Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Habakkuk · About this commentary
In Wrath, Remember Mercy
Habakkuk 3:1-2
1 A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, set to victorious music. · WEB
The complaint becomes a prayer, and the prayer asks for the thing the prophet had been protesting — with one qualification.
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to music. The heading marks a change of genre: what follows is liturgy, meant to be sung by people who would inherit the crisis.
Yahweh, I have heard of your fame, and I stand in awe of your deeds. The verb is fear, and the reason for it is not the Chaldeans but God's own record — the report of what he has done is itself alarming.
Then the request, in three short clauses. Renew your work in the middle of the years; in the middle of the years make it known. He asks for the intervention he had complained was absent, and asks for it now rather than at the appointed time of Habakkuk 2:3 — waiting is accepted, but the prophet is allowed to want it shorter.
The last clause is the hinge of the book: in wrath, remember mercy. He does not ask for the wrath to be canceled. He has been told it is deserved and is coming. He asks that it be exercised by someone who remembers something else as well.
settled What this mark means