Habakkuk chapter 3
Habakkuk’s hymn of victory.
HABAKKUK’S HYMN OF VICTORY
VERSE 1. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, set to victorious music.
set to victorious music. This prayer is a hymn of victory. It is not a dirge of defeat.
VERSE 2. LORD, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD. Renew your work in the middle of the years. In the middle of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember mercy.
I stand in awe of your deeds. In our day, many people believers are lacking in this.
They’ve listened to preaching about miracles. They’ve read biblical passages. But unlike Habakkuk, they have no personal experience of the power of God.
The Lord Jesus told the religious leaders they were in error because they did not know the Scriptures nor the POWER of God. Do you know the POWER of God? Read more »
VERSE 3. God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth.
VERSE 4. His splendor is like the sunrise. Rays shine from his hand, where his power is hidden.
His splendor is like the sunrise. The sunrise happens slowly. It begins to appear, but is dim. As the minutes go by, it becomes more visible and is more bright. Finally, it is fully visible and too bright to look at. Everything is is flooded with glorious light
For most of us, the LORD God appears dimly. And not too brightly. For a few of us, the light becomes more visible and is more bright. For only a very few, the LORD God is visible and too bright to look at. And everything is flooded with glorious light.
Thomas Merton saw this light. He was in Louisville, Kentucky. He was at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district.
He was overwhelmed with the realization that people:
were are all walking around shining like the sun.
Rays shine from his hand. Some mystics have been given a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, where rays of light are shining from his hands.
VERSE 5. Plague went before him, and pestilence followed his feet.
VERSE 6. He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal.
VERSE 7. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midian trembled.
VERSE 8. Was the LORD displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of salvation?
VERSE 9. You uncovered your bow. You called for your sworn arrows. Selah. You split the earth with rivers.
VERSE 10. The mountains saw you, and were afraid. The storm of waters passed by. The deep roared and lifted up its hands on high.
VERSE 11. The sun and moon stood still in the sky at the light of your arrows as they went, at the shining of your glittering spear.
VERSE 12. You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger.
VERSE 13. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot. Selah.
VERSE 14. You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret.
to scatter me. Habakkuk identifies with the Jewish people the Babylonians sought to scatter.
VERSE 15. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning mighty waters.
VERSE 16. I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.
VERSE 17. For even though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food, the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,
NIV translation. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Book of Habakkuk and from the entire Bible.
Jeremiah 8:13. “ ‘I will utterly consume them, says the LORD. No grapes will be on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will fade. The things that I have given them will pass away from them.’ ”
VERSE 18. yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
NIV translation. yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Book of Habakkuk and from the entire Bible.
yet I will rejoice in the LORD. Even when things aren’t going well, our main “task” is to rejoice in the LORD. We are to be a people who rejoice.
I will be joyful in God my Savior. Many people think of joy as a feeling. However, biblically, joy is not a feeling. Joy something we do. We sing. We dance. We make merry.
Some Christians have a sad face and a somber demeanor. We wish they could know the joy of their Lord. Holiness is marked by joy. Joy equals strength! Read more »
VERSE 19. The LORD, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places.
NASB translation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Book of Habakkuk and from the entire Bible.
the Lord. The Hebrew word translated “Lord” (mixed case) is “Adonai.”
enables me to go in high places. Many of us live our lives in low places, such as the valley of despair.
However, we are not called to live in the valley of despair. We are meant to walk in high places. That is our destiny.
Dr. Martin Luther King lived there. He had been to the mountaintop. It was from the mountaintop that he had “seen the promised land.”
For the music director, on my stringed instruments.
Habakkuk was almost certainly a priest who specialized in music ministry.
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(Zephaniah chapter 1)
HABAKKUK
RESOURCES: Summary, Outline, Memorize
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.