Book of Habakkuk

“The just shall live by his faith.”

— Habakkuk 2:4 (KJV)

Overview

Habakkuk is one of the twelve Minor Prophets of the Old Testament, unusual among them for its form. Rather than a series of oracles addressed to the people, the book is cast as a dialogue: the prophet expostulates directly with God over the injustice he sees around him, and God answers him in turn.¹ Its best-known line, “the just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4), became central to Paul’s own statement of the gospel, quoted at the head of his case for justification by faith in Romans and again in Galatians (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11).¹

Author and Date

Nothing certain is known of Habakkuk’s personal history beyond the book itself; the apocryphal legends about him carry no credibility.¹ The dedication of his closing ode “to the chief musician… on my stringed instruments” (Hab. 3:19) uses the same term found throughout the Psalm titles and addresses musicians elsewhere under his own charge, from which it has been inferred, with some probability, that Habakkuk served as a Levite attached to the temple’s musical service.¹

The book’s own language fixes its date within a fairly narrow window. Habakkuk 1:5-6 describes the coming Chaldean invasion as an event that would astonish those who heard of it beforehand, language that could not have been used once Nebuchadnezzar had already defeated Egypt and taken Jerusalem in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 BC).¹ The oracle is also addressed to “your days” (Hab. 1:5), meaning it fell within the lifetime of the generation it warns. Together these place Habakkuk’s ministry somewhere between about 640 and 605 BC, likely closer to 630, making him a contemporary of Jeremiah and Zephaniah who prophesied shortly before the Babylonian invasion of Judah actually came.¹

Historical and Literary Context

Habakkuk prophesied in Judah’s final decades, as Assyrian power collapsed and the Babylonian, or Chaldean, empire rose to take its place as the dominant threat on Judah’s border.¹ The theme of his book is twofold: the coming overthrow of Judah by the Chaldeans as punishment for her own sin, and then, in turn, the overthrow of the Chaldean empire itself for its sins.¹ Unlike most of the prophets, Habakkuk does not simply announce judgment on his own people; he questions the justice of the instrument God has chosen to carry it out, since the Chaldeans were themselves “guilty men, whose own might is their god” (Hab. 1:11).

Structure

The book falls into three movements.¹

Habakkuk’s first complaint and God’s answer (1:2-11). The prophet protests that violence and injustice go unpunished in Judah, that the law is “slacked” and justice never issues (Hab. 1:2-4). God answers that he is already raising up the Chaldeans to execute judgment on the land (Hab. 1:5-11).

Habakkuk’s second complaint and God’s answer (1:12-2:20). The prophet presses the difficulty further: how can a God “of purer eyes than to behold evil” use a nation more wicked than Judah itself to punish his own people (Hab. 1:12-17)? He takes his post “upon my watch” to await the Lord’s reply (Hab. 2:1). God answers that the vision will surely come at its appointed time, and that while the proud man’s soul is not upright in him, “the just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:2-4), then pronounces a series of woes against the Chaldean oppressor for his rapine, covetousness, violence, and idolatry (Hab. 2:5-20).¹

Habakkuk’s closing psalm (3:1-19). The book ends with a lyric ode, addressed to the choir director and set for stringed instruments, in which the prophet recalls God’s past deliverances of his people and prays for their renewal, closing with a resolve to rejoice in God regardless of what happens to the nation (Hab. 3:17-19).¹

Major Themes

“The just shall live by his faith”

Habakkuk 2:4 answers the prophet’s complaint by contrasting two kinds of men: one whose “soul is lifted up,” proud and not upright, trusting in his own strength as in a fortress, and the just man who instead lives by faith.² Paul later makes this verse the text of his own gospel, quoting it to open his statement of the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:17) and again to argue that no one is justified before God by the law (Gal. 3:11).¹ What in Habakkuk described the posture by which a faithful remnant would survive the coming Babylonian judgment, Paul applies to how any sinner, Jew or Gentile, is made right with God: not by his own strength or works, but by faith.

Wrestling honestly with the problem of evil

The book’s opening complaint is blunt: the prophet accuses God directly of tolerating violence, injustice, and “strife and contention” without acting (Hab. 1:2-4). When God’s answer only sharpens the difficulty, by promising to use an even more wicked nation to execute judgment, Habakkuk presses the objection again rather than falling silent (Hab. 1:12-17). Reformed theology finds in God’s first answer to Habakkuk, “For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation” (Hab. 1:6), a proof text for the wider principle that a nation’s own evil is nonetheless an instrument God raises up and directs to his own ends, standing alongside Midian’s oppression of Israel and the rulers who crucified Christ, all of whom did “whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass” (Acts 4:27-28).³ Habakkuk himself is not given a philosophical resolution to the difficulty; he is given a command to wait for the vision’s appointed time and to trust the God who gave it (Hab. 2:3-4).

Trust that does not depend on circumstances

The book’s closing psalm answers the opening complaints not with an argument but with worship. Recalling God’s past deliverance of Israel, Habakkuk asks that in the midst of deserved judgment God would “in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2), a plea Calvin cites as the pattern for how believers ought to receive the Lord’s chastening: not disputing that it is deserved, but appealing to his mercy even while confessing his justice.⁴ The book ends with Habakkuk resolved to rejoice in God even if every source of natural security fails him:

“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.”

Habakkuk 3:17-18 (KJV)

Related Doctrines

References

Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 342-343. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²
John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity; or, A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, 2 vols. (London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by George Keith, 1769), book 6, chap. 15: “The passage in Habakkuk 2:4 which is referred to, plainly shows who the man is that draws back, as opposed to the just man that lives by faith: he is one whose soul is lifted up, and is not upright in him; one that is proud and haughty, and is lifted up with a vain conceit of his own righteousness, in which he trusts.” ↩
Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932), 28-29. ↩
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-1846), book 3, chap. 4, 563-564. ↩