Habakkuk Chapter 2 Summary

Habakkuk wrote this book in the middle of one of the darkest periods of Israel’s history. According to Habakkuk 1:3-4, the way of the people lives were really messed up and wronged, where all the things that Habakkuk can see are injustice, violence, and conflict. Furthermore, all these conditions affect every parts of life and it causes the law losing its strength and justice is perverted. According to the passage’s flow, this book can be divided into two parts (1:1-2:20; 3:1-19) where each part, contains a different settings and Habakkuk’s conditions in dealing with the moral dilemma that he had about God’s holiness and God’s sovereignty over injustice. If we looked closely, the particular passages that I picked (Habakkuk 2:1-8), played such

an important role in understanding the meaning of the whole book. Before this verses, we see how Habakkuk dealt with all the wicked things that happening around him.

Mostly, chapter 1 of this book covers Habakkuk’s complaints to God. In this chapter, he also brings up the first’ Lord answer to his first’ complaint that because of the people have sinned, God is going to use the Chaldeans people to judge and punish them (1:6-9). Habakkuk’s complaint continues to the next part of chapter 1, where his object of complaint started to shift, where at the beginning, Habakkuk bothered by the injustice and wicked things that happened, to questioning the fact that how a holy God can use the more wicked nations to discipline His people? At this moment, Habakkuk was not sure about God’s true character by asking: “Are your eyes too pure to look on evil, but why it seems like you are silent and tolerate the treacherous (1:13)?” However, Habakkuk’s doubts to God’s holiness got answered in the chapter 2 of this

book.
After I had discussing about the context in the previous chapter before the particular verses that I picked (Habakkuk 2:1-8), now I will switch the focus by looking at the settings/context that used by Habakkuk in writing the rest of this book (2:9-3:19) which followed after my text.

I noticed that at this moment, Habakkuk had a new perspective to all His complaints and questions to God. In chapter 2:9-20, Habakkuk record the Lord’s second answer to his second’s complaint where God was clearly answering Habakkuk’s question through significant and unfathomable revelations about His position regarding injustice and His righteousness without holding it back anything. In this chapter, Habakkuk used the phrase “woe” for multiple times (2:6, 9, 12, 15, 19) that indicates that God was really serious and will not decreasing the standard when it comes to the matter of His holiness. In all His ways, God will always do justice by punishing the wicked and bring deliverance to the righteous (2:6-19). The last chapter of this book ended with an eye-opening revelation where Habakkuk realized how great and sovereign God is (3:2-16) and all Habakkuk can do is to worship God with a grateful heart and amazement of who God really is (3:18-19). I believe the significance things that will happen if the text that I chose was missing is: 1). We will never know God’s answers to Habakkuk’s second complaint that focused on the unchangeable characters and position of God when it comes to His

holiness, righteousness, and dealing with injustice and 2). We will never know this fascinating revelation that laid in Habakkuk 2:4 that said: “the righteous will live by his faith.” I believe this truth really matters because it helps the reader of this book understanding the connections between Habakkuk’s complaints and God’s answers that become the main features of this book. In conclusion, the text that I chose is really important in looking the relations of each chapter in the book.