Old Testament · Minor Prophets
Arguing with God, and the answer that echoes forever: the righteous shall live by faith.
A prophet who argues with God and prints both sides. Habakkuk opens by asking how long violence and injustice will go unanswered; God replies that he is raising up the Babylonians; and the prophet is appalled, because the cure is worse than the disease. The second complaint is sharper than the first: how can a holy God use people more wicked than the ones being punished? He then does something remarkable, saying he will take his post on the rampart and wait for the answer. What comes back is not an explanation but a instruction to write the vision plainly, and the line that the righteous shall live by his faith, which Paul builds on twice and Hebrews once. The book ends with the fig tree not blossoming and joy anyway.
If you remember one thing
The only prophetic book that is mostly a conversation between the prophet and God. It ends with the fig tree not blossoming and the man rejoicing anyway.
“But the righteous will live by his faith.”
Habakkuk 2:4
Habakkuk 1:13
Why do you look on the treacherous and remain silent when the wicked swallows the more righteous? The complaint is left standing, and the answer that comes is not the one asked for.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
Habakkuk dared to ask how a holy God could use wicked Babylon to punish Judah. The answer he received, that the righteous shall live by faith, became a cornerstone of the New Testament, and his book ends in trust though the fields lie empty.
Games built on this book’s people and story.
