The title of the book is the name of its writer.
All we know for sure about Habakkuk was that he was a prophet who lived during the pre-exilic period of Israel's history.1The meaning of his name is questionable. It may come from the Hebrew verb habaq, which means "to fold the hands"or "to embrace."In this case it might mean "one who embraces"or "one who is embraced."Luther thought it signified that Habakkuk embraced his people to comfort and uphold them. Jerome interpreted it to mean that he embraced the problem of divine justice in the world, the subject of the book.2The simple designation "the prophet"with no other identifying description characterizes only two other prophetical books: Haggai and Zechariah. So Habakkuk is the only book so designated among the pre-exilic Prophets. The content of the book, which includes wisdom literature and a psalm of praise, indicates that Habakkuk was a poet as well as a prophet.
There are traditions about who Habakkuk was that have little basis in fact but are interesting nonetheless. Since the last verse of the book gives a musical notation similar to some psalms, some students concluded that he was a musician and possibly a Levite. The apocraphal book Bel and the Dragon mentions him as the son of Jeshua of the tribe of Levi. It records a legend about him that is pure fantasy. Supposedly an angel commanded Habakkuk to take a meal to Daniel, who was in the lions' den a second time. When the prophet complained that he did not know where the den was, the angel picked him up by a lock of his hair and carried him to the spot (Bel vv. 33-39). According to rabbinic sources, Habakkuk was the son of the Shunammite woman whom Elisha restored to life (2 Kings 4). The basis for this theory is that Elisha' servant told the woman that she would "embrace"a son (2 Kings 4:16), and Habakkuk's name is similar to the Hebrew word for "embrace."
