Old Testament
Habakkuk is a prophet's honest dialogue with God. He begins with a complaint — 'how long, O LORD?' — at the injustice around him, and is even more troubled when God answers that he will use the wicked Babylonians to judge Judah. Daring to question how a holy God can work this way, Habakkuk waits, and receives the great answer: the proud are not upright, 'but the righteous will live by his faith' — the verse Paul makes the cornerstone of justification by faith in Romans and Galatians, and that Hebrews uses to urge perseverance. The book ends not with resolved circumstances but with resolved faith: 'though the fig tree does not blossom... yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.' Habakkuk teaches God's people to bring honest questions to him and to live — and rejoice — by faith amid what they cannot explain.
Open Habakkuk in the Atlas →Work through Habakkuk in the Atlas — passage by passage. Read the text, test your understanding, discover its themes, and watch how it connects across Scripture.