Habakkuk: the righteous shall live by faith

About the book

The book opens as "the burden that Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision" (Habakkuk 1:1). His name may come from a Hebrew word meaning ‘embrace’, but its meaning is uncertain.

The book gives no date, but God's words "I am raising up the Chaldeans" (Habakkuk 1:6) point to the time. The Chaldeans, that is Babylon, destroyed Nineveh with the Medes in 612 BC and invaded Judah in the reign of Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24:1). The church has read the book as the word the prophet Habakkuk received before Babylon came against Judah, and many scholars also date it to the late seventh century BC, around Jehoiakim's reign (609–598 BC). Some think the prayer of chapter 3 once circulated on its own, since the ancient commentary on Habakkuk found at Qumran by the Dead Sea covers only chapters 1–2; yet chapter 3 is headed "a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet" (Habakkuk 3:1). The map under the Jesus tab sets Habakkuk in the era of the divided monarchy (930–586 BC).

How it unfolds

Key passages

Habakkuk begins by arguing with God: "How long, O LORD, must I call for help but You do not hear" (Habakkuk 1:2). Why is God silent while Judah is full of violence? He answers that he is raising up the Chaldeans to punish Judah, and that deepens the question. "Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil," Habakkuk says (Habakkuk 1:13); so why use those more wicked still?

He takes his stand on the watchtower to wait for an answer. God tells him to write the vision plainly and to wait for it, "since it will surely come and will not delay" (Habakkuk 2:3). Then:

Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright — but the righteous will live by faith

Habakkuk 2:4

The proud trust their own strength and fall; the righteous live by trusting God. The Hebrew word, emunah (אֱמוּנָה), means steady trust, faithfulness: holding on to God's promise while the vision tarries. In Matthew Henry's words, "The just shall live by faith in these precious promises, while the performance of them is deferred" Matthew Henry. Five woes on the oppressor follow, and in their midst a glimpse of the end: "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14).

Habakkuk prays, "In Your wrath, remember mercy!" (Habakkuk 3:2), recalls how God came of old to save his people, and ends:

Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!

Habakkuk 3:17-18

He can rejoice, Matthew Henry explains, "for when all is gone, his God is not gone" Matthew Henry. If you are asking Habakkuk's question, read also Why does a good God allow evil?

The book and Christ

Paul sets out the gospel with this verse. The gospel reveals "the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish", he says, quoting Habakkuk (Romans 1:17). In Galatians the same words show that "no one is justified before God by the law" (Galatians 3:11). Hebrews, following the Greek Old Testament, reads the waiting for the vision as waiting for Christ: "He who is coming will come and will not delay" (Hebrews 10:37), so live by faith and do not shrink back. The vision Habakkuk waited for is fulfilled in Christ, and the righteous live by faith in him.

In the sixteenth century the verse changed Martin Luther. He had hated the phrase ‘the righteousness of God’, taking it only as the justice by which God punishes sinners. Pondering Romans 1:17 day and night, he saw that it is the righteousness by which a merciful God justifies us through faith. In 1545 he recalled that he felt born again, as though he had entered paradise through open gates Luther, Preface to the Latin Writings. The story is told in Luther: the theology of the cross and justification, in the theology course, and the teaching in Faith and justification, in the doctrine course.

Reading it

Three chapters make one sitting. From Habakkuk 1, follow the turns between the prophet's questions and God's answers. Chapter 3 is a psalm, with musical notes and Selah, and can be read aloud as a prayer. Afterwards open Romans 1 to see how Paul uses 2:4, then go on to Zephaniah.

Practice