Habakkuk 1:2

1:2 How long, Lord, must I cry for help?

But you do not listen!

I call out to you, “Violence!”

But you do not intervene! ¹ 

Habakkuk 3:13

3:13 You march out to deliver your people,

to deliver your special servant. ² 

You strike the leader of the wicked nation, ³ 

laying him open from the lower body to the neck. ⁴  Selah.

Habakkuk 2:6

The Proud Babylonians are as Good as Dead

2:6 “But all these nations will someday taunt him ⁵ 

and ridicule him with proverbial sayings: ⁶ 

‘The one who accumulates what does not belong to him is as good as dead ⁷ 

(How long will this go on?) ⁸  –

he who gets rich by extortion!’ ⁹ 

[1:2]  ¹ tn Or “deliver.”

[3:13]  ² tn Heb “anointed one.” In light of the parallelism with “your people” in the preceding line this could refer to Israel, but elsewhere the Lord’s anointed one is always an individual. The Davidic king is the more likely referent here.

[3:13]  ³ tn Heb “you strike the head from the house of wickedness.”

[3:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “laying bare [from] foundation to neck.”

[2:6]  ³ tn Heb “Will not these, all of them, take up a taunt against him…?” The rhetorical question assumes the response, “Yes, they will.” The present translation brings out the rhetorical force of the question by rendering it as an affirmation.

[2:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “and a mocking song, riddles, against him? And one will say.”

[2:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who increases [what is] not his.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe,” “ah”) was used in funeral laments and carries the connotation of death.

[2:6]  ⁶ tn This question is interjected parenthetically, perhaps to express rhetorically the pain and despair felt by the Babylonians’ victims.

[2:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the one who makes himself heavy [i.e., wealthy] [by] debts.” Though only appearing in the first line, the term הוֹי (hoy) is to be understood as elliptical in the second line.