Habakkuk’s Message. 

        Habakkuk’s contribution to our knowledge of God is found mainly in two passages.

        1. Isaiah could explain the triumph of the Assyrian by his being the instrument of God’s punishing (Isa. 10:5f) who should be punished himself, when his work was done (Isa 10:12). But Habakkuk (1:13) cannot understand how a pure God can use impure instruments. It is to be noted that he receives no answer to his question. Faith can say as in Ps. 76:10: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: The residue of wrath shalt thou gird upon thee” (as an ornament), but this is faith. The intellect is faced with moral problems in the Divine government of the universe to which it can find no full solution (see also note on Isa. 45:7, p. 60).

        2. The centre of the prophecy is obviously the short message (2:4) to be written so plainly (2:2) “one may read it at a glance” (Moffatt): “Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him, But the righteous shall live in his faithfulness (to Jehovah).”

        The versions confirm by their variations the impression created by the English translation that the first line has been textually corrupted. Though we cannot now reconstruct it with cer­tainty, its main thought is quite clear from the context.

        Young’s Analytical Concordance shows only two examples of the use of “faith” in the Old Testament, Hab. 2:4 being one. In each case the correct translation is faithfulness. The Hebrew in his concrete thinking did not speak of faith, but of faithfulness toward God, and this in turn implied faith, i.e. trust — where faith in God does not lead to faithfulness, it is vain. The promise through Habakkuk is that the man who shows his trust in God by his faithfulness to God will find God faithful in keeping him.