Habakkuk 1:3

◄Must I/I do not want to► continue seeing people doing what is unjust [RHQ]. Why do you not punish people who are doing what is wrong [RHQ]? I see people destroying things and acting violently. There is fighting and quarreling everywhere.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

In Context

2I said, “Yahweh, how long must I continue to call to you for help before you respond? I cry out to you for help, saying that people are acting violently everywhere, but you do not rescue us!

4No one obeys laws [PRS], and judges [PRS] never do what is fair/just. Wicked people always defeat righteous people in the courts, with the result that matters are never decided fairly/justly.”

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Cross References

Psalms 55:9Lord, confuse my enemies, and cause their plans to fail, because I see them acting violently and causing strife in the city of Jerusalem.

Psalms 73:3because I envied those who proudly said that they did not need God, and I saw that they prospered even though they were wicked.

Ecclesiastes 4:1I thought some more about all the suffering that people are caused to experience on the earth [MTY]. I saw the tears of people who were ◄oppressed/treated cruelly► and who had no one to comfort/encourage them. Those who oppressed them had power, and there was absolutely no one who was able to comfort those who were being oppressed.

Isaiah 5:7The nation of Israel is like [MET] the vineyard of the Commander of the armies of angels. The people of Judah are like the garden that was pleasing to him. He expected you to be doing what is just/fair, but instead, what he saw was people murdering [MTY] others. He expected that you would be doing righteous deeds, but instead, he heard cries from people who were being attacked violently.

Jeremiah 9:2I wish that I could leave my people and forget them, and go and live in a shack/shelter in the desert, because they have not remained faithful [MET] to Yahweh; they are a mob of people who deceive others.

Ezekiel 2:6And you human, you must not be afraid of them or afraid of what they say. Living among them will be like living in the midst of briers or scorpions, but do not be afraid of them. They are rebellious people [MTY], but do not allow them to cause you to become afraid.

Matthew Henry on Habakkuk 1:2-5

Habakkuk It is a very foolish fancy of some of the Jewish rabbin that this prophet was the son of the Shunamite woman that was at first miraculously given, and afterwards raised to life, by Elisha ( 2 Kings iv. ), as they say also that the prophet Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath, which Elijah raised to life. It is a more probable conjecture of their modern chronologers that he lived and prophesied in the reign of king Manasseh, when wickedness abounded, and destruction was hastening on, destruction by… Read the whole commentary →

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