This article is about the prophet. You may be looking for the book.
Habakkuk was a contemporary of the prophets Nahum and Jeremiah who lived in Judah and He preached during the last days before its fall in 586 BC. His name means "to embrace" or, in a sense, to "wrestle." Nothing more is known of him. His message is preserved in the Book of Habakkuk, named for and written by him.
Biography[]
Habakkuk was shown the doom that awaited Jerusalem and was troubled concerning both the injustice he saw in Judah[1] (the nation that had remained faithful to God) and the revealed plan to use a sinful nation like Babylon to punish Judah for its sins. When God answered Habakkuk, gave him far more than what he had asked - a vision of God Himself[2].
Habakkuk was comforted in the vision that the evil Babylonian Empire would fall, even as its predecessor Assyria (which destroyed Israel and severely threatened Jerusalem itself) had fallen to the Babylonians. His prayer, a psalm written to be sung in the temple[3], reveals a man transformed by faith in the One True God.
Legacy[]
Though a minor voice among contemporaries, the message in his book reached out through history to declare the very nature of God's people. The apostle Paul would reference his work in major letters to first Asia (the book of Galatians)[4] and then to Europe (the book of Romans)[5]. This message is: Those who are to be considered good, are first made that way through trusting in God[6].