Hebrew-English Text
I. Summary
Habakkuk praises Yahweh’s glory, might, and control of nature.

II. Photo
Habakkuk describes Yahweh: “You will smash the roof of the villain’s house, raze it from foundation to top!” (v. 13)

III. Selected Verses
3-4: God is coming from Teman, The Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His majesty covers the skies, His splendor fills the earth: It is a brilliant light Which gives off rays on every side — And therein His glory is enveloped.
6: When He stands, He makes the earth shake; When He glances, He makes nations tremble. The age-old mountains are shattered, The primeval hills sink low. His are the ancient routes.
16: I heard and my bowels quaked, My lips quivered at the sound; Rot entered into my bone, I trembled where I stood. Yet I wait calmly for the day of distress, For a people to come to attack us.
17-19: Though the fig tree does not bud And no yield is on the vine, Though the olive crop has failed And the fields produce no grain, Though sheep have vanished from the fold And no cattle are in the pen, Yet will I rejoice in the LORD, Exult in the God who delivers me. My Lord GOD is my strength: He makes my feet like the deer’s And lets me stride upon the heights.

IV. Outline
1. Introduction
2a. Invocation
2b. Praise
2c. Petition for God to make himself known
3-6. God’s glory
7-9a. God’s might
9b-11. God’s control of nature
12-15. God will deliver his nation by punishing the villains
16. Habakkuk’s fear
17-19a. Trust in God
19b. Conclusion

V. Comment
Chapter 3 is a theophoric description of God’s glory and might. Habakkuk describes God as a divine warrior battling the “sea” (vv. 8, 15), and this theme is found in many other passages of the Hebrew Bible. Yet, this theme wasn’t explored with great detail until the 19th century. Oden Jr. writes: “Already at the end of the 19th century the great scholar of Israel’s preliterary traditions, Hermann Gunkel, noted that a careful reading of the Hebrew Bible revealed allusions to a common ANE cosmogony based upon a primordial combat between the creator and the forces of chaos (Gunkel 1895). Prior to the uncovering and translation of the Ugaritic texts, the source of these traditions was regularly seen to be Mesopotamia, the location of the creation tale Enuma Elish with its account of the battle between the god Marduk and the dragon goddess Tiamat, and perhaps too in Egypt, which knew the tradition of a fundamental combat between the creator god Re and the dragon Apophis. The mythological texts from Ugarit in Syria now demonstrate that there is no need to go so far afield in the search for the literary and theological models which Israelite poets found so useful. These texts, as best the narratives they relate can be reconstructed at present, tell of a primeval battle between the god Ba’l Haddu (familiar as Ba’al in the Hebrew Bible) and the forces of chaotic destruction and death. The latter are called by such titles as Prince Sea (ym) and Judge River (nhr) in the primary version of this combat tale, while what appear to be alternate versions of the same, basic tale label these forces Lotan (ltn, the equivalent of the biblical Leviathan) or the seven-headed serpent (Herdner 1963: CTCA Text 2 or 5).
“On the basis of these texts from ancient Syria and of their transformations in the Hebrew Bible, a common Syria-Palestinian pattern for the shape of the cosmogonic battle myth can be reconstructed. This pattern consists of four rounds: (1) a Divine Warrior goes forth to battle the chaotic monsters, variously called Sea, Death, Leviathan, Tannin; (2) the world of nature responds to the wrath of the Divine Warrior and the forces of chaos are defeated; (3) the Divine Warrior assumes his throne on a mountain, surrounded by a retinue of other deities; and (4) the Divine Warrior utters his powerful speech, which leads nature to produce the created world (CMHE, 162–63). Though there is no single biblical text which relates this battle in its fullest form, once the pattern is made clear, it seems undeniable that it lies behind and is responsible for a great number of biblical allusions which should be accounted as cosmogonic. For example, the titles Leviathan, Sea, River, Sea Monster (tann’în or the like), and Dragon (rahab) all are used of opponents of [God] the God of Israel in settings describing the earlier days of the cosmos…
“The cumulative effect of all these allusions, tantalizingly brief and vague though each may seem when seen in isolation, is impressive. The texts’ very brevity bears witness to the familiarity with the cosmic battle pattern that the author of each could assume on behalf of his listeners. Just as the briefest mention of words and phrases like the Pilgrims, the Founding Fathers, or the Gettysburg Address will resonate widely to an American audience, so too the very spare report of the Sea, the Dragon, or of [God]’s splitting a sea monster will have called forth for an Israelite audience the entire myth in which these cosmic enemies attempt to play their destructive roles.
“Earlier scholars were troubled by the implications of these battle scenes, since they so clearly compromise later Jewish and Christian understandings of the Hebrew Bible as consistently monotheistic. But the Hebrew Bible itself bears clear witness to monotheism as a slowly developing notion within early Israel, and one that for many centuries found no difficulty in portraying [God]’s creative activity in the terms of the familiar cosmogonic battle pattern.” (5:1,165-1,166)

VI. Works Used
(see “Commentaries” page)
Oden Jr., Robert A. “COSMOGONY, COSMOLOGY,” Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 5:1,165-1,166.
Collins, John J. “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004).
Photo taken from http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/free_stock_photos/data/547/medium/Imagem059.jpg

Hebrew-English Text
I. Summary
Yahweh tells Habakkuk that the righteous will be rewarded and that the wicked will be punished.

II. Photo
Yahweh ridicules idol making: “What has the carved image availed, that he who fashioned it has carved it for an image and a false oracle — that he who fashioned his product has trusted in it, making dumb idols?” (v. 18)

III. Selected Verses
1: I will stand on my watch, Take up my station at the post, And wait to see what He will say to me, What He will reply to my complaint.
2: The LORD answered me and said: Write the prophecy down, Inscribe it clearly on tablets, So that it can be read easily.
8: Because you plundered many nations, All surviving peoples shall plunder you — For crimes against men and wrongs against lands, Against cities and all their inhabitants.
18-20:  What has the carved image availed, That he who fashioned it has carved it For an image and a false oracle — That he who fashioned his product has trusted in it, Making dumb idols? Ah, you who say, “Wake up” to wood, “Awaken,” to inert stone! Can that give an oracle? Why, it is encased in gold and silver, But there is no breath inside it. But the LORD in His holy Abode — Be silent before Him all the earth!

IV. Outline
1-2a. Introduction: Habakkuk awaits a response
2b. God tells Habakkuk to write the message down
3. A prophecy will be fulfilled
4-6a. Justice for the righteous and wicked
6b-8. Woe #1: the plunderer will be plundered
9-11. Woe #2: the wicked abode will fall
12-14. Woe #3: the towns will be filled with awe
15-17. Woe #4: the wicked will succumb to lawlessness and attack
18-20. Woe #5: discrediting idolatry

V. Comment
No comment today. Stay tuned.

VI. Works Used
(see “Commentaries” page)
Collins, John J. “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004).
Photo taken from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/2852918206_edd58a862a_b.jpg

Hebrew-English Text
I. Summary
Habakkuk begs Yahweh to relieve the people’s pain, but Yahweh promises to send the mighty Babylonians instead.

II. Photo
Habakkuk laments what the Babylonians have done: “Mankind are like the fish of the sea… [Babylon] has fished them all up with a line, pulled them up in his trawl, and gathered them in his net!” (vv. 14b-15a)

III. Important Verses
2: How long, O LORD, shall I cry out And You not listen, Shall I shout to You, “Violence!” And You not save?
5-8: “Look among the nations, Observe well and be utterly astounded; For a work is being wrought in your days Which you would not believe if it were told. For lo, I am raising up the Chaldeans, That fierce, impetuous nation, Who cross the earth’s wide spaces To seize homes not their own.  They are terrible, dreadful; They make their own laws and rules. Their horses are swifter than leopards, Fleeter than wolves of the steppe. Their steeds gallop — their steeds Come flying from afar. Like vultures rushing toward food,
13: You whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil, Who cannot countenance wrongdoing, Why do You countenance treachery, And stand by idle While the one in the wrong devours The one in the right?
14-15: You have made mankind like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things that have no ruler. He has fished them all up with a line, Pulled them up in his trawl, And gathered them in his net. That is why he rejoices and is glad.

IV. Outline
1. Superscription
2-4. Petition: God only looks at the wrong
5-11. Oracle: God will bring the mighty Chaldeans
12-17. Petition: the mighty are destroying the weak

V. Comment
One of the major problems in studying the book of Habakkuk is that it isn’t known when Habakkuk lived. Sweeney writes: “the absence of personal information about Habakkuk continues to confound attempts to identify his historical background. A wide range of dates have been proposed, from Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in the late 8th century (Betteridge 1903) to Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Near East in the 4th century (Duhm 1906; Torrey 1935). On the basis of Hab 1:6, which mentions the establishment of the Chaldeans, most contemporary scholars maintain that Habakkuk lived during the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the latter part of the 7th century, from the latter years of Josiah (640–609) to the reign of Jehoiakim (609–598) or perhaps Jehoiachin (598).” (2)

VI. Works Used
(see “Commentaries” page)

Sweeney, Marvin. “Habakkuk, Book Of” Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, III:2.

Collins, John J. “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004).
Photo taken from http://cresswmc.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dsc_6874_edited-12.jpg