Habakkuk

The prophet’s first cry is “of violence” (1:2): spoiling and violence are before him, the law is slacked, and the wicked compass about the righteous. The LORD answers that he is raising up a nation that comes “all for violence” (1:9), which the prophet owns is ordained “for judgment” and established “for correction” (1:12). The woes finish the answer. The Chaldean is judged in his turn “for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein” (2:8; 2:17). One word, châmâç, names the wrong the prophet saw, the nation the LORD sent, and the charge on which that nation is condemned.

The answer begins with a vision to be written “upon tables” and waited for: “though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (2:2–3). Then two men are set side by side. One has a soul “lifted up” and “not upright in him,” and the woes that follow show where his pride ends. The other is the just man, who “shall live by his faith” (2:4). The word is ʼĕmûwnâh, firmness: the steadiness of a man who leans on what God has said while the vision still tarries, and lives by it. Theodore of Mopsuestia paraphrases the LORD: I define a righteous person as one who trusts in the promises and gets benefit from them.

The five woes (2:6–19) are a taunt the nations take up against the conqueror who “gathereth unto him all nations” (2:5). In each, the sin carries its own sentence. The plunderer will be plundered: “all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee” (2:8). The house built on stolen gain is accused by its own walls: “the stone shall cry out of the wall” (2:11). He who made his neighbour drunken must drink “the cup of the LORD'S right hand” (2:16). Among the woes stand two verses that are not woes. The earth shall be filled “with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD” (2:14), and while the idols are dumb, “the LORD is in his holy temple” (2:20).

The prayer asks the LORD to “revive thy work in the midst of the years” (3:2), and then recalls the work he did of old. He comes from Teman and mount Paran, as Moses said he “shined forth from mount Paran” (Deuteronomy 33:2). The sun and moon stand still, as at Gibeon (Joshua 10:12–13), and he walks through the sea with his horses (3:15). All of it was “for the salvation of thy people” (3:13). Nothing about the coming invasion has been taken back (3:16). What has changed is where the prophet stands: “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (3:18). This is the just man of 2:4, living by his faith.