Habakkuk 1:4

No 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.”

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

In Context

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.

5Yahweh replied to me, “ I know that what you say is true, but look around at what is happening in the other nations; if you look, you will be amazed, because I am doing something during this time that you would not believe would happen, even if someone told you about it.

Read all of Habakkuk 1

Cross References

Exodus 23:2Do not join a group of people who are planning to do something evil. Do not testify the way the crowd wants you to, if that will prevent the judge from deciding the case justly/fairly.

Deuteronomy 16:19They must not judge unjustly. They must not favor one person more than another. The judges must not accept bribes, because if a judge accepts a bribe, even if he is wise and honest, it will be very difficult for him to judge fairly [IDM]; he will do what the person who gave him the bribe wants him to do and declare that the righteous/innocent people must be punished.

Job 21:7“ But let me ask this: ‘Why do wicked people continue to live, and become prosperous, and not die until they are very old?’

Psalms 22:16My enemies [MET] surround me like a pack/group of wild dogs. A group of evil men has encircled me, ready to attack me. They have already smashed my hands and my feet.

Psalms 59:2Rescue me from men who want to do what is wicked, men who are murderers!

Psalms 82:1God gathers all the rulers and judges who think they are gods for a meeting in heaven; and he tells them that he has decided this:

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 →

This Verse In Other Editions

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