Habakkuk 2:7

2:7 Your creditors will suddenly attack; ¹ 

those who terrify you will spring into action, ² 

and they will rob you. ³ 

Habakkuk 1:12

Habakkuk Voices Some Concerns

1:12 Lord, you have been active from ancient times; ⁴ 

my sovereign God, ⁵  you are immortal. ⁶ 

Lord, you have made them ⁷  your instrument of judgment. ⁸ 

Protector, ⁹  you have appointed them as your instrument of punishment. ¹⁰ 

Habakkuk 2:13

2:13 Be sure of this! The Lord who commands armies has decreed:

The nations’ efforts will go up in smoke;

their exhausting work will be for nothing. ¹¹ 

Habakkuk 2:6

The Proud Babylonians are as Good as Dead

2:6 “But all these nations will someday taunt him ¹² 

and ridicule him with proverbial sayings: ¹³ 

‘The one who accumulates what does not belong to him is as good as dead ¹⁴ 

(How long will this go on?) ¹⁵  –

he who gets rich by extortion!’ ¹⁶ 

[2:7]  ¹ tn Heb “Will not your creditors suddenly rise up?” 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.

[2:7]  ² tn Heb “[Will not] the ones who make you tremble awake?”

[2:7]  ³ tn Heb “and you will become their plunder.”

[1:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “Are you not from antiquity, O Lord?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, of course.” The present translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question, rendering it as an affirmation. When used in a temporal sense the phrase מִקֶדֶם (miqedem) means “from antiquity, ancient times,” often referring to earlier periods in Israel’s history. See its use in Neh 12:46; Pss 74:12; 77:11; Isa 45:21; 46:10; Mic 5:2.

[1:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “My God, my holy one.” God’s “holiness” in this context is his sovereign transcendence as the righteous judge of the world (see vv. 12b-13a), thus the translation “My sovereign God.”

[1:12]  ⁶ tc The MT reads, “we will not die,” but an ancient scribal tradition has “you [i.e., God] will not die.” This is preferred as a more difficult reading that can explain the rise of the other variant. Later scribes who copied the manuscripts did not want to associate the idea of death with God in any way, so they softened the statement to refer to humanity.

[1:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “him,” a collective singular referring to the Babylonians. The plural pronoun “them” has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style.

[1:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “for judgment.”

[1:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “Rock” or “Cliff.” This divine epithet views God as a place where one can go to be safe from danger. The translation “Protector” conveys the force of the metaphor (cf. KJV, NEB “O mighty God”).

[1:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to correct, reprove.”

[2:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “Is it not, look, from the Lord of hosts that the nations work hard for fire, and the peoples are exhausted for nothing?”

[2:6]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and a mocking song, riddles, against him? And one will say.”

[2:6]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn This question is interjected parenthetically, perhaps to express rhetorically the pain and despair felt by the Babylonians’ victims.

[2:6]  ¹⁴ 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.