Habakkuk

About Habakkuk

Habakkuk is unusual among the prophets: instead of speaking to the people for God, he speaks to God for the people, asking why God allows injustice and why He would use a nation as brutal as Babylon to punish Judah. God answers that the proud will fall in time, and that the righteous will live by faith. The book ends with one of the Bible's great statements of trust, choosing joy in God even when everything else fails, and its central line about faith becomes a cornerstone of New Testament teaching.

Written by

The book is presented as the words of the prophet Habakkuk, about whom the Bible tells us nothing beyond this book.

When

Habakkuk likely wrote around 640 to 600 BC, as Babylon was rising to power and shortly before it invaded Judah.

Themes

• Honest questions to God
• Living by faith
• God's justice in His own time
• Joy that outlasts hardship

Key verses

• Habakkuk 2:4Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright — but the righteous will live by faith —
• Habakkuk 1:2-3How long, O LORD, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save? Why do You make me see iniquity? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds.
• Habakkuk 3:17-18Though 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!