Habakkuk 3:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Instead, He vanquished the serpent, the very embodiment of death, and eradicated the sin that had multiplied, shattering the formidable hold of death. He summoned all to come to the knowledge of God through the holy apostles, who traveled the breadth of the earth proclaiming Christ’s name and evoking rightful awe among the people. The Lord Himself declares that His works are truly wondrous and incomparably superior to those achieved through Moses. No longer will He unleash fury upon the rivers or rush upon the sea; rather, His divine power will manifest in different ways, as He will ‘work all thy horses, and thy salvation.’ But what, then, are these horses? They represent the blessed disciples, apostles, and evangelists who are entirely devoted to His divine purpose, obedient and willing to fulfill all that delights Him, embodying Christ within them. Among them is the blessed Paul, of whom it is said, ‘This is my chosen vessel to bear My name before the tongues’ (Acts 9:15). These horses are swift, traversing the entire world. It is stated that there is a chariot filled with themes of darkness and thousands of steers (Psalm 67:18); after them, many leaders rose up who brought the yoke of the mind under the yoke of the Savior, spreading His glory throughout the earth and rightly proclaiming the word of truth, as if by cavalry they subdued the entire world. The salvation of these horses or cavalry signifies that their efforts were not in vain; rather, they aimed to rescue cities, nations, and peoples, as Christ dismantled the reign of demons who had, so to speak, divided the earth among themselves, subjugating its inhabitants to their will.

The inquiry, “Is Your anger, O Lord, directed at the rivers, or Your fury upon them, or Your splendor upon the sea?” conveys uncertainty, leaning more towards a question than a statement. There are both good rivers and those that are not. Similarly, there exist both beneficial and harmful seas. An example of a good river is found in the phrase: “The stream of the river makes glad the city of God” (Psalm 46:4), and those who partake of the water of the Lord will have rivers of living water flowing from within them, seeking eternal life (John 4:14). Conversely, we see a representation of bad rivers in Ezekiel where Pharaoh declares: “My river is made by me” (Ezekiel 29:3, 9), associated with dragons in its depths. The sea can also be interpreted positively, as illustrated in Psalm 24, where the Church is figuratively referred to as οἰκουμένη, signifying the world: “The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein… He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers” (Psalm 24:1-2). This suggests that what God established upon the sea and the rivers is inherently good. Similarly, the vineyard extracted from Egypt can be seen positively: “You stretched her branches to the sea and her shoots to the river” (Psalms 80:12). Divine words, more evident than others and analogous to water for the thirsty, are referred to as rivers in Scripture, while the sea encompasses those words rich with mysteries, as the Apostle remarks: “O depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33), and the psalmist cries out, “Out of the depths I have cried out to You, O Lord” (Psalm 129:1). This indicates that the sea may symbolize positive connotations as well. However, it is also associated with more negative implications, as shown in the Psalms: “This sea is great and vast … in it ships go … there is that dragon which You made to play in it” (Psalms 104:25, 26). The Gospel further supports this when the Savior rebukes the winds and the sea, commanding, “Peace! Be still!” (Mark 4:39); thus, that which is forbidden signifies evil, as noted in Zechariah: “The Lord rebuke you” (Zechariah 3:2) and in the letters to Timothy: “Reprove, rebuke, exhort” (2 Timothy 4:2). Therefore, when the prophet questions, “Is Your wrath kindled against the rivers, O Lord, or against the rivers Your fury?” it implies that if referring to the rivers of Egypt or a blood-red sea, the Lord indeed chastises them, swiftly confronting the depths that oppose the knowledge of God. Thus, “the sea saw and fled” (Psalms 114:3), regardless of God's presence. The Jordan too receded, yielding before the glory of the people crossing it; it was parted by Elijah and Elisha. To clarify, the rivers incurring God’s wrath represent the eloquence of heretics that assail the truth and the Church. In the souls of those caught in the tempest of diverse doctrines, ever troubled by malice and sunk in bitter depths, the sea against which the Lord acts is evident, aware of its limits and boundaries, hearing the decree, “Your waves shall be subdued within you.” When the rivers and the sea are favorable, it is because in the rivers Jesus is baptized, and on such seas, He establishes His Church. The continuation, “Because You ascend upon Your horses, and Your ascent is salvation,” invites inquiry regarding the horses upon which the Lord rises, which I believe to be the souls of the saints, on whom the Word of God ascends for their salvation and the salvation of others through them.

Examples from Scripture illustrate this: in the Song of Songs, the Bridegroom states, “I compare you, my beloved, to my mare among Pharaoh's chariots” (Song of Songs 1:9). This does not imply that Christ equates the Church or the soul, which He calls His bride, with Pharaoh's chariots but rather highlights that even a holy and perfect soul resembles a chariot or beast of burden in relation to God. Thus, Moses confesses to the Lord, “I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue” (Exodus 4:10), and David proclaims, “I am like a beast before You” (Psalm 73:22). This denotes being like cattle in the spiritual sense, standing before God. These horses differ from those of Pharaoh, regarding which it is declared, “He threw Pharaoh's horse and rider into the sea” (Exodus 15:21). Riding these horses signifies destruction rather than salvation. We may look for other horses upon which the Lord ascends. In the book of Kings, we find the account of Elisha's servant who awoke to see an army surrounding the city, flanked by horses and chariots (2 Kings 6:15). After the Lord opened the servant's eyes through prayer, “He looked, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). It is noteworthy that there are horses and chariots present yet no rider on them. The true rider of these horses is He whom the Psalmist implores: “He who rides on the cherubim” (Psalm 80:1). Such horses, and such a chariot, also bore Elijah to heaven (2 Kings 2:11). If one seeks to understand the vision of Zechariah regarding the horses—red, black, white—emerging from beneath the myrtles and the mountains in the deep, or as rendered by the Seventy: “of bronze,” we hope to elucidate this in interpretations of the prophetic book, should God grant us continued life. John, too, beheld white horses with their riders (Revelation 6:2). I perceive these white horses as the glorious bodies of the righteous, with their riders being the souls of the saints. However, the sinful, like myself, will find themselves on a black horse, and it will be said of them, “Those who ride horses have fallen asleep” (Psalm 76:6). Concerning such horses, it is stated, “The horse is a vain hope for salvation” (Psalm 33:17), for the flesh wars against the spirit, and its wisdom opposes God. This description pertains to those who cling to bodily desires while mounted on black horses. Yet we aim to prepare our souls to ride on the steeds and chariots of the Lord; He ascended on Paul, He ascended on Peter, and traversing these chariots, He illuminated the entire world. When He drew His bow, or His arrows against the scepters—the kingdoms to which Jeremiah was sent—He shattered and razed them (Jeremiah 8); He did this so that sin would not dominate in our mortal bodies. The scepters, representing the domains of the devil that bind our understanding and ensnare us, consist of vices: greed, indulgence, wrath, slander, thievery, and perjury, against which the Word of God, seated upon His horses and chariots, directs the fierce arrows of His might, yet refrains from letting them fly lest He strike down one who is deterred by the tension of the bow. And He does this “always,” as Aquila translated in place of “diapsalma,” for He dwells continually in His holy places, ever clad in armor. He mounts His horses, preparing sharp arrows against their tongues, and moves with purpose throughout the world for its salvation.