THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK is a dialogue between Habakkuk and Yahweh during a vision Habakkuk receives from Yahweh. It begins with Habakkuk’s complaint against local corruption and leads to a prophecy that spans ninety years, as he is drawn into a progressively more difficult understanding of faith. It begins with the persistent question, “Why…?” (Hab. 1:3, 13) and ends with a sung prayer (“In wrath remember mercy,” 3:2) and a confession of faith (“Though the fig tree does not bud … yet I will rejoice in the LORD,” 3:17–18). How does Habakkuk move from his questioning to this expanded expression of his own faith?
As we listen in on the conversation, we hear Habakkuk wrestling with an increasingly difficult word from Yahweh as he struggles to hold on to the faith behind his question, “Why?” He believes that Yahweh is a righteous and holy God who cannot tolerate wickedness, yet he notes that evil prospers. Habakkuk is looking for an explanation or some reasoning that he can pass on to his congregation (Hab. 2:1), but none is forthcoming. By the end of the conversation he realizes that he may someday run out of concrete reasons to believe. He realizes he may have to confess his faith based on the memory of what he once knew to be true. Without immediate sociological or material evidence of Yahweh’s love, he will have to say, as he does in the last verses, that although there is no food anywhere, “yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” Even devastated in the grief of exile, starvation, and slavery, he believes he will continue to believe.
Content
IN CHAPTER 1, Habakkuk enters into conversation with Yahweh. His first question is, “LORD, why do you tolerate wrong?” (1:1–4). Yahweh’s first response (which is not precisely an answer) is, “Look … I am raising up the [more ruthless] Babylonians” (1:5–11). Habakkuk then rephrases the question, “LORD, why then do you tolerate the [more] treacherous?” (1:12–17).
Chapter 2 begins with Habakkuk waiting on the ramparts to see how Yahweh will answer the rephrased question. His answer includes five “woes.” As Habakkuk watches for and receives the revelation, Yahweh describes two ways of waiting: puffed-up desire or faith (2:1–6a). Then, from the mouths of the Babylonian captives come five future woes for the “way of the puffed up” (2:6b–20).
1. The first woe, “[Your debtors] will … make you tremble” (2:6b–8), rests on those who become wealthy by extortion.
2. “Stones of the wall will cry out [against you]” (2:9–11) denotes public shame for those who build their security by unjust gain.
3. Those who build profit through bloodshed and crime (2:12–14) will be overcome with exhaustion and by the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, which will fill the earth.
4. Exposure to the terror of trees and animals (2:15–17) will come on those who entice others to drunkenness in order to take advantage of them.
5. The final woe concerns lifeless, breathless, and silent idols (2:18–20). This is the foolishness of worshiping anything created in place of the life-giving Creator.
Chapter 3 is a song Habakkuk writes to Yahweh as a response to the conversation in chapters 1 and 2 (3:1–15). The song is followed by a concluding confession of fear and faith (3:16–19). The refrain that begins the song asks Yahweh to “renew” his fame and his deeds (3:1–2). It describes the days of old when God came forth as a brilliant warrior for Israel against her enemies (3:3–8). He “uncovered [his] bow” and arrows in the storm and lightning to deliver Israel (3:9–13a). He crushed the leader of the land of wickedness when Israel was helpless (3:13b–15). The book concludes with Habakkuk’s honest fear about what will come (3:16) as well as his undying faith and joy “in the LORD” (3:16–19).
The subtitle of Habakkuk could be, “Yahweh Prepares His People for a Hard Change.” Anyone who experiences terrible difficulties in life will benefit from studying this book. Yahweh tells the prophet that his people will experience the end of prosperity, the end of their political autonomy, the increased success of the “more wicked,” and the withdrawal of Yahweh’s protection. What will remain for them? Yahweh promises it will get better after it gets worse. They can cling to their memory of Yahweh’s faithfulness, as in Habakkuk’s song (3:1–15). They have the benefit of a forewarning from Yahweh and the witness of a faithful and believing prophet, committed to joy (3:17–19).
Habakkuk is a microcosm of faith. Its fifty-six verses express many facets of Israel’s rich heritage. The early faith of Abraham is echoed in 2:4 (cf. Gen. 15:6; Rom. 1:17). The song (Hab. 3) is full of the historical reflection on the Exodus, desert wandering, and entrance to the Promised Land. It stands in the biblical tradition of dialogue between God and the prophets (as in Gen. 18). It also reflects biblical wisdom literature in its struggle with the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked (lamented in the Psalms and discussed in Ecclesiastes and Job). It is also a bridge to the enduring post-temple faith of a people in exile in Babylon and during the time of the second temple. The best-known verses from this book are as follows:
The righteous will live by his faith. (Hab. 2:4b)
The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. (2:20)
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. (3:17–18)
The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. (3:19)
Difficult Style
LIKE MOST ORACLES, Habakkuk has a difficult style. Abrupt changes in the subject of the sentence and in the subject matter in the midst of dialogue make it difficult to follow the progression of thought. The text refers to specific political situations that span about seventy years, but it does not explain them (see “Historical Context,” below). Each section that follows will fill in the necessary contexts for the dialogue and the politics.
In Habakkuk 1 and 2, when Yahweh responds to Habakkuk’s complaint about why Yahweh tolerates wrong, God doesn’t answer the question directly. Rather, he says simply that things will be getting worse! Hope seems minimal. Yahweh doesn’t defend his goodness in his responses but rather seems to despair with the people. He doesn’t offer an answer to the question until 2:4b. In chapter 3 Habakkuk seems to give up on his questions and resorts to a recollection of Israel’s past and Yahweh’s power in the memory of Israel. His song functions in part as a lament, longing for the past days of God’s more obvious presence. In the context of the questions of chapter 1, chapter 3 functions as a resource of hope, through remembering God’s faithfulness in the past (see Ps. 77, which laments the present while celebrating the past).
Habakkuk (ḥabaqquq) means “embrace,” especially as a means of keeping warm when there is no other shelter (Job 24:8 = “hug”). It is an appropriate name for this prophet who was warmed by his extended conversation with Yahweh in a vision. God embraces his questions and in doing so embraces him. His revelation to the prophet of the devastation to come on Judah was not a comfortable message. Nonetheless, Habakkuk’s undying faith and joy in Yahweh (“though the fig tree does not bud,” Hab. 3:17) are a shelter when it appear that every other means of shelter will be removed.1
Why is the book called an oracle? “Oracle” (maśśaʾ ) means “burden.” This oracle, revealed to the prophet Habakkuk in a vision, must be communicated to God’s people in Judah (2:1). Yahweh tells him to “write down” what he is told—that the Babylonians will destroy them, which will be a heavy burden to deliver. Yet the song and the confession of faith and joy in chapter 3 are also part of the “burden.” The oracle calls the people not to despair but to live by faith (2:4b) and to share in Habakkuk’s joy in Yahweh.
The Good News of Habakkuk
A FEW VERSES from Habakkuk have been commonly excerpted and used by the church. While we will look closely at their meaning in the original context, Habakkuk’s jumpy oracle style sets these words in bold relief. Perhaps the most often quoted is “the righteous will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4b). The center of the book expresses Yahweh’s ultimate purpose in the world, “for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). The consummate expression of Habakkuk’s faith concludes the book (3:17–19):
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.
These positive expressions of faith are set in a context of great uncertainty. Habakkuk’s faith is strong enough to pursue difficult questions in direct conversation with Yahweh. Some of these key verses are timeless expressions, proverbs, questions, and observations for all people in all places.
Habakkuk’s key question is, “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds” (1:3). His main problem is that “the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (1:4b). The wicked “are a law to themselves and promote their own honor” (1:7b). They are “guilty men, whose own strength is their god” (1:11b).
Habakkuk then repeats the key question, “Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” (1:13b). He suggests that the world God made is a discouraging and terrible place:
You have made men like fish in the sea,
like sea creatures that have no ruler.
The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad. (1:14–15)
Still, Habakkuk maintains his faith by resolving to wait for Yahweh. “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint” (2:1). In response, Yahweh encourages him in his waiting. “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay” (2:3). Judgment will eventually come to the wicked:
The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed man’s blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. (2:17)
In the meantime everyone is encouraged to be faithful in worship. “But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (2:20). Habakkuk is faithful, ending his book with a psalm that is grounded in Yahweh’s past faithfulness and hopes for speedy recovery from judgment.
LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy. (3:2)
The conversations that constitute the book are remarkable for their length and progression of thought. Habakkuk’s questions, God’s surprising response, Habakkuk’s reaction to the response and his rephrasing the question, God’s further answer, and Habakkuk’s responses in his song of worship constitute a convincing human-divine dialogue. Habakkuk’s faithful incredulity is common to the humanity and hopes of people of faith.
Historical Context
HABAKKUK WAS PROBABLY an official temple musician-prophet (1 Chron. 25:1; consider the mention of using his own stringed instruments to accompany the singing in Hab. 3:19b).2 He was a contemporary of Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah.
Habakkuk prophesied the fall of Judah to Babylon in the year of the Babylonians’ victory over the Egyptians at Carchemish in northern Syria (605 B.C.). The Egyptian king Neco had marched north to assist a failing Assyrian empire in 609. King Josiah (Judah’s last good hope for a just government) blocked their advance and lost his life (see 2 Kings 21–23). When King Neco marched home, he established King Jehoiakim (Josiah’s son) as his vassal. Four years later Neco lost to the Babylonians (King Nebuchadnezzar) at the Battle of Carchemish (605). Nebuchadnezzar kept Jehoiakim as his vassal in Judah until he rebelled four years later (601). Nebuchadnezzar then put Jehoiachin on the throne but exiled him to Babylon after three months. By 597 Jerusalem was sacked and the monarchy was ended with a third son of Josiah (Zedekiah) on the throne.3
Habakkuk prophesied in the midst of this violent political upheaval. The subject matter of the book covers sixty-six years (605–539) in fifty-six verses. It begins in this context of Assyria’s upheaval, describes the Babylonian victory over Jerusalem (597), and prophesies Babylon’s subsequent fall to Persia (539).4
Each section of Habakkuk is best understood in its specific historical context. In Hab. 1:1–4 Habakkuk complains about 609–601, when the corrupt Jehoiakim ruled in Jerusalem. In 1:5–17 we see references to the Babylonian attacks on Jerusalem in 597/586. In 2:1–20 Yahweh promises the defeat of the Babylonians that results in the exiles’ return to the land in 538. Chapter 3 is a song that rests in God’s faithfulness to act in history.
Through this extended dialogue with Yahweh, including his concluding hymn, we hear Habakkuk’s vibrant faith and deep humanity, learning and growing in relation to God. He asks healthy questions (Hab. 1:2–4) and is persistent in his questioning (1:12–2:1). He is historically grounded in the memory of Israel (3:1–15). He expresses a profound faith in song (3:16–19). His humanity and joy are a model and a challenge. The result is a book that is a timeless witness to God’s purposes in a world dominated by corruption and violence.