Habakkuk

Part One: Introduction to Habakkuk

The Prophet

Habakkuk is called simply "Habakkuk the prophet" (1:1; 3:1). His name probably means "embrace" or "one who embraces." Some have seen this as fitting: he wrestled with God and finally embraced Him in faith. The musical note at the end of the book, "To the chief singer on my stringed instruments" (3:19), and the musical terms in chapter 3 suggest he may have been connected with the temple musicians, perhaps a Levite. Nothing else is known of his life.

Date and Setting

Habakkuk wrote when the Chaldeans (Babylonians) were rising to power but had not yet invaded Judah: God says, "I will work a work in your days... I raise up the Chaldeans" (1:5-6). Babylon became the dominant power after defeating Assyria and Egypt, especially at the battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. Judah itself was full of violence, injustice and lawlessness (1:2-4), which fits the reign of the wicked King Jehoiakim (609-598 BC) after the death of godly Josiah. So Habakkuk probably prophesied around 609-605 BC. His contemporaries included Jeremiah and Zephaniah.

A Different Kind of Prophecy

Most prophets spoke God's word to the people. Habakkuk instead records a conversation between the prophet and God. He brings his honest questions and complaints to God, receives God's answers, and finally responds in a prayer of worship and trust. The book moves:

• from questioning (chapter 1) to waiting (chapter 2) to worship (chapter 3);
• from "How long?" and "Why?" (1:2-3) to "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD" (3:18);
• from a man who cannot understand God's ways to a man who trusts God whatever happens.

Purpose and Theme

Habakkuk wrestles with the problem of evil and the justice of God: Why does God allow wickedness to go unpunished? And how can a holy God use a nation more wicked than His own people to punish them? God's answer is that He is in control, that the wicked will certainly be judged in His time, and that "the just shall live by his faith" (2:4). Faith trusts God's character and promises when His ways are not understood and circumstances are dark. This verse became one of the foundations of the New Testament gospel and of the Protestant Reformation.

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

Habakkuk 2:4

Although the fig tree shall not blossom... Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

The Dialogue

Outline of Habakkuk

Part Two: Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis

Chapter 1 — The Prophet's Questions

The First Complaint: Why Is God Silent? (1:1-4)

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

Habakkuk 1:2-3

Habakkuk looked at his own nation and saw violence, destruction, strife, and the collapse of justice: "Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth" (1:4). He had prayed and prayed, and it seemed God was not listening or acting. This is the honest cry of many believers in every age (Psalm 13:1-2; 22:1-2; Revelation 6:10). Scripture does not condemn such questions when they are brought to God in faith.

God's First Answer: The Chaldeans Are Coming (1:5-11)

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.

Habakkuk 1:5-6

God was not inactive. He was about to do something astonishing: raise up Babylon to judge Judah. The Babylonians were "terrible and dreadful," a law to themselves (1:7). Their horses were "swifter than the leopards," fiercer than wolves at evening; their cavalry flew like eagles to devour (1:8). They came for violence and gathered captives "as the sand" (1:9). They mocked kings, laughed at fortresses, heaped up earth ramps and took them (1:10). But their pride would be their downfall: "he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god" (1:11). They would worship their own might.

Paul quoted 1:5 in his sermon at Pisidian Antioch, warning those who rejected the gospel: "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe" (Acts 13:40-41). The greatest "work" God would do was the salvation accomplished through Jesus Christ.

The Second Complaint: How Can a Holy God Use the Wicked? (1:12-2:1)

God's answer created a bigger problem. Habakkuk began by affirming what he knew about God:

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

Habakkuk 1:12

God is eternal, holy and faithful to His covenant ("we shall not die": His people would not be wiped out). Habakkuk accepted that Babylon was God's instrument of correction. But:

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?

Habakkuk 1:13

How could God use a nation more wicked than Judah? The Babylonians treated people like fish, catching them in nets and dragging them away, and then worshipping their nets, the military power that made them rich (1:14-16). "Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?" (1:17). Would this go on for ever?

Having asked his question, Habakkuk took his stand like a watchman on a city wall to wait for God's answer:

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

Habakkuk 2:1

He did not walk away from God in his confusion; he waited for God to speak.

Chapter 2 — God's Answer

Write the Vision and Wait (2:2-3)

And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Habakkuk 2:2-3

God's answer was to be written clearly so that anyone could read it and carry the message. Its fulfillment was certain, though it would come at God's appointed time, not Habakkuk's. "Though it tarry, wait for it." God's delays are not denials. Hebrews applies this verse to the second coming of Christ: "For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry" (Hebrews 10:37).

The Proud and the Just (2:4-5)

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

Habakkuk 2:4

Here are two kinds of people. The proud (Babylon, and every proud sinner) are puffed up and not upright; they will not survive God's judgment. The righteous will live by faith: by trusting God, and by faithfully holding on to Him and His word. The Hebrew word for faith (emunah) includes both trust and faithfulness. In the coming storm of judgment, the righteous would survive not by their own strength but by trusting God.

This verse is quoted three times in the New Testament, each time emphasising a different word:

Martin Luther's study of Romans 1:17, quoting Habakkuk, helped spark the Protestant Reformation and its recovery of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Habakkuk 2:4 stands with Genesis 15:6 ("he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness") as a foundation of the gospel.

The proud man is like a drunkard, restless and never satisfied, enlarging his appetite "as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations" (2:5).

Five Woes on the Oppressor (2:6-20)

God answered Habakkuk's second question: Babylon would not go unpunished. The nations it had oppressed would one day sing a taunt song over it, pronouncing five woes:

Woe 1 (2:6-8): "Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay!" (2:6). Plunder is like loading oneself with heavy mud. "Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee" (2:8).

Woe 2 (2:9-11): "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!" (2:9). Babylon tried to make itself secure through ill-gotten wealth, but its very buildings would testify against it: "For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it" (2:11). Jesus said that if His disciples were silent, "the stones would immediately cry out" (Luke 19:40).

Woe 3 (2:12-14): "Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!" (2:12). Empires built on bloodshed are destined for the fire: "the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity" (2:13). In contrast to Babylon's passing glory stands God's eternal purpose:

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk 2:14

One day, not Babylon's glory but God's glory will fill the whole earth (Numbers 14:21; Isaiah 11:9). This is the goal of history, realised in the kingdom of Christ (Revelation 11:15; 21:23).

Woe 4 (2:15-17): "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink... and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!" (2:15). Babylon exploited and humiliated other nations. "The cup of the LORD'S right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory" (2:16). It would drink the cup of God's wrath (Jeremiah 25:15-27). It would also be judged for its violence against Lebanon's forests and animals (2:17).

Woe 5 (2:18-20): "What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it... to make dumb idols?" (2:18). "Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it" (2:19). In contrast to the silent idols:

But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

Habakkuk 2:20

The idols are silent because they are dead; the earth must be silent before the living God because He reigns (Psalm 11:4; Zephaniah 1:7; Zechariah 2:13). Habakkuk had complained that God was silent (1:13); now he learns that he must be silent before God. God is on His throne, and He will act.

Chapter 3 — The Prophet's Prayer

A Plea for Revival (3:1-2)

"A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth" (3:1), probably a musical term for an intense, emotional song.

O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.

Habakkuk 3:2

Habakkuk no longer argued. Having heard God's answer, he trembled, and he prayed. He asked God to renew His mighty works in their own time, as He had in the past, and to remember mercy even while executing judgment. This is the prayer of every believer who longs for revival (Psalm 85:6).

God's Glory in History (3:3-15)

Habakkuk then described a magnificent vision of God coming in power, drawing on the great events of Israel's history: the Exodus, Sinai, the wilderness journey and the conquest.

God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.

Habakkuk 3:3-4

Teman and Paran are the regions south of Israel, near Sinai, where God revealed Himself to Israel (Deuteronomy 33:2; Judges 5:4-5). Rays of light ("horns") flashed from His hand. Pestilence went before Him (3:5). "He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting" (3:6). The tents of Cushan and Midian trembled (3:7).

Was God angry with the rivers and the sea, that He rode on "chariots of salvation"? (3:8). The mountains trembled, the deep roared (3:10). "The sun and moon stood still in their habitation" (3:11), recalling Joshua's long day (Joshua 10:12-13). God marched through the land in indignation and threshed the nations (3:12). And why?

Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked

Habakkuk 3:13

God's acts of judgment were for the salvation of His people and of His "anointed" (Messiah). He crushed the head of the wicked, an echo of the first promise that the woman's Seed would bruise the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). "Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters" (3:15), recalling the Red Sea (Exodus 14-15). The God who did all this in the past can be trusted for the future.

Trust and Joy (3:16-19)

When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.

Habakkuk 3:16

Habakkuk was shaken by the vision of God's power and the coming invasion. Yet he resolved to wait quietly for the day of trouble. Then come some of the greatest words of faith in Scripture:

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

In an agricultural society, the loss of figs, grapes, olives, grain, sheep and cattle meant total economic ruin and famine. Habakkuk knew the Babylonian invasion might bring exactly that. Yet he declared he would rejoice, not in his circumstances, but "in the LORD," "the God of my salvation." God would be his strength and make him sure-footed like a deer on the mountain heights (2 Samuel 22:34; Psalm 18:33), able to stand secure on dangerous ground. The man who began with "How long?" ends with "Yet I will rejoice." His circumstances had not changed; his perspective had. Faith had triumphed.

Part Three: Christ in Habakkuk

The Just Shall Live by Faith

The heart of Habakkuk is the heart of the gospel. Sinners are not made right with God by their own works, which can never meet God's holy standard (1:13), but by faith in the One God has provided. "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17). "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith" (Galatians 3:11). Christ is the object of saving faith: "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (Romans 3:22).

Pictures and Prophecies of Christ

Part Four: Fulfilled Prophecies

Part Five: Key Passages in Depth

Habakkuk 1:2-4 — Honest Questions

Habakkuk did not pretend to understand when he did not. He brought his confusion directly to God. God did not rebuke him for asking but answered him. Believers may bring their honest questions to God, as long as they come in faith and are willing to listen to His answer (Psalm 62:8; James 1:5).

Habakkuk 1:12-13 — Reasoning from What We Know

When Habakkuk could not understand God's plan, he started from what he knew about God's character: eternal, holy, faithful, pure. When circumstances are confusing, believers can anchor themselves in God's unchanging nature (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8).

Habakkuk 2:1-3 — Waiting on God

Habakkuk positioned himself to listen, like a watchman on the tower. God told him to write the vision and wait, because it would surely come at the appointed time. God's timing is perfect, even when it seems slow (2 Peter 3:8-9; Isaiah 40:31).

Habakkuk 2:4 — The Just Shall Live by Faith

This verse contrasts the proud, self-reliant person with the righteous one who trusts God. It teaches that righteousness before God comes through faith, and that the righteous continue to live by faithful trust in God through every trial. It is the theme of Romans, Galatians and Hebrews 11.

Habakkuk 2:14 — The Glory of God Filling the Earth

In a world where Babylon's glory seemed to fill the earth, God revealed that His glory would one day fill it completely. This is the ultimate goal of God's plan and the hope of every believer (Isaiah 11:9; Revelation 21:23).

Habakkuk 2:20 — Silence Before the LORD

The idols are dumb; the LORD is enthroned. The proper response to the living God is reverent silence, submission and trust. Habakkuk moved from complaining that God was silent to falling silent before God.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 — Joy When Everything Fails

This is faith at its highest: joy in God Himself, not in His gifts. When every source of security is gone, the believer still has the LORD, his salvation and his strength. God does not always remove the hardship, but He gives "hinds' feet" to walk securely on the high and dangerous places (Philippians 4:4, 11-13; 2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

Part Six: The Major Teachings of Habakkuk

1. God Hears Honest Questions

He answers those who bring their struggles to Him in faith (1:2-2:3).

2. God Is Sovereign over Nations

He raises up Babylon and will bring Babylon down (1:6; 2:8, 16).

3. God Is Holy

He is "of purer eyes than to behold evil" (1:13), and He will judge all sin.

4. God's Timing Is Perfect

The vision will come at the appointed time; we must wait for it (2:3).

5. The Proud Will Fall

"His soul which is lifted up is not upright in him" (2:4); pride, greed, violence, exploitation and idolatry bring woe (2:6-19).

6. The Just Shall Live by Faith

Righteousness and life come through faith in God (2:4).

7. God's Glory Will Fill the Earth

His purposes will triumph over every human empire (2:14).

8. Idols Are Worthless; God Is Enthroned

"The LORD is in his holy temple" (2:18-20).

9. Remembering God's Past Works Strengthens Faith

Habakkuk's prayer recalls the Exodus and conquest (3:3-15).

10. Joy in God Above All

Faith rejoices in God even when every earthly blessing is lost (3:17-19).

Part Seven: Connections — How Habakkuk Links to the Rest of the Bible

Habakkuk in the New Testament

Habakkuk in the Old Testament

Themes That Run from Habakkuk Through Scripture

Part Eight: Practical Lessons

• Bring your honest questions to God (1:2-4).
• Remember God is working even when He seems silent (1:5).
• When confused, reason from what you know about God (1:12).
• Don't run from God with your doubts; wait for His answer (2:1).
• Write down and treasure God's word (2:2).
• God's timing is perfect; wait for it (2:3).
• Live by faith, not by pride or sight (2:4; 2 Corinthians 5:7).
• Don't build your life on unjust gain (2:6-12).
• Remember that every human empire will pass, but God's glory will fill the earth (2:14).
• Turn from every idol (2:18-19).
• Be silent before the LORD (2:20).
• Pray for revival and mercy (3:2).
• Strengthen your faith by remembering God's past works (3:3-15).
• Rest in God in the day of trouble (3:16).
• Rejoice in the LORD even when everything else fails (3:17-18).
• Let God be your strength on the high places (3:19).

Part Nine: Key Verses to Memorize

Conclusion

Habakkuk is the journey of a troubled believer from doubt to faith. He looked at the violence and injustice in Judah and cried, "How long? Why?" God answered that He would send the Babylonians, which only raised a harder question: how could a holy God use people even more wicked? Habakkuk climbed his watchtower and waited, and God answered: write the vision; it will surely come; the proud will fall, Babylon will drink the cup of wrath, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God's glory, and "the just shall live by his faith." The LORD is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent. Habakkuk's questions gave way to prayer, his prayer to a vision of God's power, and his fear to joy: though every fig tree, vine, field and flock should fail, "yet I will rejoice in the LORD." That faith finds its object in Jesus Christ, through whom sinners are made righteous by faith, who will surely come and not tarry, and through whom the glory of God will one day cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

The just shall live by his faith.

Habakkuk 2:4