Bible Strands
Habakkuk 1:15
The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Habakkuk speaks to God concerning the impending Babylonian invasion of Judah. He describes the enemy's campaign as a calculated military operation.
The words — The Hebrew בְּחַכָּה (bechaqah) translates literally to "with a hook," and בְּמִכְמַרְתּוֹ (bemichmarto) means "in his fishing net." These terms frame the conquest as a systematic capture process.
The thread — Amos 4:2 uses the hook to describe forced removal, while Jeremiah 16:16 and Psalm 10:9 employ fishing and hunting imagery to depict divine judgment.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition of human vulnerability before overwhelming military force. It requires readers to confront how conquest operates through organized capture rather than chaotic violence.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 16:16 But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.
- Amos 4:2 The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
- Psalms 10:9 He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.
- John 21:6 He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish.
- Isaiah 19:8 Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.
- Jeremiah 50:11 “Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,
- Lamentations 2:15 All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
- Ezekiel 25:6 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt,
- Ezekiel 26:2 “Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gate to the nations is broken; it has swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will be filled,’
- Ezekiel 29:4 But I will put hooks in your jaws and cause the fish of your streams to cling to your scales. I will haul you up out of your rivers, and all the fish of your streams will cling to your scales.