did. He doth not say with Pompey, when discomfited by Caesar, that there was a mist, at least, over the eye of providence; so blaming the sun because of the soreness of his own blear eyes. He doth not impatiently cry out with Brutus, defeated, ω τλημων αρετη, O wretched virtue, or, O hard fortune. But he modestly expostulated with the Lord about his proceedings, having before justified him; and now dareth not reprehend what he cannot yet so fully comprehend; but, putting his mouth in the dust, concludeth with David, after some conflict with his own doubtings, "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness" (non ad exitium, sed ad exercitium, not for destruction but for disciple, and that thou mightest be true to my soul) "hast afflicted me," Psalms 119:75 .
And holdest thy tongue] And so, by silence, seemest to consent (as the civilian's rule is qui tacet, consentire videtur), but thou seemest so only, Psa 50:21 Or, art thou deaf? Not so neither, Psalms 50:3 .
When the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he] i.e. The Chaldees destroy the Jews, which were some of them better than they; and the rest were therefore the worse, because they ought to have been better. The truth is, none are so bad as they that either have been good and are not; or that might have been better, but would not.