Habakkuk 3

This is a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to Shigionoth.

1A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.

NoteShigionoth is a Hebrew musical term whose meaning is lost; its singular form, shiggaion, heads Psalm 7. This line works like the heading of a psalm, telling a musician how the poem was to be performed. The chapter is framed as a song, with this heading at the front and a closing performance instruction in verse 19.

2LORD, I have heard the report of what you have done, and I am afraid. LORD, bring your work back to life in our own time; make it known in our own time. In your anger, remember mercy.

2O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.

NoteLORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written Yahweh. Jewish readers came to avoid saying it aloud, substituting the word for "my Lord," and English Bibles preserve that custom by printing LORD. The "report" is most likely the answer Habakkuk was given in the first two chapters. "In our own time" is literally "in the midst of the years," which may mean within our lifetime or in the middle of the present age; translators divide over it.

3God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

3God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

NoteTeman was a district (or town) of Edom, southeast of Judah; Mount Paran lay in the desert region of Sinai. Both point south, the direction from which Hebrew poems traditionally pictured God advancing, as in the old accounts of Sinai. Selah appears often in the Psalms and is generally taken as a musical or performance direction (a pause, a louder passage, an instrumental break) but its exact sense is unknown.

4His brightness was like sunlight. Rays of light flashed out from his hand, and that is where his power lay hidden.

4And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.

NoteThe King James "horns coming out of his hand" uses the ordinary Hebrew word for an animal's horn, which was also used of anything projecting, including a shaft or ray of light. The image is of light streaming from his hand, not of literal horns.

5Plague went ahead of him, and burning fever followed at his feet.

5Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.

NotePlague and fever are pictured as attendants walking before and behind a king in procession. The second word, resheph, was also the name of a Canaanite god of pestilence and fire; by this period it functioned in Hebrew as an ordinary word for burning fever or flame.

6He stood and measured the earth. He looked, and the nations shook. The ancient mountains broke apart and the age-old hills sank down. His ways are everlasting.

6He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.

NoteThe Hebrew verb behind "measured" can also mean "shook," and ancient translators disagreed; the rendering keeps the traditional reading. Measuring the earth would picture a conqueror pacing out land he has taken possession of.

7I saw the tents of Cushan in trouble, and the tent cloths of the land of Midian shaking.

7I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

NoteCushan is otherwise unknown and is probably another name for Midian or a people living beside it. Midian was a nomadic desert region south and east of Judah, in the same direction as Teman and Paran. The "tent cloths" are the woven goat-hair panels that form a nomad's tent; naming them is a way of saying the whole encampment was shaking.

8Was the LORD angry with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers? Was your fury against the sea, when you rode on your horses and on your chariots of victory?

8Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?

NoteThe questions expect the answer no. Older Near Eastern poetry often pictured a god fighting a battle against the sea and the rivers, and Hebrew poets reused that imagery; here it also recalls the sea and the Jordan being driven back in the exodus story. "Chariots of victory" translates a phrase that is literally "chariots of salvation", war chariots that bring rescue.

9You took your bow out from its cover and held it ready, calling for arrows, as your sworn word required. Selah. You split the earth open with rivers.

9Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

NoteThe middle of this verse is among the most obscure Hebrew in the Old Testament; word for word it runs roughly "oaths, tribes (or rods, or arrows), word." Some translators get "you called for many arrows," others "according to the oaths you swore to the tribes." The rendering holds both possibilities open. Taking a bow "out of its cover" means stripping off the case it traveled in, readying it to shoot.

10The mountains saw you and shook. Floodwaters swept past. The deep waters roared aloud and lifted their waves up high.

10The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.

Note"The deep" translates tehom, the mass of primeval water that Hebrew cosmology placed under and around the earth, the same word used of the waters at the beginning of Genesis. Its "lifting its hands on high" describes waves thrown upward.

11The sun and the moon stood still in their place in the sky, at the flash of your arrows as they flew, at the gleam of your shining spear.

11The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

NoteSun and moon halting recalls the account in Joshua 10 of the sun standing still over a battle. "In their place" translates a word for a dwelling or resting place, the station in the sky where the sun and moon were pictured as living.

12You marched across the land in fury. You crushed the nations in anger, the way grain is crushed on a threshing floor.

12Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.

NoteThreshing meant driving oxen, or dragging a weighted wooden sledge, over cut grain spread on a hard flat floor, to break the kernels loose from the straw. Applied to armies and nations it is a standard image for trampling something to pieces.

13You went out to rescue your people, to save your anointed one. You struck down the leader of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from the foundation up to the neck. Selah.

13Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.

Note"Anointed" translates mashiach, the word behind "messiah": a person installed in office by having olive oil poured over his head, normally the king, sometimes a priest. Here it means the reigning king, though some read it as the nation itself. The second half of the verse pictures a building torn down from its foundation upward, and the Hebrew is uncertain; "up to the neck" may be part of that demolition image or a shift back to the body of a man.

14With his own spears you pierced the head of his warriors, when they came storming out like a windstorm to scatter me, gloating as if they were about to devour the poor in secret.

14Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.

NoteThe Hebrew here is broken and every translation involves guesswork; the general picture is of an enemy's own weapons turned against him. Devouring the poor in secret is the image of a predator or bandit lying in ambush for someone who cannot fight back.

15You trampled through the sea with your horses, churning up the great mass of waters.

15Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.

16When I heard it, my insides shook. My lips trembled at the sound. My bones felt like they were rotting, and my legs shook where I stood. Yet I will wait quietly for the day of trouble to come on the nation that marches up to attack us with its troops.

16When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.

NoteRot entering the bones is a Hebrew idiom for being drained of all strength by fear, the bones standing for the body's inner frame. The second half of the verse is disputed: it can mean the prophet waits quietly for disaster to fall on the invaders, or that he waits for the day of trouble that will come on his own people.

17Even if the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, even if the olive crop fails and the fields grow no food, even if the sheep are gone from the pen and there are no cattle in the stalls,

17Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

NoteThese are the entire food supply of a Judean farm: figs, grapes, olives, field grain, sheep and cattle. Listing all of them failing at once is a standard way of describing a land stripped bare, whether by drought or by an army that has eaten and burned its way through.

18I will still be glad because of the LORD. I will rejoice in God, who saves me.

18Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

19The LORD God is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and he lets me walk on the high places. For the music leader, with my stringed instruments.

19The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

Note"Hinds" in the King James are female deer; the point is their sure-footedness on steep rock. "High places" here means literal mountain heights, safe ground above an invader, and not the hilltop shrines that the same English phrase names elsewhere in the Old Testament. The final line is a performance instruction of the kind found at the head of many psalms, addressed to the leader of the temple musicians.