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Synagogues traditionally read Habakkuk 3 on the second day of Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks. Shavuot is the Jewish holiday to celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai (Ex. 19). On the Christian calendar, Shavuot links to Pentecost.
Why read Habakkuk in remembrance of the Sinai theophany? Habakkuk, in its own way, is a historic recount of the signs and wonders that accompanied the rescue of Israel “in the days of her youth” (Hos. 2:15). In the prophet’s prayer, he describes Yahweh as a cloud-riding, divine warrior king. He alludes repeatedly to the events of the Exodus, wilderness wanderings, and Sinai. Habakkuk was looking to a future day when God would intervene dramatically, saving the people of Judah again from exile and oppression. I believe the oracle’s incorporation into corporate liturgy is a fulfillment of the prophet’s intent.
Two headings
Habakkuk 3 is a different genre than the book’s first two chapters. For this reason, biblical scholars have theorized it was a later editorial addition to Habakkuk. The late-day theory for Habakkuk 3 gained traction with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Included in the 2,000-year-old collection is a sectarian commentary on Habakkuk, the Pesher Habakkuk. Interestingly, Pesher Habakkuk only includes the first two chapters of the book. Possibly, the Essenes only cared to apply their sectarian interpretations to the first two historic chapters, and not the hymn portion.
Archaeologists have since found scroll fragments of Habakkuk 3 in caves near Qumran that are nearly as old as the Pesher Habakkuk. Although the Essenes wrote the fragments in Greek, they match the Masoretic text in our Bibles today. As a result, scholars have not put the late-date theory to rest, but they have certainly demoted it.
Habakkuk attributes both parts of the book to his own hand by writing two separate superscriptions. The first chapter begins, “the oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw” (1:1). He introduces the third chapter with, “a prayer of the prophet Habakkuk” (3:1). The rare inclusion of two attributions on a short manuscript communicates his desire that the first and last parts of the book should be distinct and continuous. Although different in genre, they were continuous in theme.
Historical recount
Habakkuk lived during the interluding years between God’s great saving acts in the long story of the Jewish people. He knew, from the divine revelation given to him in his last passage, that God would destroy the Babylonians and rescue Judah. For the moment, God was demanding that the prophet and all the earth wait in silence (2:20).
As Habakkuk considered the coming hardships, he recounted the miracles God had performed on behalf of his people by delivering them out of Egypt and bringing them to the covenanted land. Reciting God’s history of provision was part of the process of offering thanksgiving and ultimately landing in a place of reassurance. The prophet beseeched, “O Lord, I have heard of your renown and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work” (3:1). The phrase “I have heard” occurs twice (3:2,16). In both cases, “hearing” accompanies the Hebrew root for trembling. The stories of God’s deeds had been told and retold for generations among the people of Israel, and yet Habakkuk still “stands in awe.”
Habakkuk envisioned the day when God would once again be on the march. God gave him a vision, a theophany similar to what we read in Nahum. However, Habakkuk intentionally included in his theophany an abundance of geographical and historical details that allude to Israel’s past. God, in blinding radiance, was marching up from Teman and Mount Paran. Teman was in the direction of Mount Sinai. You might remember from Amos and Obadiah that Teman was an Edomite city (Amos 1:12; Obad. 9). When Moses had pronounced blessings over the 12 tribes, he had described God as shining forth from Mount Paran (Deut. 33:2). Both in Deuteronomy and in Habakkuk, God advanced from the direction of Sinai, through the land of the Edomites in the east, and to Mount Paran in the wilderness. In the Song of Deborah, the prophetess also sang of Yahweh marching to Israel’s rescue through Edom (Judg. 5:4).
In effect, this was the same route the Israelites followed from Egypt to Canaan over four decades of wilderness wanderings. Habakkuk’s panoramic view of the Hebrew’s ancient history poetically connects God’s intervention in the past with his coming rescue project by painting a vision in which he took the same “ancient pathways” (3:6).
The stories of the Exodus celebrated God’s sovereignty over nature, and Habakkuk aimed to demonstrate that the natural world was still submitted to Yahweh’s authority. He wrote, “He stopped and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble. The eternal mountains were shattered” (3:6). The shaking of the earth and mountains pointed to the events at Sinai. God’s “wrath against the rivers” and “rage against the sea” (3:8) recalled the miraculous parting of the Red Sea.
Knowing destruction was imminent, Habakkuk’s only hope was that God would deliver the exiles from Babylon just as he had delivered his people centuries before, from Egypt. Habakkuk was echoing the miracles from their past as he envisioned a rescue in their future. When he described God appearing with an entourage of pestilence and plague (3:5), he was recalling his judgment of Egypt through the 10 plagues. When Habakkuk penned, “the sun raised high its hands; the moon stood still in its exalted place” (3:11), he was hinting at God’s miracle of holding the sun and moon in place when Joshua needed longer daylight to defeat the Amorites (Josh. 10:12-14).
Blending prophetic vision with historic recollections was Habakkuk’s way of petitioning God to revive his miraculous works as in the days of old (3:2). The prophet was looking for the saving works he had heard about but had yet to witness.
There is a noticeable difference between the doubting prophet who opens the book and the assured prophet who closes the book. There likely are a few reasons for his restored confidence. Habakkuk had been disturbed by God’s apparent inaction towards the injustice he observed around him. But he was determined to wait on God for an answer, and God rewarded his patience with revelation. God assured Habakkuk that, even though he was raising up the Chaldeans to punish Judah, he would eventually deliver a remnant (3:13). The revelation was perhaps not the answer Habakkuk had hoped for, but it contained the bigger plan and served as a reminder that the God of Judah was not bound by earthly timelines.
Additionally, Habakkuk had reached a place of contentment because he had done the work of remembrance. In Judaism, remembrance is an act of obedience. Habakkuk had wrestled with God— not literally like Jacob, but philosophically. He had questioned God’s methods for delivering justice. What better way to deal with the wrestling than to recount the many acts of God’s goodness? Habakkuk ends with the equivalent of a gratitude journal, his reflective tracing of the outline of God’s hand in the life of the Israelites.
God’s advance
In the prophet’s prayer, God commits himself to battle (3:8-15). The target of Yahweh’s anger was the “head of the wicked house” (3:13), but scholars’ debate whether the prophet had Babylon or Judah in focus when he envisioned a coming “day of calamity” (3:16). There are no earthly battle scenes, like in Nahum. Habakkuk’s language remains mythological and cosmic. As God advanced, all of nature would experience the ripple effects of divine involvement. Habakkuk described the powerful force of God’s mere glance: “he stopped and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble” (3:6).
While the first passages in Habakkuk are an intimate dialogue between the prophet and God, the book ends with a public profession through song. Habakkuk’s hymn of praise would fit as comfortably in the Psalms as it does in the prophets. Habakkuk was familiar with temple liturgy (2:14, 20), but his inclusion of a musical composition in his prophetic book has led some scholars to theorize that he was a Levite who served as a temple musician.
The complete text includes musical instructions to set the prayer to music and even to sing it at the temple with a “stringed instrument,” most likely a harp, just like a psalm. The very first musical directive is “On shigionoth” (3:1). This was a technical word only used twice in the Bible, once in Psalm 7 and here, in Habakkuk. As the word fell out of use, the meaning of the term “shigionoth” was lost. Therefore, most Bible translations choose to transliterate the Hebrew word instead of translating it.
By comparison, Selah is a musical directive that occurs 70 times in the Psalms and three times in Habakkuk (3:3,9,13). Although Hebrew scholars are uncertain of its exact translation, context clues reveal that Selah was a command to pause and reflect during a song or recitation.
The vision of Yahweh as a heavenly warrior left Habakkuk with quivering lips, a pounding heart, and rotting bones (3:16). The prophet described his revelation experience as both physical and spiritual. Was he in a state of fear because the full impact of the revelation was unsettling? Or was he in a state of rapture because he encountered the Almighty?
Once again, this unique book provides a glimpse into the inner life of the prophet: his questions, struggles, fears, and actual physical suffering. In other prophetic books the prophet was speaking on Yahweh’s behalf. In Habakkuk, the prophet spoke to Yahweh on behalf of the people.
By the book’s end, the doubts and questions of Habakkuk were rescinded, and his confidence in his creator was restored. He no longer speculated about the timeline for God’s full plan of restoration or the methods for his chastisement. He found hope in knowing that whatever followed, God would be present, and his presence was enough.
The liturgy ends with an invitation to join the prophet in praise:
Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer and makes me tread upon the heights (3:17-19).
In better times, worshipers in Judah had visited the temple and presented God with their first fruits—the best portion of their harvest—as an offering. Like most of the Jewish holidays, Shavuot’s origins connect to the harvest cycles in the land of Israel, but harvests were not available for festivals during Habakkuk’s time. Whether the food shortage was from famine or war, the prophet envisioned himself approaching God’s temple with empty hands. Yet, he offered thanks to God, anyway. He was not praising God for what he had provided but for being the ultimate provider. This prayer, traditionally incorporated into Shavuot liturgy, acknowledges God for who he is, and not what he gives.