diff --git a/bin/hbase b/bin/hbase
index 68d85d6805fd..c562ad8fb3dd 100755
--- a/bin/hbase
+++ b/bin/hbase
@@ -804,9 +804,10 @@ fi
 
 HEAP_SETTINGS="$JAVA_HEAP_MAX $JAVA_OFFHEAP_MAX"
 # by now if we're running a command it means we need logging
+# prepend the logging jars to make sure they are before the ones coming from HADOOP_CLASSPATH
 for f in ${HBASE_HOME}/lib/client-facing-thirdparty/log4j*.jar; do
   if [ -f "${f}" ]; then
-    CLASSPATH="${CLASSPATH}:${f}"
+    CLASSPATH="${f}:${CLASSPATH}"
   fi
 done