Habakkuk 3:5-7

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Habakkuk 3:5 tn Or “goes.” The imperfect form of a dynamic verbal root may be either present or future. Here it is translated in parallel to the future tense in v. 4.
2. Habakkuk 3:5 tn Because of parallelism with the previous line, the meaning “pestilence” is favored for רֶשֶׁף (reshef) here, but usage elsewhere suggests a destructive bolt of fire may be in view. See BDB 958 s.v. sn There are mythological echoes here, for in Canaanite literature the god Resheph aids Baal in his battles. See J. Day, “New Light on the Mythological Background of the Allusion to Resheph in Habakkuk III 5, ” VT 29 (1979): 353-55.
3. Habakkuk 3:5 tn Or “marches.” See note 1.
4. Habakkuk 3:5 tn Heb “will go out at his feet.”
5. Habakkuk 3:6 tn Heb “he stood” or “took a stand.” The verb forms change to perfects and preterites in this verse, signaling past time and therefore a shift in perspective. The section starting here, the memory of the past, functions to certify the character of the future.
6. Habakkuk 3:6 tn This verb has been traditionally understood as “measure” (from מָדַד, madad), but the immediately following context (vv. 6b-7) favors the meaning “shake” from מוּד (mud; see HALOT 555 s.v.).
7. Habakkuk 3:6 tn Heb “he looked and made [the] nations jump back [in fear].”
8. Habakkuk 3:6 tn Or “crumbled,” “broke into pieces.”
9. Habakkuk 3:6 tn Heb “ancient ways [or, “doings”] are his.” The meaning of this line is unclear. Traditionally it has been translated, “his ways are eternal.” However, in this context (see vv. 3, 7) it is more likely that the line speaks of the Lord taking the same route as in the days of Moses and Deborah (see Deut 33:2; Judg 5:4). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 154.
10. Habakkuk 3:7 tn Heb “under trouble I saw the tents of Cushan.”sn Cushan was located in southern Transjordan.
11. Habakkuk 3:7 tn The prefixed verb form is understood as past habitual just as the imperfect functions in background clauses in narrative.
12. Habakkuk 3:7 tn R. D. Patterson takes תַּחַת אֲוֶן (takhat ʾaven) in the first line as a place name, “Tahath-Aven.” (Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah [WEC], 237.) In this case one may translate the verse as a tricolon: “I look at Tahath-Aven. The tents of Cushan are shaking, the tent curtains of the land of Midian.”