Habakkuk 2:1-5 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

Habakkuk Looks Anxiously For The Answer To His Questions (Habakkuk 2:1-5)

Habakkuk 2:1

‘I will stand on my watch,

And settle myself on the tower,

And look out to see what he will say to me,

And what I will answer, to do with my complaint.'

Having questioned first why God has not dealt with His people's sinfulness, and then questioned God's method of dealing with that sinfulness on the grounds of the unworthiness of the instruments being used, he now declares that he will be on watch for God's reply.

He will be like a sentry on watch peering through the darkness, hoping to find an answer. Yes, he will settle down on the watchtower. He will wait to see what God has further to say about his complaint, and then he will consider his answer.

Habakkuk 2:2

‘And YHWH answered me and said, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.” '

God replies that He will give the answer in a vision and that he must take his reply and record it on tablets so that messengers may carry it far and wide. It is messengers who read a tablet and then run.

Or the idea might have been to write it in large tablets for public display (compare Isaiah 8:1; Isaiah 30:8), large enough for even those who ran by, or those who were in a hurry, to read what was said.

Habakkuk 2:3

“For the vision is yet for the appointed time,

And it pants towards the end, and will not lie.

Though it tarry (come not quickly), wait for it,

Because it will surely come, it will not delay.”

God assures Habakkuk that the vision He is about to give him will be fulfilled in its appointed time. Indeed it is in such a hurry to reach the appointed time that it is panting. Nevertheless it may seem to be delayed, but he must wait for it, because it will definitely come. It will not be delayed.

Habakkuk 2:4

“Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him. But the just shall live in his faithfulness (or ‘his faith').”

While he is waiting for the answer God contrasts the attitude of those whom He has spoken about and whom he is again about to describe, with the attitude of the truly righteous. He assures him that he knows exactly what the king of Babylon, with his people, are like. The one who has subjugated the nations and whose judgment is about to be announced is puffed up. He is arrogant and boastful. He is not upright, or behaving rightly. He is decidedly in the wrong. Therefore he too will receive what he deserves.

‘But the just shall live in his faithfulness.' On the other hand the righteous man is the exact opposite of the puffed up oppressor. He has faith in God, and is faithful to His covenant. Here is the secret of successful living in the face of all doubt and tribulation. Whatever happens and whatever God's answer, the righteous will live because of his faith, and in his faithfulness. He is confident in God. The idea of ‘live' here is more than just remain alive. He will live a fulfilled life, a life with God (compare Ezekiel 33:10-19, where to ‘live', while containing an element of not dying, also seems to add a similar qualitative factor).

It is, however important to recognise what this means. It is not in his righteousness that he will live, but through his faith which results in his faithfulness, his faithful acceptance of and response to the covenant. What will give him life is His true response to the God of the covenant. This consists of a right attitude of trust and love towards God (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), which results in a loving response to His requirements, both ritual and moral. As God's covenant offered to Israel at Sinai made clear, they must first believe His promise to be their Saviour (Exodus 20:2), and then they must respond to it fully and faithfully. Faith and faithfulness to the covenant are both sides of the same coin. So here we may translate both ‘faith' and ‘faithfulness', for it includes both. (We have no word that is similar). And yet faith precedes faithfulness, for it is the essence of it. A man is faithful because of what he has faith in.

It is the attitude of Abraham. ‘Abraham believed in God and He counted it to him for righteousness' (Genesis 15:6). He exercised personal faith. He believed in Him, he believed in His promises, he believed His covenant. And he responded to it. And God counted this response of faith as righteousness, as putting Abraham in a right relationship with God, simply because he looked up to God and believed Him. And it was the fact of his believing that He counted for righteousness, not his final response, although that naturally followed his belief. They were both part of the whole.

Deuteronomy 32:20 also makes clear that faith was important in relation to the covenant, although usually being expressed as ‘covenant love' (chesed). Covenant love was the outward expression of faith. You do not love someone you do not wholeheartedly believe in. Compare also Psalms 78:22 where Israel are rebuked because they did not believe in God and trust in His salvation (compare also Psalms 116:9-10; Isaiah 28:16; Isaiah 43:10). Thus faithfulness in Habakkuk has a similar meaning. They believed in God and trusted in Him and in His deliverance and responded with faithful lives, lives faithful to the covenant.

This verse was later taken by Paul in its LXX rendering pistis to signify, ‘the righteous by faith will live' (Galatians 3:11; Romans 1:17 see also Hebrews 10:38). He recognised the heart of the matter. Life comes through faith in God as a result of the sacrifice of Christ (or in the case of Habakkuk's day, through faith in God as a result of the means of atonement that God had provided).

And he recognised too that faith is something a man cannot ‘do'. He is aware of something and he either believes or he does not. He cannot choose to believe. That is why when Jesus told men that they could be saved through believing He was not saying that they could be saved through anything that they could do, He was rather telling them that if there was a response of faith in their hearts it was evidence that they would be saved. God had drawn them and their response of faith demonstrated that God had done a work in their hearts producing their faith. It was all of God.

This is central to God's message to Habakkuk. It was both a gentle rebuke and an enlightening. A gentle rebuke because Habakkuk had for a moment lost sight of the centrality of faith and trust in his relationship with, and life with, God, and enlightenment because it centred on what was truly important in an uncertain world. Habakkuk did believe, but he had forgotten for a moment what kind of God he believed in. The true believer trusts in the dark, even when he does not understand. He recognises that God's ways are beyond his understanding, but must be right in the end. And thus he is faith-full, his faith responds in obedience. It is similar to the trust of a small child in his father, once it is established it is unquestioning because he knows that Daddy knows everything and is always right.

In the New Testament Paul take part of this verse as signifying justification by faith, ‘The just shall live by faith'. This was to make use of LXX. But the idea is the same (and unites James and Paul). The man who truly believes will be faithful. Thus the faithful man is the true believer.

Habakkuk 2:5

“Yes, moreover, wine is a treacherous dealer,

A haughty man, and which does not keep at home.

Which enlarges his desire as the grave,

And he is as death and cannot be satisfied,

But gathers to him all nations,

And heaps to him all peoples.”

This verse refers back to Habakkuk 2:4 a, the one whose soul was puffed up and not upright within him. This partly explains why it was so. He is a man of wine. Here wine, and its consequences, is contrasted with faith. In contrast with the man who lives by faith in God is the man or nation who trust in wine for their deliverance (compare Isaiah 28:1; Isaiah 28:3). Certainly Israel saw the really dedicated believers as avoiding wine (Numbers 6:3; Amos 2:12; Jeremiah 35:2-14 compare Leviticus 10:9). For wine is treacherous and deceives (Isaiah 28:7). It causes men to be puffed up. It haughtily ignores all argument, all justice and all decency (Isaiah 5:22-23). It causes men to err and not be upright (Proverbs 20:1). It is the opposite of faithfulness.

The king who lets himself be influenced by wine becomes expansive in his behaviour (compare Psalms 78:65), he does not stay at home (compare Proverbs 23:30), his desire is enlarged so that it cannot be satisfied. He seeks to grasp everything for himself, and make them drink his wine (Habakkuk 2:15; Jeremiah 51:7). Nations become his playthings. Whether the references to the underworld and death are just examples of what is insatiable, or whether the thought is that he gorges himself on slaughter is an open question. but Habakkuk 2:8 might suggest the latter.

And when God would bring his judgment on men and nations He does so as through wine (Psalms 75:8; Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15-16). So the wine man drinks is symbolic of his coming judgment (see Habakkuk 2:16).

Thus Habakkuk appears to see the king of Babylon as such a man driven by wine, (Jeremiah 51:7 compares Babylon to a wine goblet, making the nations drink of their wine, and thus can be defined in terms of wine). It is his sustenance and driving force, driving him forward to his conquests. It makes his desire for slaughter as wide as the underworld, the world of the dead (Sheol), and like death itself he can never have sufficient victims. (Alternately these may simply be examples of his expansive conquests). For the thought of wine as man's god see Micah 2:11, and for its effect on a Babylonian king and his nobles see Daniel 5:4 where it resulted in false worship and blasphemy. Perhaps Habakkuk saw all great kings in this light (see also in general Hosea 7:5; Hosea 4:11; Jeremiah 51:7).

The word for ‘wine' is ha-yyayin. Some have suggested reading as something like hayyoneh (possibly a waw having been at some time misread as a yod), ‘the oppressor', but it is not necessary.

Habakkuk 2:1-5

1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower,a and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people: