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 3:2

3:2 Lord, I have heard the report of what you did; ² 

I am awed, ³  Lord, by what you accomplished. ⁴ 

In our time ⁵  repeat those deeds; ⁶ 

in our time reveal them again. ⁷ 

But when you cause turmoil, remember to show us mercy! ⁸ 

Habakkuk 3:16

Habakkuk Declares His Confidence

3:16 I listened and my stomach churned; ⁹ 

the sound made my lips quiver.

My frame went limp, as if my bones were decaying, ¹⁰ 

and I shook as I tried to walk. ¹¹ 

I long ¹²  for the day of distress

to come upon ¹³  the people who attack us.

[1:2]  ¹ tn Or “deliver.”

[3:2]  ² tn Heb “your report,” that is, “the report concerning you.”

[3:2]  ³ tn Heb “I fear.” Some prefer to read, “I saw, Lord, what you accomplished” (cf. NEB).

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “your work.”

[3:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the midst of years.” The meaning of the phrase, which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain (cf. NIV “in our day”; NEB, NASB “in the midst of the years”).

[3:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “revive it” (i.e., “your work”).

[3:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “make known.” The implied object is “your deeds”; the pronoun “them,” referring to “deeds” in the previous line, was employed in the translation to avoid redundancy. The suffix on the form חַיֵּיהוּ (khayyehu, “revive it”) does double duty in the parallelism.

[3:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “in turmoil remember [to show] compassion.”

[3:16]  ³ tn Heb “my insides trembled.”

[3:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “decay entered my bones.”

[3:16]  ⁵ tc Heb “beneath me I shook, which….” The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher) appears to be a relative pronoun, but a relative pronoun does not fit here. The translation assumes a reading אֲשֻׁרָי (’ashuray, “my steps”) as well as an emendation of the preceding verb to a third plural form.

[3:16]  ⁶ tn The translation assumes that אָנוּחַ (’anuakh) is from the otherwise unattested verb נָוָח (navakh, “sigh”; see HALOT 680 s.v. II נוח; so also NEB). Most take this verb as נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest”) and translate, “I wait patiently” (cf. NIV).

[3:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “to come up toward.”