Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 20 April 2025
Omitting greyed-out text should bring spoken delivery down to about 42 minutes.
In chapter one, Habakkuk the prophet has cried out to God to bring justice against the violence in his home country of Judea, and God has answered by saying that He is raising up the Chaldean army to put an end to the injustice in Judea. Habakkuk responds with faith in God’s promises by saying, “We will not die,” and with faith in God’s sovereignty, saying “the LORD has established them to correct,” but in chapter 1 Habakkuk also makes the case that God must not allow the wicked to wipe out the righteous remnant of God’s people and that God must bring the Chaldeans to justice too. God continues the conversation in chapter 2, reassuring all of God’s people (including us) that the “righteous” will indeed not die, but “live,” and that “by faith,” and then, later on in chapter 2, God warns the wicked, with a series of “woes,” that He will not leave their violence unchecked or unpunished.
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sermon passage: Habakkuk 2:1-4
I will stand at my my ward
and station myself at the fortress, and I will keep watch to see
what He shall say through me and what I may reply concerning my
complaint. Then Yahweh answered me and said, “Write down the
vision; yes, carve-deeply upon the tablets, so that he who reads of
it will run. Because the vision is still on the schedule; indeed, it
will blow on to the end, and it will not fail. If it is slow in
coming, wait for it, because it will surely come; indeed, it will
not be too late. Look, his soul has been haughty; it is not right
within him, but as for the righteous one, it is by his faith that he
will live.
Sometimes, information can be hard to discover. I was just reading about a Freedom of Information Act request by the The Public Health Reform Alliance, sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in October 2024, asking for certain messages sent to and from the U.S. Global Health Security Coordinator. Four months later, the request for information was answered: “OSTP was unable to locate any responsive records because they have been transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration.” So the Alliance contacted the National Archives, and, a month later, received the following response, “[T]he National Archives does not yet have legal custody of the records from the Office of Science and Technology Policy from the Biden administration.” With this letter from the National Archives in hand, the Alliance went back to the OSTP again to request the information, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy said that they did not have the files because they had been transferred to the National Archives. Now, another month later, the information has still not been released.1 Don’t you love bureaucracy?!
But God is not that way. He makes His word available!
It is hard to understand in our age what a gigantic breakthrough it was in world history for Moses to develop phonetic writing to write major documents. Previous to that time, just about all they could do was draw pictures, which made it extremely difficult to write (or read) anything with any kind of philosophical or theological or technical depth.
So, when Moses carved the laws of God on stone tablets (Dt. 27:8, 31:19) to be preserved as a record of God’s covenant with His people, it was a big deal. It was like a special museum piece of which the Israelites were very proud, because nobody else had anything like it. (Sure there may have been some Cuneiform records on clay tablets in some kings’ palaces, but nothing like the Pentateuch.)
And throughout redemptive history, God told His prophets and apostles to “write down” what He told them.
Isaiah 30:8 “Now, go write it upon a tablet with them and inscribe it upon a book, thus it will exist for a later day as a witness until eternity.” (NAW, cf. 8:1)
Jeremiah 36:2 “Take a scroll of a book [מגלת־ספר] and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day." (NKJV)
Ezekiel 24:2 "Son of man, write down the name of the day, this very day the king of Babylon started his siege against Jerusalem..." (NKJV)
Ephesians 3:3 the Apostle Paul says about Jesus, “...by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already..." (NKJV)
Rev. 1:19 Jesus says to the Apostle John, "Write the things which you have seen..." (NKJV)
Brothers and sisters with Bibles in your hands, you hold the very words which God spoke! Do you realize how much trouble God and His prophets and apostles have gone to, to make it available to you? Do you understand what a valuable treasure you have?
Romans 15:4 The Apostle Paul wrote, concerning the Old Testament scriptures: “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." (NKJV)
And concerning the New Testament Scriptures, he wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle." (NKJV)
Anyway, God spoke to the Prophet Habakkuk too and said, “Write down the vision/revelation.”
And He adds a parallel statement with a rare Hebrew verb that is translated “inscribe/carve-deeply/make it plain.” This verb only appears in Deuteronomy 1:5 (where it denotes verbal explanation) and Deuteronomy 27:8 (where it denotes carving laws on a rock).2
God commanded Habakkuk to inscribe his vision on “the tablets.”
The definite article (“the”) here is notable in the Hebrew text, even though it has been omitted in most English versions. Habakkuk is rather sparse with the word “the” (This is the first consonantal definite article in the Hebrew text since chapter 1 verse 14, and the next one isn’t until verse 5 of chapter 2.), so I don’t think it is insignificant.
The Hebrew word for “tablets” refers mostly to the 10 Commandments when it occurs in the Old Testament. And we know from Exodus and Deuteronomy that the 10 Commandments were engraved on stone tablets3.
19th century English commentator E. B. Pusey proposed that Habakkuk was one of the priests in charge of preserving the library of canonical Biblical writings at the temple, and by saying “inscribe on THE tablets,” God was telling Habakkuk that this prophecy was to be added to that body of writings. This seems plausible to me, but it is still speculation, since neither God nor Habakkuk say anything more about these tablets.
At the end of v.2. God states the purpose for writing this message down: it is “so that he who reads in it will run.” What does that mean? It could mean a couple of different things because two of the words have more than one possible meaning:
First, the word for “read” in Hebrew is also the same word for “proclaiming a message out loud,” so the subject could be:
either a “reader” (as the KJV, NASB, and ESV rendered it)
or a “herald/announcer/messenger” (as the NIV, NET, and NLT rendered it).
Secondly, the Hebrew verb translated “run” can mean:
either simply to “go fast/hurry” (as the Targums and NLT rendered it4),
or to “go on an errand with a message” (as the NIV and Peshitta rendered it5),
or to “go on the attack against an enemy” (which I think we can rule out here),
or to “run away, fleeing” (as the LXX and perhaps the KJV, NASB, and ESV did6).
There are two things, however, that the Hebrew text of this verse does make clear:
One is that the singular “it” which the subject “reads” or “announces” is the singular “vision,” not the plural “tablets.”
And the other is that the Hebrew punctuation associates the prepositional phrase “with/about it” with the subject, not the verb; in other words he “reads in it” not “he runs with it.”
So, although I didn’t find a single commentator who interpreted it this way7, I’m inclined to interpret the end of verse 2 as the one who reads Habakkuk’s warning (and believes it) should, as John the Baptizer put it later, “flee from the wrath to come.” Read it and run!
I think that Habakkuk is using the word “run” figuratively, just like John the Baptizer did, to mean repenting of all the ways they have sinned against God.
The practical result is the same, even if it is interpreted as a messenger running through the city announcing the coming of God’s wrath (Firth): If they believe that God is really going to punish unrighteousness and save righteousness, they will hurry to put some distance spiritually, mentally, and maybe even physically between themselves and the community of sin.
This is the reason God gave us the book of Habakkuk: so that you who read it (and listen to it) may believe that God will punish wrongdoers, believe that God will save those who trust in Him, and run away from rebellion against God into communion with God.
And in v.3, we see that if we are sure we can trust God, then we will be able and willing to wait on God’s timing to bring justice to bear on the wicked and to bring salvation for the righteous.
Habakkuk wanted justice now for the violence he and his church community were experiencing, but God wasn’t ready to send the solution to that problem quite yet.
Why does God delay justice?
Because He is not only in the business of justice but also in the business of salvation.
The apostle Peter gives us a window into how God thinks when he wrote in 2 Peter 3:8-10 “But this one thing must not escape notice with you, beloved, that, with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. The Lord is not tardy8 concerning His promise, as some reckon tardiness among themselves. Rather He is longsuffering toward y'all, because He is not willing for any persons to perish but for all of them to find space for repentance. But the Day of the Lord will arrive...” (NAW)
At the same time that He is moving salvation and restoration forward, God is also moving justice and judgment forward. In v.3, He says that the Chaldean invasion of Habakkuk’s country is still coming, and it will come “on-schedule/at the appointed time,” and nothing will be able to stop His plan for justice and de-rail it or prove Habakkuk’s prophecy false. God will do exactly as He says.
The parallel phrase about it “speaking/hastening/literally blowing toward the end/goal” is expanded in Ezekiel 21:30-31 where God says to the Judeans, “...I will judge you... In your [native] land... I will pour out My indignation on you; I will blow against you with the fire of My wrath, And deliver you into the hands of brutal men who are skillful to destroy.” (NKJV)9
Now, because history is being controlled by a personal God who makes plans and executes them with exact timing, that means nothing is happening by chance.
You are not a pitiful victim of blind fate; you are either a rebel on a collision course with God on Judgment Day, or you are a dearly loved child of God that He will do everything it takes to keep safe eternally.
When bad things happen to you, it’s because God wants to make some changes in your thinking that will either harden your heart in rebellion against Him or soften your heart to become more like Him and more effective in His service.
You will never be able to figure out everything that God is thinking (so please don’t try to come up with an explanation for what God was doing in each and every thing that happens to you), but you can rest secure in the knowledge that He has a good plan for your life with an end goal in His mind towards which He is working with you.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD [in Jeremiah 29:11], ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (NKJV)
This, then, calls for a response. If God has a plan to bring about justice and salvation and if nobody can stop it, and if He has an end-goal in mind with specific timing to it, then we should wait for it.
Biblical waiting doesn’t mean sitting around doing nothing; it means continuing to do the last thing you know God called you to do until the next part of His plan comes into your life.
Biblical waiting also means not worrying. Often, when we have to wait, our thoughts get occupied with imagining every worst-case scenario possible. But is this consistent with trusting that God has a good goal in mind with specific timing to it, that nobody can stop, to bring about justice and salvation? “Anxiety is unbelief in disguise.10”
You can keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing and be at peace about the problems you have no power to control if you believe God when He says that He will accomplish justice and salvation “without tarrying/delaying/being too late.”
That verb for “tarrying/delaying/being too late” that Habakkuk used comes from Deuteronomy 7:10 "... He [God] will not be slack[slow] with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face” but “...He is... the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments” (Deut. 7:9, NKJV)
But since trusting and waiting on God is hard for most of us to do, God has given us the Bible to encourage us to trust Him:
Psalm 27:14 “Wait11 on Yahweh; be strong and cause your heart to be firm, and wait on Yahweh." (NAW)
Psalm 33:18-20 Look, the eye of Yahweh is on those who respect Him (because they are hoping for His lovingkindness) in order to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive during the famine. Our soul waits for Yahweh; He is our helper and our shield” (NAW)
Zephaniah 3:8 “‘Therefore wait for Me,’ says the LORD, ‘Until the day I rise up for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations To My assembly of kingdoms, To pour on them My indignation, All my fierce anger; All the earth shall be devoured With the fire of My jealousy.’” (NKJV)
Isaiah 30:18 “...Since Yahweh is a God of justice, happy are all who wait for Him." (NAW, cf. 8:17)
Isaiah 46:9-13 “...I am God and there is no other God and none besides me… My plan will stand, and all my delight I will do, calling from the East an eagle, a man of my plan from a far land. Yes I have spoken, I will also bring to pass, I have decided, I will also do it. Listen to me, you stout-hearted that are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation will not be late; so I will place salvation in Zion..." (NAW)
Verse 4 contrasts two sorts of people: those who are “soulish” and “proud” and therefore “not right” with God12, and those who “live by faith” and are “right” with God.
The only other time the Hebrew verb for “haughty/lifted up/proud/puffed up” occurs in the O.T. is Numbers 14:4413, where some of the same struggle with trusting God came into play.
Moses had sent the 12 spies into the land that God had promised to give to Israel, but the majority of the spies reported back that the land was impossible to conquer, so the people of Israel started making plans to return to Egypt and be slaves there, in disobedience to God’s command to invade Canaan.
God then struck the majority of the spies dead and decreed that the rest of the people would have to die wandering around in the desert as the consequence of their lack of faith in Him and rebellious disobedience to Him.
Well, then they changed their minds and said, “Hey we’re sorry. We’ll go invade the Promised Land after all!” But Moses warned them that it wouldn’t work, because now that God had decreed that they must wander 40 more years in the wilderness, it would be even more rebellion against God for them to try to get out of the wilderness and settle in Canaan instead.
So their belated and unauthorized attempt to enter the Promised Land is described with this same verb that starts Habakkuk 2:4. In foolish pride, haughty heedlessness of God’s warnings, and presumptuous disobedience (combined with a lack of trust in God and an unwillingness to wait on Him), they tried to stage an invasion and got slaughtered and beat back by the Amalekites.
Our passage says that the soul of a “haughty, presumptuous person” is “not right within him”
Later on in v.5, Habakkuk uses another word for “haughtiness” – pride is a real problem; it throws up barriers between us and God14! “The source of all sin was and is pride... It stands therefore as the type of all opposed to… the Gospel… The soul, being swollen with pride, shuts out faith, and with it the Presence of God… [P]ride… must be a state of death.” ~E. B. Pusey, 1880 AD
I have made the case in my Functions Of Deity series, that it is God who determines right from wrong, so anyone who exalts themselves and disrespects God puts themselves out of alignment with the only God who can make anything right.
Furthermore, since God made us in His image, we are often able to sense that things are “not right in [our]selves” when we are not in fellowship with God. When we feel that sense of wrongness, it should be a wake-up call to ask God to save us.
Ultimately, God promises to bring judgment upon all who are “not right” with Him.
Isaiah 13:11 “And I will visit evil upon the world, and iniquity upon the wicked, I will finish off the arrogant proud [גאון זדים], and humiliate the pompous pride [גאות] of the ruthless." (NAW)
Psalm 119:21 “You rebuke the proud [זדים], the cursed, Who stray from Your commandments." (NKJV)
Proverbs 16:18 “Pride [גאון] goes before destruction, And a haughty [גבה] spirit before a fall." (NKJV, cf. Daniel 4:37)
The statement in the second half of verse 4 about “living” ties back to Habakkuk’s statement in chapter 1 verse 12 that “we will not die,” which, in turn, is based upon “Yahweh-God’s” sovereign control over the world and God’s personal relationship with Habakkuk and with all who walk in “holy” covenant with Him.
The new words that Habakkuk introduces here at the end of v. 4 for this holy, personal relationship with God which brings life instead of death are the words “righteous” and “faith.”
So what does it mean to be “righteous/just?”
“right” and “just” mean the same thing; the word “right” comes to us from the Germanic languages, and the word “just” comes to us from Latin. It means to match or be true to a certain standard.
If you right-justify the text on a typewritten page, you are lining up the words with a certain margin line on the right side of the paper.
If you justify someone’s actions, you have to prove that their actions are in keeping with the laws or rules by which you judge right behavior from wrong.
And in a relationship with God, you are “right” with Him if you conform to His standard of justice (Ezek. 18:9), or – and this is important because it is impossible for us to measure up to His standard of justice (Isa. 53:6, Rom. 3:23) – you are “right” with Him if He, despite your offenses against Him, decides to make you right with Him anyway.
How does God do that?
First by making a human being who could finally conform to His standard of justice and righteousness. God did that by sending His Son Jesus into the world in human flesh to be “THE Righteous One” (1 John 2:1) and then “laying on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6) and having him die and suffer the punishment for sin in the place of sinners.
Of this, the Apostle Peter wrote, “...Christ suffered concerning sin, [only] once - the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, in order that He might lead us to God, after having been put to death in the flesh, but having been made alive in the Spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18, NAW)
So, the “life” and “righteousness” Habakkuk is talking about comes “through faith” in Jesus.
John 10:10 quotes Jesus saying, “...I have come that they may have life...” (NKJV)
And John explained further in his first epistle, chapter 5:11-13 “...God gave eternal life to us, and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I write to you in order that you may know that you have life forever – to [you] who are believing [trusting in/putting faith] in the name of the Son of God.” (NAW, cf. John 20:10)
So what does it look like to “live by faith” and be made “righteous” by God?
Romans 3:21-26 “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets [like Habakkuk], even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus… 4:5 “...to him who... believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (NKJV)15
The word “faith” means the same thing here as “trust” or “believe.16”
It means to depend on something to be true and live like it is true. Do you believe God’s promise that Jesus will forgive your sins and give you eternal life for free? Then live your life like you are thankful to God that you have no guilt and you will never perish!
Faith means trusting something outside of yourself – to actually trust God to make you right with Him and give you eternal life. You can’t make yourself right with God, and you can’t even keep yourself alive without God, but you can trust Jesus to make those things happen. Do you believe that Jesus will do what it takes to make you right with God and to save your life? Jesus can absolutely be trusted (1 John 1:9, Rev. 3:14, 19:11).
This point is so important that Habakkuk 2:4 is quoted three different times in the New Testament. So I can think of no better way to conclude our study of Habakkuk 2:4 than to sit at the feet of the apostles and attend to three quick sermons they composed on this very same passage:
Galatians 3:9-14 “[T]hose who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT CONTINUE IN ALL THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO DO THEM.’ But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ Yet the law is not of faith, but ‘THE MAN WHO DOES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM.’ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE’), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (NKJV) Here Paul contrasts the two ways I mentioned before of how to be right with God. You have to either perfectly obey every law He’s ever made (which is impossible for us) or you have to live by faith that Jesus earned righteousness before God by perfectly obeying all of God’s standards and then suffered the punishment we deserved to suffer for breaking God’s laws, removing the curse and making us right with God. Do you believe that you no longer have to earn God’s favor by rule-following but that He loves you unconditionally because His perfect Son has opened the way for Him to be delighted in you?
Hebrews 10:35-39 “Therefore, don't y'all throw away your open-access [with God] which has [such] a great payoff, for y'all have need of endurance in order that, after y'all have done the will of God, y'all may obtain what was promised. For, it will be ‘such a little while yet... the One who is coming will arrive, and He isn't taking His time [about it], but [my] righteous one will live on the basis of faith... and if he happens to hold back17, my soul will not delight in him.’ But as for us, we are not about holding back, resulting in destruction, rather, we are about faith, resulting in preservation of the soul!" (NAW) This is addressed to those who have already put their faith in Jesus and tasted of God’s righteousness and life, but have started getting persecuted for it, and are wondering if it’s really worthwhile to wait on God’s salvation and justice. The apostle says, “Don’t you understand, there is nothing more important than to have your soul preserved by God, to have God’s life, to have open access to God – the payoff is totally worth enduring hardship and waiting for!” Christian, will you keep on living by faith and wait for God’s salvation and justice?
Romans 1:16-17 “...I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’” (NKJV) Here, the Apostle Paul brings out the point that if you believe in Jesus and have been saved by the righteousness of God, then part of living by faith is “revealing” that “good news” which you hold in “faith” “from faith to faith” - telling it to others so that they might come to faith in Jesus and have eternal life. If you believe this is good news, who would you like to share it with? Under the impending doom of God’s wrath against sinners, the only way to live is by faith.
DouayB (Vulgate) |
LXXC |
BrentonD (Vaticanus) |
KJVE |
NAW |
Masoretic HebrewF |
2:1
I will stand upon my watch, and fix my [foot]
upon the tower:
and I will watch, to see what will |
2:1
Ἐπὶ τῆς φυλακῆς μου
στήσομαι καὶ
G |
2:1
I will stand upon my watch, and |
2:1
I will stand upon my watch, and set
me upon the tower,
and will watch to see what he will say |
2:1 I will stand at my my ward and station myself at the fortress, and I will keep watch to see what He shall say through me and what I may reply concerning my complaint. |
(א) עַל מִשְׁמַרְתִּיI אֶעֱמֹדָה וְאֶתְיַצְּבָה עַל מָצוֹרJ וַאֲצַפֶּה לִרְאוֹת מַה יְדַבֶּר Kבִּי וּמָה Lאָשִׁיב עַל תּוֹכַחְתִּי. |
2 And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon X tables: that he that readeth [it] may run over it. |
2
καὶ
ἀπεκρίθη πρός
με κύριος
καὶ εἶπεν ΓράψονM
ὅρασιν καὶ σαφῶςN
ἐπὶ X πυξί |
2
And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and
that plainly on |
2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon X tables, that he may run that readeth it. |
2 Then Yahweh answered me and said, “Write down the vision; yes, carve-deeply upon the tablets, so that he who reads of it will run. |
(ב) וַיַּעֲנֵנִי יְהוָה וַיֹּאמֶר כְּתוֹב חָזוֹן וּבָאֵרP עַל הַלֻּחוֹתQ לְמַעַן יָרוּץ Rקוֹרֵא בוֹS. |
3
For as yet the vision is |
3 διότι ἔτι ὅρασις εἰς καιρὸν καὶ ἀνατελεῖT εἰς πέρας καὶ οὐκ εἰς κενόνU· ἐὰν V ὑστερήσῃ, ὑπόμεινον αὐτόν, ὅτι ἐρχόμενος ἥξει [καὶW] οὐ μὴ χρονίσῃ. |
3 For the vision is yet for a time, and it shall shoot forth at the end, and not in vain: though he should tarry, wait for him; for he will surely come, [and] will not tarry. |
3
For the vision is
yet for |
3 Because the vision is still on the schedule; indeed, it will blow on to the end, and it will not fail. If it is slow in coming, wait for it, because it will surely come; /indeed,\ it will not be too late. |
(ג) כִּי עוֹד חָזוֹן Xלַמּוֹעֵד Yוְיָפֵחַ לַקֵּץ וְלֹא יְכַזֵּב אִם יִתְמַהְמָהּZ חַכֵּה לוֹ כִּי בֹא יָבֹא AAלֹא יְאַחֵר. |
4 Behold, he that is unbelieving, his soul shall not be right in himself: but the just shall live in his faith. |
4
|
4
|
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. |
4 Look, his soul has been haughty; it is not right within him, but as for the righteous one, it is by his faith that he will live. |
(ד) הִנֵּהAG עֻפְּלָהAH לֹא יָשְׁרָהAI נַפְשׁוֹAJ בּוֹ וְצַדִּיק בֶּאֱמוּנָתוֹ יִחְיֶה. |
1http://www.dailywire.com/news/they-went-looking-for-the-bidens-global-health-strategy-plan-its-nowhere-to-be-found
2Matthew Henry’s application was good: “Those who are employed in preaching the word of God should study plainness as much as may be, so as to make themselves intelligible to the meanest capacities... (Prov.8:9)”
3Based on “archaeological finds,” Lehrman asserted that Habakkuk’s tablets were made of baked clay, but I suspect those finds were in Assyria, not Jerusalem. Owen of Thrussington asserted that they were made “either of wood [specifically, boxwood] or stone” based, I presume, on the fact that these are the only two materials associated with the Hebrew word in the Old Testament.
4cf. AJV “read it swiftly” (which omits some of the Hebrew words) and Metsudath David, who explained it as easy to read because, as it says earlier in the verse, it had been written “clearly.”
52 Sam. 18:19-26, 2 Chron. 30:6, Esther 3:13 & 8:10-14 are other clear examples of this meaning of רוץ.
6The meaning is less-common in the HOT, but it can be seen in Job 9:25, Judges 7:21, Jer. 49:19 & 50:44.
7The vast majority of the commentaries I read interpreted it as “written so clearly that someone running past it could still comprehend it,” but one has to break all sorts of rules of grammar and lexicography to interpret it that way.
8Βραδυνει (“slow”) – the Greek translation of Hab. 2:3 uses the approximate synonym χρονιζω (“taking time”).
9Ibn Ezra associated the “end” with the destruction of Babylon, which was indeed a later phase in God’s plan. Pusey (referencing Heb. 10:37) associated it with the coming of Christ (as did Keil), which was also a later phase in God’s plan.
10I have not located the source of this quote, but an unconfirmed source has suggested it is Oswald Sanders.
11קוה, a synonym to חכה (Habakkuk’s word for “wait”). The other instance of “wait” in this verse is also the same word.
12There is some question as to whether this is speaking particularly of Nebuchadnezzar/the Chaldeans (Kimchi, Lehrman, Keil, Firth), or the violent Judeans (Firth) or the ungodly in general (Calvin, Pusey).
13Numbers 14:44 “But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop; nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed from the camp.” (NKJV)
14Prov. 8:13 “...I hate...pride and arrogance…” James 4:5 “...God resists the proud…” (NKJV)
15cf. 5:1, Phil. 3:9, Prov. 28:25, Luke 18:14, John 3:36. The Scriptures mention specifically that this is how Abel (Heb. 11:4), Noah (Gen. 6:9) and Abraham (Rom. 4:3, Gal 3:6) were “just/righteous.”
16Lehrman reflected the Jewish tradition that this word means “steadfastness, faithfulness,” emphasizing human effort, but Calvin’s treatise in loc. argued poignantly and exhaustively for the position I expounded. Here is a summary statement by Calvin: “[F]aith is not to be taken here for man’s integrity, but for that faith which sets man before God emptied of all good things, so that he seeks what he needs from His gratuitous goodness… correctly… call[ed] imputative righteousness…” Cf. Keil: “אֱמוּנָה does not denote ‘an honourable character...’ (Hitzig), but... firm attachment to God, an undisturbed confidence in the divine promises of grace...”
17Hebrews follows the LXX of Habakkuk 2:4 here, interpreting עפל (“swell”) as “withdraw” (עלפ, or perhaps אצל)
AMy
original chart includes the following copyrighted English versions:
NASB, NIV, ESV, Bauscher’s version of the Peshitta, and Cathcart’s
version of the Targums, but I remove these columns from my public,
non-copyrighted edition of this chart so as not to infringe on their
copyrights. NAW is my translation. When a translation adds words not
in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use
of italics or greyed-out text, I put the added words in [square
brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different
from all the other translations, I underline it. When a
version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs
too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far
from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout.
And when a version omits a word which is in the original text, I
insert an X. I also place an X at the end of a word if the original
word is plural but the English translation is singular. I
occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between
the various editions and versions when there are more than two
different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea
Scrolls containing Habakkuk 2 are 4Q82 (containing part of verse 4
and dated between 30-1 BC), the Nahal Hever Greek scroll
(containing parts of vs. 1-7 & 13-20 and dated around 25BC), the
1QpHab scroll with commentary (dated between 50-100 BC), and
the Wadi Muraba’at Scroll (containing parts of verses 2-11 &
18-20 and dated around 135 AD). Where the DSS is legible and in
agreement with the MT, the MT is colored purple.
Where the DSS supports the LXX/Vulgate/Peshitta with omissions or
text not in the MT, I have highlighted
with yellow the LXX
and its translation into English, and where I have accepted
that into my NAW translation, I have marked it with {pointed
brackets}.
BDouay Old Testament first published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609, Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner, Published in 1582, 1609, 1752. As published on E-Sword.
C“Septuagint” Greek Old Testament, edited by Alfred Rahlfs. Published in 1935. As published on E-Sword.
DEnglish translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, 1851, “based upon the text of the Vaticanus” but not identical to the Vaticanus. As published electronically by E-Sword.
E1769 King James Version of the Holy Bible; public domain. As published electronically by E-Sword.
FFrom
the Wiki Hebrew Bible
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%94_%D7%90/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA.
DSS text comes from
https://downloads.thewaytoyahuweh.com,
except 1QpHab, which comes from Matt Christian
https://www.academia.edu/37256916/1QpHab_Transcription_and_Translation
(accessed Aug 2024).
GNahal Hever uses a synonymous verb here based on the same root as the previous verb. The MT uses a different verb root for this second verb though, so the MT is more like the LXX here.
H2nd Century AD Greek translators Aquila and Theodotion translated it γυρον (“circle”), but Symmachus’ translation “enclosure” is more like the Hebrew word in the MT.
ICalvin had the odd interpretation that this meant “the recess of the mind, where we withdraw ourselves from the world,” but even his English editor admitted that “the word means commonly the office or the act of watching…” Matthew Henry interpreted it as “making use of the helps and means he had within his reach to know the mind of God.” Keil suggested that is “not to be understood as… an actual tower… for nothing is known of any such custom as this… [but] simply expresses the spiritual preparation of the prophet’s soul for hearing the word of God within.” But wherever this noun occurs, it describes the regular duties of a priest, not a place.
JTargums and 1QpHab insert a yod as the last character of this word, adding the pronoun “my.” Alternately, NIV interprets it as a defective plural. But there are no such suffixes in the N.H., Vulgate, LXX, Peshitta, or MT. (W.M. is not relevant since it has a lacuna here.) LXX and Peshitta translate it as “rock,” but the others translate it as a part of a city’s structural defense. It means “enclosure,” and the temple also had a wall around it, so it could be a parallel statement to serving in the temple.
KThis is not the preposition of address “to me” but rather the preposition of prophecy “through me.” (cf. AJV “by me”) This is consistent throughout the HOT: 2 Samuel 23:2 (“Yahweh spoke through/by me…”), Num. 12:6&8 (“If there is a prophet among you, I… speak with/to him in a dream….”), 1 Sam. 28:17 (“the LORD spoke by/through me”), 1 Kings 8:15, 24, 56 (“You spoke by your mouthpeice to [את] my father (2x)… spoke through the agency of Moses”), 1 Kings 14:18 & 15:29 (“spoke by the agency of your servant Ahijah”), 1 Kings 16:34 (“spoke by the agency of Joshua”), 1 Kings 17:16 & 2 Ki. 9:36 & 10:10 (“spoke by the agency of Elijah”), 2 Kings 14:25 (“spoke through Jonah”), 2Ki. 17:23 & 24:2 (“spoke through all his servants the prophets”), Jeremiah 37:2 (“spoke by the agency of Jeremiah”), 9:7 (“speaks with his mouth”). Sometimes, the beth preposition denotes the content of speech: Deut. 11:19 (“to speak about/of my words”), 1 Sam. 19:3 (“I will speak about you with/to [אֶל] my father”), Psa. 87:3 (“Glorious things are spoken about You”). The important thing to note is that there is no clear instance of the beth preposition after the dbr verb in the HOT indicating speech “to” an addressee. (It may be tempting to think that Zechariah is an exception – esp. Zech. 2:2, but when Zechariah wanted to denote an address “to” his angelic messenger or his angelic messenger’s address “to” Zechariah, he used a different preposition than beth in Zec. 1:14 (“and the angel who spoke through/with [ב] me said to [אל] me”), and does the same thing at least a half dozen more times in 4:4-5; 5:5 &10, 6:4 &8, so Zechariah is no exception to the beth preposition noting the means of prophecy. Habakkuk is a prophet; he called himself a prophet, and he takes his prophetic role seriously: he is anticipating receiving a message from God that he can relay to his people.
LPeshitta reads “he may return” (instead of “I may return”) and the BHS editor recommended reading it that way. All the DSS have lacunae at this point, so they are not determinative. But since the MT, Vulgate, LXX, and Targums are in agreement, it seems prudent not to change the MT.
MThis word is illegible in Nahal Hever except for the last letter, which is ι, which could be an aorist infinitive form of the same word and could implicitly carry the imperative force explicit in the LXX spelling.
NN.H. rendered with the synonym εκφαν- “bring into the light.”
OThe translations of Aquila and Symmachus (τρεχη “may run”) are closer to the meaning of the word in the MT than the LXX’s “may pursue.”
PThis word is used only here and in Deut. 1:5 (where it denotes verbal explanation) and Deut. 27:8 (where it denotes carving on a rock). All three are in Piel stem. Strong and Keil attested that it has a root meaning of “dig.”
QThe definite article here in 1Q and MT is notable, because Habakkuk is rather sparse with them (The is the first one since 1:14, and the next one isn’t until 2:5 – although there are a couple of prepositional prefixes in 2:3 and 1:17 which have definiteness added to them in the pointing.) The other DSS are too damaged to read at this point, and Latin doesn’t use definite articles, so the Vulgate is not helpful, but Greek and Aramaic do have definite articles, and neither the LXX, Peshitta, or Targums have a definite article here. As for the meaning of this word, when it occurs in the HOT, it mostly refers to the 10 Commandments engraved on stone tablets, although it occasionally refers to wooden boards used in the tabernacle construction. Keil dismissed the possibility of them being wooden boards fashioned into a crude codex.
RBHS
cites a DSS which adds a definite article to this participle, but I
am not aware of any DSS that does not have a lacuna at this
word (I have examined W.M., 1QpHab, and 4Q82) except for the Greek
Nahal Hever which does not have a definite article.
Calvin’s
(and Henry’s, Pusey’s, Ewald’s and Keil’s) interpretation
that he who is running past Habakkuk’s plaque in the “street”
(or in the “marketplace,” or even the “temple”!) may be able
to read it without stopping because it is so clearly written,
confuses the subject with the verb and the verb with the subject,
and begs the question, Why would they be “running,” in the first
place? Keil tried to resolve the problem by interpreting it
figuratively (“...the prophecy is to be laid to heart by all the
people on account of its great importance”) but is inconsistent
because he doesn’t consider “write down” to be figurative
(“[T]his no doubt involved... committing it to writing”).
SThe MT cantillation associates this prepositional phrase “with it” with “one who reads” and not with “runs.” LXX, Targums, KJV, NASB, & ESV read “he who reads [in] it,” but Vulgate, NIV, & Peshitta read “run with it.” The “It” is masculine singular, and “vision” is the only masculine singular noun in the sentence.
TMT = “breathe out” LXX = “dawn,” N.H. = ενφανησετ-- = “reveal”
ULXX = ‘vanity.” N.H., Aq., and Sym’s translation διαψευσεται (“will lie”) is closer to the MT, Vulgate, and Aramaic versions (as well as the English).
VN.H. uses the synonym στραγ-, presumably the same as Symmachus’ στραγγευσηται (“hold in place, loiter about”). Aquila translated probably less-accurately εαν μελληση προσδεχου (“If it is impending, receive it...”)
WAlthough this word is illegible in N.H., the spacing between legible words indicates that this conjunction was in the original N.H.
XThe MT is the only source manuscript with a definite article here. The Vulgate and unpointed Peshitta are not able to be determinative because of the nature of their linguistics, but the pointed Targums and the LXX are both able to express definite articles, and they do not have one here. In fact, the Targums and Peshitta don’t have have the preposition either, but the Vulgate and LXX do. Cf. Daniel 8:17-19, 10:14, 11:27 for the “visionary” “end” “coming” “at the appointed time.”
YAlthough
most contemporary English translations follow 1QpHab in omitting the
conjunction before this word, it is in all the other DSS (W.M. &
N.H.), all the ancient versions, and in the MT, so it should not be
omitted.
The meaning of this word is debated. The lexicons
agree that it means “breathe” (and Pusey and Keil vouched for
that), but the KJV and NIV (following Kimchi, Rashi, Abarbanel,
etc.) render it “speak,” the NASB & ESV render it “hasten,”
and the Greek versions render it “dawn/reveal.” Owen’s
interpretation that the vision would seem dead for a time and then
come to living, breathing life “at the end” relies on a
mis-translation of the Hebrew preposition. If a Hebrew writer had
meant “at/during” he would have used beth, but Habakkuk
used lamed, which means “toward.” (Keil also noted this:
“ל denotes
direction towards…”). However, Habakkuk’s message did gain new
life at the “end” of the Old Testament age, when the Apostles
copied it into three different books of the New Testament! I think
Pusey’s interpretation of this word is more accurate: “[T]he
root is not used of mere ‘speaking’ but of a ‘breathing out’
… panting [Keil used the same word] toward the end… gleams of it
should here and there part the clouds which, until the end, should
surround and envelop it. Being God’s truth, he speaks of it as an
animate, living thing, not a dead letter… (1 Peter 1:5)”
ZThis Hithpalpel stem is the only stem in which this verb occurs in the HOT.
AA1QpHab inserts a vav conjunction here, which also appears in all the ancient versions and the NIV. The other DSS are illegible at this point.
ABN.H. appears to read “Behold” (ιδ--) like the MT and other ancient versions.
ACN.H. translated poorly σκοτια (“darkness”), as did Aquila νωχελευομενου (“being made black”?).
ADN.H. uses the synonym ευθεια (“straight/straightforward”).
AEAq. and Sym. followed N.H., which is correct with αυτου (“his”), matched by MT and all the other versions (except Peshitta which omits the pronoun altogether).
AFN.H. αυτου (“his”) is correct, with the MT and all the other ancient versions (except the LXX and Aquila) matching it.
AGLXX & Peshitta saw this word as a conjunction rather than as “behold.” But the Dead Sea Scrolls, Aquilla (for the Greek) and Targums (for the Aramaic) line up with the MT (and English).
AHThe only other occurrence of this verb in the HOT is in Numbers 14:44, describing the Israelites who charged into the Promised Land in an untimely manner (and got beat back by the Canaanites), but lexicographers (Holladay, TWOT) question whether this is even the same root. Because it shares spelling with the noun for “swelling,” the lexicons define it “puffed up” (followed by NIV, ESV, AJV, Firth, cf. Pusey & Keil “swollen”) with “pride” (NASB, cf. Calvin: “elation of mind,” Henry “hearts lifted up,” and Henderson). The LXX, which is quoted in Hebrews, translated it “shrink back” (and this seems to be supported by one Hebrew manuscript which switches the middle two letters of this word to read עלפה “fail” instead of עפלה, and which Owen, Grotius, and Newcome favored). The 2nd Century Greek versions render it with “being dark/black.” Meanwhile the ancient Aramaic versions translated it “wicked/worthless,” and the Vulgate renders it “unbeliever.”
AI1QpHab adds a vav after the first letter (יושרה), an addition not found in DSS 4Q82. It may not change the meaning, or it might make it passive (“justified” instead of “right”), but even if the latter, the meaning is not changed because those who are “right” are those who are “justified” by God. The only other time this phrase “not right” appears in the HOT is 1 Kings 9:12 “Hiram went from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, but they were not right/pleasing in his eyes,” which explains why the LXX paraphrased with εὐδοκεῖ (“pleasing”).
AJLXX, Aquila, and Hebrews 10 read “my soul,” and BHS recommends that reading, but Vulgate, Peshitta, and DSS (N.H. and 4Q82; it is not legible in any other DSS) support the MT with “his soul.” (Aquilla and BHS abandoned the LXX a few words later where it again reads “my” when all the other manuscripts read “his.”)