Habakuk 1:12

Habakkuk Voices Some Concerns

1:12 Lord, you have been active from ancient times; ¹ 

my sovereign God, ²  you are immortal. ³ 

Lord, you have made them ⁴  your instrument of judgment. ⁵ 

Protector, ⁶  you have appointed them as your instrument of punishment. ⁷ 

Habakuk 2:2

The Lord Assures Habakkuk

2:2 The Lord responded: ⁸ 

“Write down this message! ⁹  Record it legibly on tablets,

so the one who announces ¹⁰  it may read it easily. ¹¹ 

Habakuk 2:11

2:11 For the stones in the walls will cry out,

and the wooden rafters will answer back. ¹² 

Habakuk 2:18-19

2:18 What good ¹³  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ¹⁴ 

What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ¹⁵ 

Why would its creator place his trust in it ¹⁶ 

and make ¹⁷  such mute, worthless things?

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ¹⁸  –

he who says ¹⁹  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ²⁰ 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

Habakuk 3:13

3:13 You march out to deliver your people,

to deliver your special servant. ²¹ 

You strike the leader of the wicked nation, ²² 

laying him open from the lower body to the neck. ²³  Selah.

[1:12]  ¹ tn Heb “Are you not from antiquity, O Lord?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, of course.” The present translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question, rendering it as an affirmation. When used in a temporal sense the phrase מִקֶדֶם (miqedem) means “from antiquity, ancient times,” often referring to earlier periods in Israel’s history. See its use in Neh 12:46; Pss 74:12; 77:11; Isa 45:21; 46:10; Mic 5:2.

[1:12]  ² tn Heb “My God, my holy one.” God’s “holiness” in this context is his sovereign transcendence as the righteous judge of the world (see vv. 12b-13a), thus the translation “My sovereign God.”

[1:12]  ³ tc The MT reads, “we will not die,” but an ancient scribal tradition has “you [i.e., God] will not die.” This is preferred as a more difficult reading that can explain the rise of the other variant. Later scribes who copied the manuscripts did not want to associate the idea of death with God in any way, so they softened the statement to refer to humanity.

[1:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “him,” a collective singular referring to the Babylonians. The plural pronoun “them” has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style.

[1:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “for judgment.”

[1:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “Rock” or “Cliff.” This divine epithet views God as a place where one can go to be safe from danger. The translation “Protector” conveys the force of the metaphor (cf. KJV, NEB “O mighty God”).

[1:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “to correct, reprove.”

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “the Lord answered and said.” The redundant expression “answered and said” has been simplified in the translation as “responded.”

[2:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “[the] vision.”

[2:2]  ¹⁰ tn Or “reads from.”

[2:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “might run,” which here probably means “run [through it quickly with one’s eyes],” that is, read it easily.

[2:11]  ¹² sn The house mentioned in vv. 9-10 represents the Babylonian empire, which became great through imperialism. Here the materials of this “house” (the stones in the walls, the wooden rafters) are personified as witnesses who testify that the occupants have built the house through wealth stolen from others.

[2:18]  ¹³ tn Or “of what value.”

[2:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.

[2:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.

[2:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.

[2:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to make.”

[2:19]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:19]  ¹⁹ tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ²⁰ tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).

[3:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “anointed one.” In light of the parallelism with “your people” in the preceding line this could refer to Israel, but elsewhere the Lord’s anointed one is always an individual. The Davidic king is the more likely referent here.

[3:13]  ²² tn Heb “you strike the head from the house of wickedness.”

[3:13]  ²³ tn Heb “laying bare [from] foundation to neck.”