Commentary On The Prophecy of Habakkuk
Habakkuk prophesied at a time when the Babylonians were on the rise in the late 7th century BC, after the collapse of the Assyrian Empire, and the prophet is informed that they were being used as a means of God's judgment against Judah and Jerusalem. Nevertheless his vision was not blinkered and he was well aware of their dark side. Indeed He could not understand how God could use such an evil nation in His purposes. But his even greater problem was as to how can God be good and yet allow evil to continue?
His reply is twofold. Firstly that ‘the righteous man shall live by his faith.' His confidence and trust in God will give him life, so that he will trust God even in the dark. And secondly that although He will use Babylon in the normal course of history to chasten His people, He will finally judge them, and that, partly through this, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of YHWH, and will come to know that He is in His holy temple, with the result that they will worship before Him.
His name has been connected with the root ‘to embrace' and also with the Akkadian hambaququ referring to a plant, but nothing else is genuinely known about him.