Habakkuk 2 · NIVAC

Original Meaning

Watching for and Receiving a Revelation (2:1–3)

HABAKKUK WAITS ON the ramparts to see what Yahweh will answer this time. Confident that he will respond again, the prophet watches for and receives a “revelation” (2:2; ḥazon, “vision”). He needs a detailed response to give to the complaint he has brought on behalf of his constituency (2:1b). The news about the Babylonians’ onslaught will raise serious questions in Jerusalem (see 1:5b). The NIV includes a footnote for the translation “complaint,” offering as an alternative, “when I am rebuked” (yakaḥ). The prophecy has sounded like doom, and the people will certainly have complained or rebuked Habakkuk as a false prophet. He must try to convince them. What can he say to them? How can God allow such an evil adversary the freedom to wreak havoc against his chosen people? Habakkuk has no words of his own to offer.

At this point, the original readers recognize that they have reached the apex of the book. God is going to answer both complaints and explain why the wicked rule in Judah and the more wicked Babylonians will also rule. Yahweh is about to instruct the prophet on how to speak to his congregation, and he does not want them to miss the apex either. “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it” (2:2).1 God tells Habakkuk to publish and distribute what he is about to say. He doesn’t want anyone to remain confused about his position. This is the only time in the book when Yahweh is introduced as the speaker (2:2a).

Yahweh’s second introductory comment (2:3) is a strong repetitive statement not to dismiss what he is about to say. He knows that many will not like the response they hear and will dismiss his word as ineffective or false. He knows too that his way is not the way preferred by his people. Thus, with his own words he says that the revelation will “await its appointed time” and, “though it linger,” they are to “wait for it” (2:3). The people will be tempted to disbelieve because of the long wait, as were the faithful in Judah who witnessed the success of local corruption. Also tempted will be the exiles in Babylon for seventy years before the return to the land. Faith requires waiting for Yahweh’s justice.

Yahweh next cautions them to believe the certain words of Habakkuk, which “will certainly come and will not delay” (2:3). The people will be tempted to call the prophecy a lie or to expect Yahweh not to act. Here Yahweh agrees with the prophet, who is worried that he will be rebuked as a liar (2:1). Yahweh’s own words warn the prophet’s listeners and readers not to dismiss his word. He calls them to trust what they are about to hear as God’s way in the world. These introductory words prepare them to hear answers to the two questions: “What about the way of the righteous?” (2:4b), and “What about the success of the wicked?” (2:6–20).

Two Ways: Faith or Puffed-up Desire (2:4–5)

Bridging Contexts

THE ENDURING MESSAGE of Habakkuk is carried in the words “the righteous will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4b). These words are quoted three times in the New Testament (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38), possibly altered from the LXX (“the righteous shall live by my [God’s] faith”).10 The original Hebrew is “the righteous will live by his faithfulness,” or, possibly, “the righteous will live by its faithfulness” (referring to the word of God given to Habakkuk in the “revelation,” 2:2–3).11 The righteous will believe what God is about to say and live by trust in his word and thus in Yahweh himself. The meaning of this text (and its use by people of faith through the centuries) relies on the relationships between the faith and faithfulness of the believer and the faithfulness of God.

“The righteous will live …” is part of Yahweh’s response to Habakkuk’s question, “Why do you tolerate the treacherous?” (Hab. 1:13). Habakkuk asked his questions of God in a historically specific way: Why do you tolerate injustice, wrong, destruction, violence, strife, and conflict in Judah? (cf. 1:3). He also asked the question in a more general way that spans the centuries: You cannot tolerate any evil, so why do you tolerate the wicked in silence (cf. 1:13)? God answers the first historically specific question in detail: The Babylonians will be destroyed before long (2:6–20). The second Yahweh answered in 2:1–4 (“Write the revelation, make it plain, wait for it, it is true, and live by faith in it”). This is a timeless recommendation for all people. “The righteous will live …” addresses the reality of the condition of human existence in the world and God’s role in it. It also points to a fuller response and hope developed in chapter 3.

Historically specific response. If we hear only the historically specific aspect of the question (609 B.C., Judean corruption and Babylonian atrocities), the question is far removed from us. It is only their question. It certainly was their question. When Habakkuk asked, “Why don’t you do something?” Yahweh’s answer was swift: “I will do something soon, by bringing the Babylonians to you. I will put an end to Jerusalem’s corruption.” In a simple, linear fashion one can hear the second question and answer in a similar way: What about Babylonian wickedness? Will you tolerate that? God’s answer: No, they will only last for a while (seventy years); then I will destroy them, too. Reading the question and answer in this way, one can deduce that what Habakkuk needed (and received from Yahweh) was a larger and slower worldview, one that allowed for God’s slow-moving justice.

It is true that God’s justice moves in large, broad strokes in history. He makes the nations rise and fall. Even the simplest historical reading, however, raises the question of whether a community of justice (without corruption) was established in Judea after Babylon’s fall. Were violence and corruption still a problem? It was still a problem in the postexilic community, through the Greek and Roman rule, and so on, until the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70. God’s response to the first (historical) hearing of the question is in the woes of 2:6b–20. Justice is accomplished in the natural judgments of societies against the corrupt and violent. Victims will take revenge (2:8). History will remember violence (2:11); the violent will not endure (2:13) but will be exposed (2:16). The prosperous wicked will realize their foolish isolation from their objects of worship (2:19). These forms of judgment are not swift. Like history, they take time.

A timeless recommendation. If the question “Why do you tolerate wrong?” is heard in the second way, it also becomes a present, modern question. Habakkuk wants to know why, if God cannot tolerate wrong and is too pure to look on evil (1:13), the treacherous continue to succeed. Why should corruption exist at all in Judah and Babylon? This is a question for every time and place. Can communities of justice and truth ever be established, anywhere? Under what conditions will the purity of God be manifest in a society? God does answer these questions in Habakkuk, but only in brief and indirect ways. Although indirect, these answers are not abstract. They have become the best loved and applied texts of the book:

• “The righteous will live …” (2:4b).

• “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (2:14).

• “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).

How shall the righteous person live? How shall we understand the various biblical renditions of this verse (Hebrew, LXX, New Testament quotations)? Is there a sharp contrast in meaning between “living by faith” (Romans and Galatians), “living by faithfulness” (Hebrew), “living by [God’s] faith” (or promise) concerning the future of the righteous (LXX), and “living by [God’s revelation’s] faithfulness” (Heb., alternate translation)? Certainly there is a difference in emphasis, but is it a sharp contrast? These revelations, taken together, form a complete picture of faith and faithfulness in relation to God.

The perceived contrast between living “by faith” and living “by faithfulness” is a false dichotomy. The original Hebrew for “faithfulness” (ʾenumah) also means “steady faith” or “trust.”12 Faithful living and trust (steady faith) are inextricably bound together. If I have faith in a bridge over a chasm to hold me but I will not cross it, I am not living by that faith. If I have faith in my spouse to be true but hire a detective to follow her, my faith claim is in jeopardy. If I have faith in marriage but am not faithful to my wife, do I keep faith or live by it? Faith is what faith does. “Living by faithfulness” is redundant because faith is lived faith when someone is faithful. Faith as an abstraction or as assent to a principle is not living by faith.

The one who trusts God in faith lives faithfully by his Word. Conversely, the one who is faithful to his Word also clearly trusts it and has faith in the One who gave it. The root of the Hebrew word demonstrates this natural link through the primary social context of a small child’s trust in the faithfulness of a nursemaid to carry her (Isa. 60:4, NIV “carried”; Ruth 4:16, NIV “cared for” = nursed). Trust is a circle of trustworthiness, trusting, and living because of that trust. In any case, if you have faith in God or in his revealed Word (its faithfulness), you live faithfully.

The words “live by” in “the righteous will live by faith” eradicate any contrast between faith and faithfulness. Living “by faith” is an activity. It means that one “lives” according to God’s Word, in relation to its promises and commands for relationships. Faith is demonstrated as faith in faithful living. Living “by faithfulness” (fidelity, integrity, steady trust) is simply the experience of “living by faith,” not a contrast to it. Faith that is not a lived faithfulness or not matched by faithful living is a damaged faith. A person living a faithful life may be plagued by doubts, but that is not the ideal expressed in the words “faith/faithfulness.” The complete faith/faithful life is not centered in continually “feeling trust” in God but in the permanence of long-term fidelity and loyalty to Yahweh and his promises. That permanence is based in enduring trust and deep feeling and is measured by a life, not by emotions that accompany the joys and troubles of life.

(1) In Hebrews 10:35–39 we read one of the New Testament’s quotes of Habakkuk 2:4b:

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while,

“He who is coming will come and will not delay.

But my righteous one will live by faith.

And if he shrinks back,

I will not be pleased with him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Enduring in faith in difficult times is the primary context of Hebrews, as in Habakkuk. Hebrews 10:25–34 describes a congregation struggling to keep faith because it is being pulled apart by various forces. Some have given up meeting for worship while others deliberately sin, “trampling” the blood of Jesus and “insulting the Spirit of grace.” They have grown weary of persecution, loss of property, and sympathy for those in prison. The author encourages them not to give up the struggle of faith but to endure in it.

The difference between the texts is the object of the faith. Habakkuk calls the people to live in the confidence of the vision (2:6–20) that the Babylonians will be destroyed and in faith of Yahweh’s appearing on the earth in power (Hab. 3:1–15). The combination of confidence and faith in Yahweh’s power and promise is the object of Habakkuk’s faith. The purpose of the Hebrews text is to give assurance of the promise of Christ to return to receive his own and judge the wicked. This eschatological hope is also in the power and promise of God. It is based on confidence in Jesus’ promise (Heb. 10:23) and forgiveness (10:17–19).

These texts share a common faith in the God who has demonstrated the power of his love for his people and who promises to act on their behalf in the future. Hebrews’ vision of this love and judgment, however, includes the entire world and addresses God’s universal action in the first and second comings of Christ. Both texts encourage the believer to live in the confidence of what God has done, believing that God will also be faithful to his promises in the future. In both cases, to fail in faith is death, but to persevere is life in God.

(2) Romans 1:17 also quotes Habakkuk 2:4b as a universal message for all who will believe the gospel of Christ. Paul explains that he is eager to preach to non-Jews because God has, in Jesus, offered a personal relationship with him to all cultures and peoples:

That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Rom. 1:15–17; cf. Gen. 15:6; Gal. 3:6; Rom. 4:3)

“The righteous will live by faith” is the heart of the gospel that Paul wants to preach to the Romans. This gospel connects the “righteous” (those who live uprightly in the community before God) and the revelation of a “righteousness from God,” which is Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21; 1 Cor. 1:30; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 2:1). In the Old Testament “righteous” does not mean faultless or perfect in every thought of the heart. Jesus and later Paul taught about that radical idea of a righteousness before God that is only satisfied by a completely righteous One.

“The righteous” person in the Old Testament lives an upright life in relation to God and neighbor. A person of integrity who keeps the outward commands of God is a pillar of a community and is considered a righteous person. It is in this sense that Job could rightly claim to be righteous before God. In the intertestamental period (the last four hundred years before Christ), the Jewish community engaged in a debate concerning the nature of “righteousness.”

Two trajectories can be detected. On the one hand, a person is “righteous” who keeps the outward and observable forms of the commandments. In this sense, for example, keeping the command “You shall not covet” is observable by defining it as “You shall not defraud.” On the other hand, the law is intensified or made more radical. This is the tradition Jesus uses when he reinterprets “You shall not murder” as “You shall not call your brother a fool” (cf. Matt. 5:21–22). Jesus upholds both traditions in his conversation with the rich young ruler in Mark 10. He asks him about the necessary outward form of the commands (which he could do and had done) and then asks him to give up everything, which he could not do.13

(3) Paul returns to this theme in Galatians 3:11–12, 14:

Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.” Christ … redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

When Paul writes that “the righteous will live by faith,” he is speaking about more than the outward keeping of the law. He says that no one is justified by the law (which can be kept in its outward public form). Rather, Paul is speaking about the impossibility of keeping the radical interpretation of the law. You can live your whole life without defrauding anyone, and it will make your life better. You cannot, however, live a whole life without secretly coveting something that belongs to someone else. It is for this reason Christ came. He is the (radical and inward) righteousness of God that we can never attain. Paul pushes this concept to the front of the discussion when he says that the righteousness of God (Jesus) is revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:17). Christ Jesus has become our righteousness (cf. 1 Cor. 1:30).

Paul is not setting up a dichotomy between faith as “belief” or “assent” and living a life of patient trust and endurance.14 Paul expects Christians to assent to Christ as their righteousness by living patiently within that righteousness. He contrasts the two ways of living patient, faithful lives. He argues that the focal point of the faithful doing good deeds of righteousness is Christ’s righteousness, not the law’s mandates. Christ is the motivation for the good deeds of faith. An earned righteousness is not.

Luther insisted, in a similar way, that faith in God’s forgiveness and grace in Jesus Christ form true faith. He also insisted that this experience of grace through faith will overflow into a life of good deeds toward one’s neighbor. Faith flows into faithfulness as naturally as spring water flows into a streambed. There is no dichotomy between the water and the stream. Conversely, faithfulness presupposes faith as the forest stream presupposes its water. If only crude oil were to flow in the streambed, it would no longer be a forest stream. Self-promoting good works cannot pass for faithful living. They lack the essential element of faith. When Paul says that “the righteous will live by faith,” it is no contrast to Habakkuk’s Hebrew, “the just shall live by his faithfulness.” Faithfulness is (by their definition) living by faith.

Contemporary Significance

HABAKKUK 2 PROVIDES practical help for times when our foundations are shaken. When we receive bad news that someone we love will soon die, that peace and security are quickly moving toward war and destruction, or that our religious leadership is falling from grace through corruption, our personal world can be shaken to the core. In Habakkuk 2, through his complaint, the prophet is seeking a word of good news from Yahweh. He waits and is told to make the message plain in writing, so that everyone in need can understand it. Yahweh gives him words (five woes) to speak against the source of their suffering (2:6–19) and reminds them to participate in worship (2:20). God gives the woes (or taunts) as a bit of wisdom, to teach the foolishness of the way of power. Power used to create unjust wealth will also be used to undo that wealth.

Practical helps. (1) The first practical help that the prophet models is to seek Yahweh (2:1). The lamenting prophet goes up onto the city wall ramparts to look for the coming of good news. He intentionally seeks a word from Yahweh that will sustain him and the people.

In Isaiah 20:1–12, Isaiah describes in detail the experience of suffering and his climb to a wall to look for news. His experience is parallel to Habakkuk’s and gives us more detail. He is filled with anguish and seized by pangs like a woman’s labor. As is common in deep grief, he cannot hear or see what is around him very well, so bowed is he in his dismay (21:3). He describes being consumed by terror: “My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me” (21:4). Yahweh tells him to set a watchman on the wall to look and listen for news. The prophet goes himself, for he is so consumed by grief and fear. The watchman stays awake whole nights (21:8). Then the news comes: “Babylon has fallen, has fallen!” (21:9).

In the Christian tradition Babylon and its fall have come to represent the sting of death and its defeat in the resurrection. We may, like the prophets, be racked in pain and fear, but the message on the wall is announced to all the people. Death and its oppression have been defeated. Scripture gives us the freedom to grieve with the faithful prophets when we experience severe loss. But it sends us up onto the heights to look for the word of victory from the Lord.

(2) The second practical help is to wait on Yahweh. Habakkuk waits for the revelation, and in the revelation he is told to wait on Yahweh’s action (Hab. 2:1, 3b). Waiting is common in biblical lamenting over great loss. In times of great trouble, waiting on Yahweh is a necessary practice for those who want to hear and see his word of deliverance (Ps. 33:16–22; 106:12–15). Psalm 62:1–8 echoes in Habakkuk’s waiting. The psalmist waits (or “rests”) in silence for Yahweh, who is a rock, a fortress, and a refuge. His hope rests in the mighty rock (62:5–7). Yahweh has set the appointed time for deliverance.

The Christian takes hope specifically in God’s timing because of the confluence of timing in the first coming of Christ. Jesus came into history as a Jew shortly before the Jews (and Jewish Christians) were dispersed from Jerusalem around the Roman empire. It was a time when a wide area spoke Greek, the language of the New Testament. Moreover, letters (like Paul’s) and missionaries could travel easily over the extensive Roman road system. It was a time of suffering, when people were hungry for the gospel of healing through Christ’s suffering and the healing ministries of the church. It was the fullness of time (Gal. 4:2–5; Eph. 1:10; cf. Mark 1:15).

Our waiting for the Second Coming is grounded in the reality of Christ’s first coming, governed by the promise that he will return (John 14:3) and guided by the Father, who alone knows the timing (Mark 13:32). His seeming delay in returning is not a delay but is his perfect waiting, which creates the possibility that repentance and grace may spread more widely (2 Peter 3:8–9). This is the eschatological (end-time) hope that frames the New Testament writers’ quotations of Habakkuk 2:4 (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:37–38; see above). The same hope for the restoration of the whole creation is expressed in Paul’s patience and hope in the midst of his suffering (Rom. 8:18–25).

(3) The third practical help is to make the message plain so the people can understand it. God reveals himself most clearly through the written Word. Beginning with Moses and the people at Sinai, Yahweh commanded the writing of his words so that they would remain clear for everyone.15 The prophets sometimes wrote on large wooden tablets so that everyone could see their words (Isa. 8:1–4; 30:7–8). The tablets functioned like public notices in public places.16 In Deuteronomy 27:8 Moses tells the people to write the law in plain and large letters on stones. The prophets are also commanded to write their words in books so they may be read.

From antiquity Yahweh has provided his lasting message of deliverance in writing so that people can study and understand it. The Scriptures are that plain message for us. In the worst of times the Word of God is a resource of hope, comfort, and direction for God’s people. To “make it plain” sometimes requires assistance in explaining the message. Moses also made Yahweh’s word “plain” to the people (see baʾar in Deut. 1:5; NIV “expound”; RSV “explain”). Good preaching from the pulpit and good teaching will do the same. It will bring hope from Scripture to the hurting, without lying about the consequences of sin. It will preach the whole counsel of God, law and gospel together.

Yahweh’s message through Habakkuk does not promise a quick and false solution to their suffering. He wants them to understand the reality of their future. He does not lie about the pain that must be endured (Hab. 2:3). In the time of Habakkuk the lying prophet Hananiah opposed Jeremiah, promising the people a quick end to Babylon’s domination (Jer. 28:10–15). Many lying prophets offered easier hope through false prophecies about the end (see Ezek. 13:6–19; Mic. 2:6–11). The message of Yahweh’s deliverance is plain and truthful. It does not promise a quick solution to personal or national loss, but it does not leave the people without hope. The plain truth is that God is with them in their suffering and dying and will deliver them in time. This message can be trusted; the righteous will live by faith in it.

(4) The fourth practical help in Habakkuk 2 is in the woes or taunts that form the larger part of this chapter (2:6–19). Yahweh gives the prophet words of woe for the people to speak against the source of their suffering. He also reminds them to participate in worship, even in silence (2:20). As we read, it is tempting for us to keep a safe distance from the actions that bring the woes (extortion, bloodshed, inciting drunkenness, idolatry). The woes however, are given by God to Habakkuk as a resource for the people. They are God’s response to the question, “Why do you tolerate the treacherous?” God’s applied wisdom is for his people to be reminded in detail, by reciting these woes, what will happen to the treacherous. They are a litany for the suffering to speak about the death of the violence done to them (2:6a).

Five woes as practical help. The context of the woes reveals their application for all times and peoples. The five woes are from God, but God says that they are for the captive peoples to speak to their captors as taunts. The puffed up (proud) cannot rest because God will, sooner or later, bring judgment. Keeping track of who is speaking in this section is complicated. Yahweh is speaking through Habakkuk’s vision, saying that the captives will speak woes! The woes are given exactly as an application of a living life of faith and faithfulness in terrible times. They are words to be repeated when one has no words with which to respond to horrific circumstances. In addition, readers since Habakkuk’s day have read the woes as general proverbs (see Luke 19:40; 1 Cor. 12:3).

“Woe” in the prophetic writings is not a curse. It is like saying, “Alas” (NRSV) or “How terrible for them!” It is an ironic lament for the death of the wicked. The woes list the sinful behavior and describe its consequential judgment (punishment is appropriate to the specific sin). This form is also found in Isaiah 5:8–25, where the woes are against the corrupt in Jerusalem, and their woe will be experienced at the hands of the Babylonians. The woes in Habakkuk are against the Babylonians’ excesses. The woes of the excesses of the “puffed up” (Hab. 2:4a) are expressed in contrast to the righteousness of the one who lives “by faith” (2:4b).

Isaiah’s and Habakkuk’s woes are instructive wisdom for the believer. In each woe the lack of faith takes the form of relying on oneself instead of God. Moses warned those who prosper in a similar way.

When you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down … and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you … out of the land of slavery.… He led you through the vast and dreadful desert.… He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert.… You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth … as it is today.

If you ever forget the LORD your God … I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. (Deut. 8:12–19)

For our success we rely on and give credit to almost anything besides God: our intelligence, wealth, logic, strength, military might, aesthetic abilities, pride of status or birth, tenacity, or problem-solving skills.17 All of these are gifts from God, and we too easily give ourselves the credit for them and what they enable us to accomplish. This is basic idolatry. We do not need a shrine in order to worship them. They are worshiped every time we rely on them without reference to God, every time we are proud of our accomplishments without noticing their source, every time we take credit without thanksgiving, and every time we gain wealth by taking advantage of another. The woes are to remind everyone who achieves something in life to continue to live by faith and not to enter the woes of the puffed-up life.

The woes demonstrate the foolishness of living a puffed-up life. They stand in stark contrast to living by faith. The woes are an ironic lamentation for the death of violence and the implosion of unbelief and idolatry. They are most directly applicable to governments that impoverish the wealth, dignity, and security of their citizens.18 They also apply to any myopic pursuit of power and self-promotion (Hab. 1:7b, 11b), which will never be satisfied (2:5).

The insatiable pursuit of wealth, status, or consumerism is like being drunk with wine (Hab. 2:5). Its satisfaction is false and gives no true rest (2:5). Sleep experts tell us that although alcohol may initially cause one to fall asleep more quickly, it keeps a person from entering into deep restful sleep. The nightmares of the Babylonians about animals and trees expand on this idea (2:17). Babylon did not rest until it had taken all the cultures of the ancient world captive and brought their treasures home, including their songs (Ps. 137). They were proud with their own importance. Our day-to-day world remains under bondage of greed and death. Respite in this life will come from hearing the five woes spoken as a warning (Hab. 2:5b–6a) and choosing personally to live by faith.

(1) The first woe is that your victims “will wake up and make you tremble” (2:6b–8). This is echoed in the conventional wisdom that “what goes round comes round.” In contrast, a life of faith means living without victimizing anyone, without coveting or gaining wealth at someone else’s expense. It means being honest in all monetary deals, even if you need the resources and no one seems to be watching. Debts of extortion and theft always come due. Fraud within the American corporate life and corrupt governments worldwide will end in woe for the perpetrators and their descendents.

(2) The second woe is “the stones of the wall … and … the woodwork” will cry out against you even if you try to guarantee your financial security (Hab. 2:9–11; cf. Jer. 22:13–19). Recent media fascination with crime families and Mafia films highlights the human capacity to love families tenderly but to provide for them through violent crime. The capacity for both good and evil resides in each person, simultaneously. Our fascination is that violence and love can be expressed concurrently. Yahweh calls this sin and shame (Hab. 2:10) and self-deception (Obad. 3).

Wisdom remembers that violent deeds are not forgotten. We are called to live peaceable lives by faith. That means trusting God for our true security in him. We believe the word of the prophet, the psalmist, and Jesus that the meek will inherit the earth (Ps. 37:11; Zeph. 3:12; Matt. 5:5). Even the rocks know that the human goal of secure households or cultures does not justify any means. Even the woodwork knows that this kind of life will miss the mark (Hab. 2:11). The woodwork especially “knows” the environmental disaster that Babylon’s violence has done. It was made from the cutting of ancient trees (see the fourth woe).

(3) The third woe is the centerpiece that contains a promise. It concerns the exhaustion of “bloodshed” and “the knowledge of glory of the LORD … cover[ing] the earth” (Hab. 2:12–14). God has a greater plan for the earth than the violence it presently suffers. God stands against anyone who builds legacies by power and bloodshed. In 2:12 he speaks specifically against Babylon, but the principle may be universally applied, since the same words are elsewhere spoken against Jerusalem, Nineveh, and others (Jer. 51:58; Mic. 3:9–12; Nah. 3:1).

The person who lives by faith trusts in the promise that one day, “as the waters cover the sea,” the glory of Yahweh will fill the earth. Caleb followed God wholeheartedly, trusted the glory he had seen, and received the promise of inheriting the land (Num. 14:17–25). In a similar way Habakkuk 3:3 calls us to remember God’s glory known in the past (“his glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth”). To live by faith is to live by the memory and promise of God’s glory in the earth.

The fullest manifestation of that glory is possible in the present because of Jesus. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). A house, a city, or a country is built with blessing when Yahweh is involved in the project: “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (Ps. 127:1). The ultimate victory of Yahweh’s knowledge in the new creation is described by Isaiah in Isaiah 11:5–10:

Righteousness will be his belt

and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,

and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.

(4) The fourth woe is being “exposed” to the terror of trees and animals (Hab. 2:15–17). Those who glory in exposing (dominating and shaming) others will be exposed themselves by the nonhuman creation. The strength of the shocking image may cause us to miss the point of the image of nakedness in 2:16–17. The violence done to trees, animals, lands, and people is the weight of the crime. Lebanon is naked of trees, the cities are naked of people, and the land is naked of animals. The image of drunken exposure shows the perversion in the Babylonian mind. Their practice of making their victims drunk in order to strip them is a symbol for the rape of the land. The “scorched-earth” policy of recent wars echoes the practice.

The clear-cutting of the ancient cedar forests of Lebanon demonstrates the Babylonian abusive attitude toward all life. The exposure of Babylon (lit., “exposed foreskin” in Hab. 2:16a) results in nakedness, which calls for covering of some kind. When the Babylonians look for a covering, they will find only the memory of the violence they have done to Lebanon. Yahweh is angry because he planted the ancient cedars and they belonged to him (Ps. 104:16). He is not happy they have been cut down (2 Kings 19:23; Isa. 14:8; 37:24; 40:16; 55:12; Hab. 2:17).

God’s intense love for his entire creation causes great anger when that creation is abused. Those who live by faith will care for the nonhuman creation as part of a home and community that is made and loved by the Creator. They will care for it as for themselves and take hope in God’s promise to renew the face of the earth in the new creation.

The violence done to the earth is a recurring biblical theme that has taken on new significance in our day (Num. 35:33–34; Hos. 4:1–3). Pollution of lakes and streams by profit-seeking industries is an obvious example of a judgment that comes back around. Fish die and drinking water is compromised when violence is done to the earth. A life of faith exercises good dominion in human and nonhuman relationships (Gen. 2:15–19). God will recreate the earth just as he will give new bodies in the resurrection. In the meantime, he expects us to protect and care for our physical bodies and the earth.

(5) The final woe is against trusting in lifeless, breathless, and silent idols (Hab. 2:18–20). Worshiping anything created by God or made by another person is simply foolish, yet it is done widely in every culture. In our secular society idolatry may not seem so obvious, since the objects trusted are technically not worshiped or consulted for advice. They are, nonetheless, trusted as the most real and valuable securities. Cars, houses, investments, credit, and bank accounts lead the list of representative gods. They are the road to opportunity, but they cannot give guidance. The love of them is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10).

The wisdom of the woe is that idols are dumb. “He who makes it trusts in his own creation” (Hab. 2:18b). In Elijah’s time, Baal was such a god of prosperity. The purpose of worship of the various Baals was fiscal success and power. If Baal failed, they believed he was “asleep” (1 Kings 18:27). People worshiped these gods in order to increase their prosperity. In any case, they controlled them (Isa. 44:9–20) even as we control our prosperity. True faith honors God in all things, even in the ability to earn money. To live by faith in the true God means worshiping and honoring him in both good and bad experiences. True worship means trusting him for all we need from day to day. Luther explained belief in God the Father in this way:

I believe that God has created me and all that exists. He has given me and still preserves my body and soul with all their powers. He provides me with food and clothing, home and family, daily work, and all that I need from day to day. God also protects me in time of danger and guards me from every evil. All this he does out of fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, though I do not deserve it. Therefore I surely ought to thank and praise, serve and obey him.19

The final word in Habakkuk 2 is that those who live by faith and by God’s plan for his beloved creation will prevail. The peaceable kingdom of God will come because “the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” His temple and throne are in heaven (Ps. 11:4; the Jerusalem temple was only a copy of the heavenly temple. Even when Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon, God was still on the throne).

So it is for all who worship him in any sanctuary or in any place set aside for worship. The silence of this worship is not just the silence of reverence. It is the silence of acceptance of the judgment of God against the nation for its sins. A similar silence is observed in Revelation 8:1. For one half hour heaven is silent before the seventh seal is broken and the judgment of the earth ensues (cf. Amos 8:3; Zeph. 1:7). Until that time Yahweh’s gift to the survivors of abuse and violence is a lament. The lament is not for themselves and their victimization. Rather, it is a lament for and against the violent. It is a seedbed of hope in which Yahweh transforms victims into hopeful survivors.

Original Meaning

Two Ways: Faith or Puffed-Up Desire (2:4–5)

“SEE, HE IS puffed up; his desires are not upright” (2:4a). Although it is not mentioned here, “he” means the Babylonians (1:6). The abrupt shift in subject and the cryptic reference to Babylon are anticipated only by the reference to the future in 2:3a (“awaits an appointed time”). These two verses serve as an introduction to the five woes that follow (2:6–20).

“Puffed up” (ʿapal) is an odd expression that expresses well the original sense of being swollen, like the swelling of a tumor, or swollen with presumption, or badly proud (Num. 14:44). In context it refers to Yahweh’s description of the Babylonians as a “law to themselves,” a culture that promotes its own honor (Hab. 1:7) and whose own strength is their god (1:11).

Another possibility for translating ʿapal is “to lose faith.” This coincides better with Habakkuk in the LXX (“lose faith”), which is quoted in Hebrews 10:38.2 This interpretation leads to a similar interpretation of pride, because it is faith in the vision of Yahweh’s triumph over evil (Hab. 3) that is lost. When faith in Yahweh’s promise of victory is lost, human pride has free reign. People will then say, “The LORD will do nothing, either good or bad” (Zeph. 1:12; cf. Jer. 17:15; 2 Peter 3:3–4).

The next phrase, “his desires are not upright” (Hab. 2:4a), is a necessary part of Yahweh’s answer to Habakkuk’s hearers. “Desire” (nepeš) had the potential to be good or to be used for evil. The original word means “life in relation to others.” God does not lift the responsibility of life’s choices from his human creation (see Gen. 4:7; Josh. 24:15). This expression (“his desires are not upright”) is a fundamental part of Yahweh’s response to Habakkuk’s complaint. The Babylonians’ “desires” could be upright or not. Yahweh will not take away the will (or desire) to choose, even from Babylon. That is why the wicked prosper.

The way of the righteous person is described in Hab. 2:4b. “The righteous will live by his faith.” In context, “the righteous” (2:4b) is a synonym for “the upright” (2:4a). The Hebrew word for “faith” (ʾaman) means “fidelity” and “steadfastness” (see Bridging Contexts section). The root of the word is the same as that of “amen,” meaning “confirmed.” It is the ultimate expression and commitment of trust. It can be paraphrased, “those who want to live in right relationship with God and his people will live by their trust in the promises of the LORD.”

For the original readers of the text, living by faith meant believing Yahweh’s word given through Habakkuk. It meant singing the song Habakkuk sings and provides for them (see ch. 3). Faith means claiming the radical faith of 3:17–19 as their own, even when in exile six hundred miles from their homes and without a temple. Faith means waiting seventy years for the return to their impoverished homeland. Faith meant trust and even joy in the midst of adversity. The fullest expression of the original meaning of “the righteous will live by his faith” is found in Habakkuk 3.

The way of the “puffed up” is addressed again in 2:5, which adds three descriptive details. (1) The Babylonians were known for their wine and consumption of wine (see the fourth woe at 2:15–17).3 Excessive wine “betrays” (or “is treacherous”) because it deceives the drinker into feeling more important (“puffed up”) than is warranted.4 The Hebrew for “betrays” (bagad) comes from the root “cloak,” as in “cloak and dagger.” Wine is like that. It hides its danger. It is a false pride, a pride that is not “upright.” This false sense is treacherous for Babylon because it will lead to its ultimate demise (539 B.C.).

(2) The second mark of the way of the “puffed up” is arrogance. Arrogance is, by definition, a false pride.

(3) The enemy is never “at rest” because he is greedy. Greed marks the way of the wicked like a gravestone. “Like death” (šeʾol) the Babylonians are never satisfied. They consume but are never full. They will take all the cultures of the ancient Near East captive, collect the people as possessions, and bring their treasures home, but they will still be restless.

Five Future Woes for the Puffed up from the Survivors (2:6–20)