Habakkuk 2

People in ancient times often wrote onto soft clay tablets, which they let harden. Others wrote with ink on hardened clay. Paper was still several centuries from being invented in China in about 100 AD, as far as the record reports so far. Egyptians invented paper-like papyrus in the 300s BC. It was made from the spongy pith inside reeds.

We can give Habakkuk the benefit of the doubt that he managed to do this for the people in his day. But there are a lot of unanswered questions in what follows, for Bible scholars today. Many words are difficult to interpret. It’s especially easy to see when comparing Bible translations side by side. The best of scholars are sometimes left to make their best educated guesses. See notes for verses four and five, for example.

The Hebrew word is ’ᵉmûnâ. It can mean: faithful, dependable, trustworthy, devoted, steadfast. New Testament writers, such as Paul, quote this verse to argue that people are saved because of their faith in God, not because they are Jews or because they obey all the Jewish laws: “Remember what our Bible says: good people will live because of their faith” (Romans 1:17). Paul was paraphrasing Habakkuk 2:4. Bible experts debate what Paul meant by this cryptic phrase. German scholar Martin Luther (1483-1546), a Roman Catholic monk, eventually got himself excommunicated from the church partly because of what he read into this phrase. He saw an idea that inspired a Christian protest movement that became known as the Protestant Reformation. Luther, the father of Protestant churches, said Paul seemed to be teaching that we are saved through our faith, not through obeying religious laws or by observing rituals, such as confessing sins to a priest or taking communion in a church service. Another way some read the phrase: Good (righteous) people show their faith by the way they live. Another: Good people will live because of God’s faithfulness—meaning that we can trust God to save us as he promised to do.

The Hebrew word in ancient copies of Habakkuk says “wine.” But the word in the oldest surviving document means “wealth.” This comes from a 2,000-year-old commentary on Habakkuk found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Whichever word Habakkuk intended, wine or wealth didn’t seem to be his focus. He said he quoted God talking about bad human beings—what made them bad and what would happen to them.

Literally, Sheol, a word Old Testament writers used to describe the place of the dead. It is a kind of underworld where the dead are cut off from the living—and from God—and there is no coming back.

Bible writers often use breath as a metaphor for physical life or spiritual power. “The LORD God made a man from the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath that brought him to life. The man was alive” (Genesis 2:7). “When your Spirit breathes on them, they come to life. And new life appears on the earth” (Psalms 104:30).