I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.And the LORD answered me:
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.“Moreover, wine is a traitor,
an arrogant man who is never at rest.
His greed is as wide as Sheol;
like death he has never enough.
He gathers for himself all nations
and collects as his own all peoples.” (Habakkuk 2:1-5)
From Complaint to Watchfulness
As we’ve seen, the prophet Habakkuk is living in trying times and comes to God with difficult questions. He sees wickedness in Judah, especially injustice and violence, and cries out, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help?” (Habakkuk 1:2). He cannot understand why God allows such corruption to continue without intervention. He even says God seems to “idly look at wrong,” as if doing nothing while the righteous suffer (Habakkuk 1:3).
But the Lord answers, “I am doing something. I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,” or Babylonians (Habakkuk 1:5–6). God reveals that he is empowering this brutal empire to overtake Judah as an instrument of judgment.
Naturally, this raises difficult questions. How can a good and righteous God allow a cruel, idolatrous nation more violent than Judah to swallow up those more righteous than they? It’s the classic struggle with the problem of evil: If God is just and all-powerful, how can he let evil persist?
Habakkuk doesn’t yet receive a full answer, but his tone begins to change. He reminds himself of God’s character:
Are you not from everlasting,
O LORD my God, my Holy One? …
O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. (Habakkuk 1:12)
The prophet moves from despair to confusion. He asks,
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he? (Habakkuk 1:13)
In this, he acknowledges that God must have a wise purpose, even if he cannot see it. As we reach chapter 2, his posture has shifted. He is no longer accusing or complaining. He stops, and he waits.
Waiting on the Lord
I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint. (Habakkuk 2:1)
In ancient cities protected by massive walls, watchmen stood on top of those walls to look for approaching enemies. Their task was to stay alert and warn the people below when danger appeared. Habakkuk adopts this image for himself. He stations himself on the wall, not to spot enemies but to wait for God’s answer.
The verbs “stand” and “station” convey determination. Habakkuk will not leave his post until the Lord speaks. He is actively waiting on God.
He says he will “look out to see what he will say” (2:1). It’s an intriguing expression—waiting to see what the Lord will say. Whether it’s simply a metaphor or an expectation of a visible revelation, the Lord does indeed give him a vision. “And the LORD answered me: ‘Write the vision’” (2:2).
We don’t know exactly what Habakkuk saw. “Vision” may simply refer to the revelation itself. Either way, Habakkuk is watching and waiting. He will not move until he hears from the Lord.
He also says he will watch to see “what I will answer concerning my complaint” (2:1). What does he mean by that? If he’s waiting for God’s answer, why anticipate answering his own complaint?
Some translations render this phrase as “what I will answer when I am corrected.” That seems to capture the sense. The prophet expects the Lord to correct him. His heart has softened. His understanding is growing. He essentially admits, “The Lord will likely straighten out my thinking, and I’m ready for that.”
This is a turning point in the book. Habakkuk is no longer demanding that the Lord act. He is no longer insisting on an answer. He humbly positions himself to listen and learn.
This shift is instructive. His initial prayers in chapter 1 are not prescriptive; they reflect how we feel at times, but not how we ought to approach our Father. Here, however, we see a faithful posture when we are troubled by what God is doing or not doing. The right response is not an accusation or a complaint. It is to climb the watchtower and wait on the Lord.
That is not our natural instinct. Even if we don’t complain, we often panic. We rush to create our own solutions. But faith teaches us to stop, stand still, and trust the Lord’s timing. The problem is never that God fails to answer our prayers; the problem is that we demand the answer too quickly. We want fast solutions, but often God says, “Wait.”
And this waiting is not passive resignation. Habakkuk is active. He climbs the wall. He stands ready. He stays alert, expecting God to speak.
Isaiah writes,
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30–31)
We don’t stop obeying or stop moving forward as we wait for God’s answer, but we also don’t frantically attempt to fix everything on our own or accuse God of inaction.
We humbly wait. We listen. We learn.
A Vision to Be Written Clearly
We don’t know Habakkuk’s timeline. We don’t know how long he waited for God’s answer, but we see the beginning of it in verse 2:
And the LORD answered me:
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:2–3)
The first thing God tells Habakkuk is to write down the revelation he’s about to receive. “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets.” The message is to be recorded clearly and permanently. In that time, messages were inscribed on stone, clay, or wood—durable surfaces intended to last and to be carried to others. This is not a private answer for Habakkuk alone. It is meant for Judah, for future generations, and for us.
The Lord says it should be written plainly “so he may run who reads it” (2:2). This could mean the message should be large and clear enough to read easily, simple enough that anyone could understand it, or straightforward enough that a messenger could read it quickly as he runs to deliver it. The emphasis is on clarity. It echoes what God once told Isaiah: “Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters” (Isaiah 8:1). Paul later echoes the same principle: “If with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said?” (1 Corinthians 14:9).
Years ago, I was invited to preach at a small church conference in the mountains of Virginia. Most of the pastors there preached in a sing-song style—extemporaneous, unstructured, and difficult to follow. Their rhythm rose and fell like an auctioneer. When the conference came around the next year, I received a call, not inviting me back, but telling me I wasn’t welcome. According to them, I was “too educated.” That was the first and only time I’ve ever been accused of that. But what they meant was that I was too articulate. Clear, intelligible speech didn’t seem like “real preaching” to them. Yet according to Scripture, if the message can’t be understood, “you will be speaking into the air” (1 Corinthians 14:9).
The Lord wants Habakkuk to make this revelation unmistakably clear.
In verse 3, the vision is summarized. It is a promise that God will act, but the promise will unfold on God’s timeline. “The vision awaits its appointed time … If it seems slow, wait for it” (2:3). The promise has two parts: God will judge the wicked—specifically Babylon—and he will preserve the righteous. That promise is expanded in the passage, but the point here is that Judah must wait patiently. God has appointed a time, and it will likely take longer than anyone wants.
The Lord has already addressed Judah’s wickedness by raising up the Chaldeans (1:6). But Habakkuk now wants to know what God will do about Babylon’s wickedness. And God essentially says, “I will deal with them too, but not yet.” Babylon’s downfall would not happen overnight. It would be seventy years before their judgment came. Even so, “it will surely come; it will not delay” (2:3). The parallelism reinforces the certainty. It may feel slow, but it will happen at precisely the right time.
“It hastens to the end—it will not lie” (2:3). God’s plan always moves toward its appointed conclusion. It cannot deviate or stall. Even when it feels as though nothing is happening, everything is moving exactly as God ordained. “It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18). His promises will unfold, not according to our desires or timelines, but according to his sovereign will.
But the waiting can be the hardest part. Doubts arise. Impatience grows. According to 2 Peter 3, this is when scoffers find it easiest to sow unbelief. Concerning Christ’s return, they say, “Where is the promise of his coming? … all things are continuing as they were” (2 Peter 3:4). Do you see any signs? Any evidence? Nothing has changed. Do you really believe he’s coming back?
Peter responds,
Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you… (2 Peter 3:8–9)
If God seems slow, remember two things. First, time means nothing to him. What feels like ages to us is a moment to our Maker. Second, God’s delays always have wise and benevolent purposes. We may not know the reasons, but he has them. And we are called to trust him, just as Habakkuk was.
Pride or Faith
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4)
“Behold, Habakkuk. Behold, people of Judah,” the Lord says. “Listen carefully.” Here God presents a stark contrast. There are only two paths: a broad path of self-reliance and pride, and a narrow path of humble trust in God (Matthew 7:13–14). We cannot straddle the fence. As Joshua said, “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).
First, the Lord describes the person whose “soul is puffed up” (2:4). His ego, heart, and desires are swollen with pride. Nothing is level or straight within him. His posture is one of arrogant self-reliance, completely unlike the righteous person who trusts God.
Who is God describing? Judah? Babylon? The text doesn’t specify. While the description certainly fits Babylon, the book began because Habakkuk saw these very sins in Judah. In the end, verse 4 expresses universal principles that apply to all people.
We know this because Habakkuk 2:4 becomes one of the most influential Old Testament verses in the New Testament. The latter half—“the righteous shall live by faith”—is quoted three times in Romans 1, Galatians 3, and Hebrews 10. But more than the number of quotations, the weight of those passages shows how foundational this truth is.
In Romans 1, Paul writes,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel … For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16–17)
That statement is the thesis of Romans. Paul builds his entire letter, not to mention his entire doctrine of justification, on a truth drawn directly from Habakkuk 2:4.
And consider the impact. Martin Luther’s own conversion hinged on this verse. After years of striving to please God through works and penance, Luther found no peace. He said his soul felt “in prison.” But then he finally understood that the righteousness God requires is not something we earn. It is a gift received through faith in Jesus Christ alone. He later wrote, “When by the Spirit of God, I understood these words, ‘The just shall live by faith,’ then I felt born again like a new man.”
That discovery changed more than one man. It lit the spark of the Reformation. Luther’s recovery of this one truth, hidden in a small verse from a minor prophet, became a flame that swept across Europe and continues to free souls today.
There is something monumental tucked inside this short line from a minor prophet: two paths, two destinies, and only one leads to life.
Live by Faith
What exactly does it mean that “the righteous shall live by his faith”? (Habakkuk 2:4). This statement carries both an immediate meaning for Habakkuk’s day and a broader meaning that unfolds fully in the New Testament. We can understand it by considering it in three parts.
Who Are the Righteous?
In Habakkuk’s context, the righteous were those who had not embraced injustice, violence, or idolatry—the opposite of the man whose “soul is puffed up” (2:4). These were people who remained faithful to God’s commands and lived with integrity despite rampant corruption. The Old Testament often speaks of such righteousness in terms of moral conduct.
But when we take a step back, Scripture also teaches that, in an absolute sense, no one is righteous before God:
The LORD looks down…
They have all turned aside…
there is none who does good,
not even one. (Psalm 14:2–3)
And Isaiah writes,
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment… (Isaiah 64:6)
So while someone may be relatively righteous compared to others, no one is naturally righteous in the presence of a perfectly holy God. That is the tension in Habakkuk 2:4. If no one can earn righteousness, then who can truly be called righteous?
What Is the Outcome of the Righteous?
“The righteous shall live,” the Lord says (2:4). In the immediate sense, God promises to preserve the faithful remnant in Judah. Babylon will come. Cities will fall. Many will die. But the Lord will spare the lives of those who remain faithful to him.
Yet even if they survive Babylon, they will eventually face death nonetheless. Their greater problem is the judgment that awaits every sinner. So the promise must have a deeper meaning. There must be a way in which the righteous truly live beyond mere physical survival.
How Do the Righteous Live?
“The righteous shall live by his faith.” This is not faith in oneself or one’s works. That belongs to the man who is “puffed up.” Instead, this is faith that rests entirely in God. Like Habakkuk standing on the city walls, it leans its full weight on the character, promises, and sovereignty of the Lord.
Habakkuk declared that God is everlasting and holy, his Rock (1:12). Then he waited with steadfast determination for God to speak and act. That is the posture the Lord commends.
To live by faith is to tie one’s life—survival, salvation, hope—completely to God. It is the dividing line of humanity: those who rely on themselves perish; those who rely on God live.
So one must be righteous to live, and one becomes righteous only by faith. But in Habakkuk, we are seeing only the seed of a reality that will grow into something far greater.
The New Testament Unfolds the Meaning
In Romans 1, Paul says he is “not ashamed of the gospel” because it is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). He then explains why the gospel saves: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (1:17).
How does a sinner become right before God? Not through obedience, not through moral improvement, and certainly not through any supposed righteousness of our own. We need a righteousness better than ours—the perfect righteousness of the Son of God, who fulfilled the law and died for our sins. And how is this righteousness received?
“From faith for faith,” Paul says. It begins in faith, continues in faith, and is completed in faith. By quoting Habakkuk, Paul is essentially saying, This is not a new idea. This has always been God’s way. If you want life, it will be by faith.
In Galatians 3, Paul uses Habakkuk 2:4 to confront the idea that we begin by faith but finish by works. He writes, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Galatians 3:11). Then he adds, “‘The one who does them shall live by them’” (3:12). His point is clear: you can either live by the law and be judged by the law, or live by faith and be judged by the righteousness of Christ imputed to you.
These paths do not cross. The law says, “Do this perfectly, and you will live.” The gospel says, “Believe, and you will live.” So in both Romans and Galatians, Habakkuk 2:4 sits at the very center of justification, answering the question: How can a guilty sinner be declared righteous before a holy God? The answer is by faith alone in Christ alone. The righteous shall live by faith.
Hebrews 10 brings out yet another dimension. Writing to weary Christians tempted to abandon the faith, the author quotes Habakkuk again:
“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10:37–38)
These believers were in a situation much like Habakkuk’s, waiting on the Lord and finding the waiting difficult. The message to them is the same: “My righteous one shall live by faith.”
Hebrews shows that the verse is not only about justification by faith but also perseverance by faith. The righteous are declared righteous by faith, and they continue, endure, and finish by faith.
A Warning from Babylon
Now, as much as I would love to end with the beauty of verse 4, verse 5 immediately returns us to the other man—the arrogant, puffed-up man:
“Moreover, [the Lord says] wine is a traitor,
an arrogant man who is never at rest.
His greed is as wide as Sheol;
like death he has never enough.
He gathers for himself all nations
and collects as his own all peoples.” (Habakkuk 2:5)
At first, it may seem strange that God warns against wine here. What does drinking have to do with anything? But Scripture gives us a vivid, relevant example.
In Daniel 5, about seventy years after Judah fell to Babylon, we find Babylon at the height of its pride. “King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand” (Daniel 5:1). This reflects Babylon’s reputation for drunken revelry. It gets worse:
Belshazzar … commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar … had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought … They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver… (Daniel 5:2, 4)
If arrogance were ever illustrated, this is it—using cups stolen from the Lord’s own temple to get drunk and praise idols.
Then judgment falls swiftly:
Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall … And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way… (Daniel 5:5–6)
The following message was simple and devastating:
God has numbered the days of your kingdom…
you have been weighed… and found wanting…
your kingdom is divided… (Daniel 5:26–28)
And the chapter ends: “That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed” (Daniel 5:30).
“Wine is a traitor” (Habakkuk 2:5). It deceived him. It dulled his senses. It exposed his pride. It hastened his downfall.
But verse 5 is about far more than wine. It describes the general shape of a life apart from faith, whether Babylon’s, Judah’s, or our own.
The phrase “never at rest” is telling. That is the life of unbelief. It may look impressive or enjoyable from the outside, but inside, there is no peace or shalom. Like death, which never stops claiming victims, this man never reaches satisfaction. Sheol, or the grave, will take billions and still take more. The proud person may gather the world to himself, but he remains as empty and destitute as Belshazzar.
Pride, idolatry, greed, and self-indulgence are traitors. They promise life, but they deliver death.
So the contrast is clear. One life is swollen with self; the other is humbled before God, trusting in him alone. One will be swept away in judgment; the other will live because his faith is in the truly righteous One.
And that leaves us with a question we cannot avoid: Which one are we—the proud who will perish, or the righteous who turns from himself, casts himself upon Christ in faith, and will live forever?
