For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but it hasteth to the end, and shall not lie though it tarry, wait for it; for it will surely come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk had just asked God how long violence could go unanswered. Then he climbed his watchtower to see what God would say. The answer is not a date. It is a vision with a fixed hour attached to it. That raises two questions: why does God's word seem slow, and what should a believer do in the gap?
God set a limit on the delay. He had already fixed the hour, so the waiting is not a sign that God is late. One writer draws out how God answers the very distress that faith itself produces:
He will comfort the oppressed heart even before the deliverance comes. If faith produces these feelings, the answer to that faith will not be missing. Deliverance would not come yet. The vision was still for an appointed time, but deliverance on God's part would certainly come. God, who values faith, would Himself step in. If deliverance was slow, the faithful were to wait for it. It would surely come and would not be late. To the human heart it was slow. Patience was to have its perfect work. The patience of God had been long and perfect. The time of deliverance would not be one moment later than the hour God appointed in His wisdom.
The vision had a target in Habakkuk's own day, and that part of it happened long ago. Yet the verse says it "hastens to the end," and commentators take that end as something far beyond Babylon:
This verse also matters greatly. A prophecy may have a historical or partial fulfilment. But that fulfilment is never the last we hear of it. Only in the last days will the historical event find its full and settled meaning. We can only understand it when we keep our eye on the person of Christ and the glory that follows His suffering.
Hebrews 10:37 picks up this verse and changes its pronoun. What Habakkuk waits for turns out not to be an event only:
The letter to the Hebrews quotes part of this. "For yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay" (Heb. 10:37). From this quotation we learn that the vision which will surely come is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the centre of every vision, and without Him there is no vision.
A promise still unfulfilled can still feed the soul now. So the verse gives the waiting believer something to do, not just something to expect:
Verse 2 shows the power of the vision. Verse 3 shows that it is sure, whatever the delay may be. Verse 4 teaches us something more: faith matters above all, because faith makes the vision good for the soul before it comes. The result has not yet come. But that is no reason to miss the profit. Faith gathers it now, and faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
The instruction to wait assumes the wait will be hard. One writer puts it plainly:
There is such a thing as God's "set time," His "due season," and the faithful must be content to wait for it. The time may seem long, and waiting can make the heart sick. But the spiritual mind always finds relief in this: everything is for the final display of God's glory.
Habakkuk himself did this. He waited with his eyes open to what would come first:
He also knew that this deliverance could still be delayed. So his faith answered the word: "If it seems slow, wait for it." He waited, knowing that distress would come before the deliverance.
- Appointed. The hour is already fixed in God's wisdom, so the deliverance will not be one moment later than He set it.
- Certain. Verse 3 is about the sureness of the vision — delay changes nothing about whether it arrives.
- Personal. Hebrews turns Habakkuk's "it" into "He": the vision waited for is Christ Himself, the centre of every vision.
- Unexhausted. A historical fulfilment is never the last word. The full meaning waits for the last days.
- Waited for. Faith gathers the good of the promise now. It expects distress before deliverance, and holds on when the waiting makes the heart sick.
Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright within him but the just shall live by his faith.
Habakkuk asked God why He let a cruel empire crush his people, when that empire was no better than they were. He climbed his watchtower to wait, and God answered with two men — one puffed up with self, one alive by trust — in a line the New Testament quotes three times.
This was God's reply to a real crisis. One writer retells the prophet's problem and God's reply:
He was sent to announce that the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar would soon invade. A nation no better than his own would treat his countrymen with pointless cruelty. He turned to God about it, troubled that the Most High allowed such things. He stood on his watch and took his place on the tower. The answer he got was: "Behold, his soul" — that is, the oppressor's — "is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith." God did not approve of the oppressor's ways. The prophet was to trust the LORD to work deliverance in His own way.
Notice what the answer did and did not change:
He gets into the presence of God, and only watches for what He will say. He had nothing else at all. He says, "If you want to be justified it must be by faith." This did not change Habakkuk's circumstances, but his soul was taken up with God's secret, and so it stayed at rest.
The description fits the invader first. But it reaches much further than one army.
I think the proud soul refers mainly to the Chaldean. He was completely blind. But the same principle is just as true of the unrighteous Jew, or of any man who hardens himself against God's word… God's way never changes: "he who humbles himself will be exalted." And only faith humbles self. There are two forms of it: the happiest of all is to be humble; the next best thing is to be humbled.
There is a reason the proud man misses what God is doing.
Pride makes a man unfit to understand God's thoughts, which are only made known to those who believe. Only faith "is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." And so God adds: "but the righteous shall live by his faith."
So what holds the righteous up while the answer waits?
Faith watches things from its watchtower. It sees the obstacle destroyed and waits for the Lord of glory. Until that moment the righteous one is neither downcast nor without help. His faith sustains him, and that faith feeds his life.
God could have rescued His people in a way that asked nothing of them. He chose otherwise:
People might have preferred a deliverance that, so to speak, did not need this faith. But God would have the heart exercised in this way. The righteous must pass through it. He must learn to trust in the LORD, to count on Him in all circumstances, and to learn what He is in Himself, come what may.
One writer sets the law-giver and the prophets side by side:
Such is the testimony of Moses, the law-giver. But what do the prophets say? Their witness is equally plain, for Habakkuk states, "The righteous shall live by faith." Now it is evident that the law is not of faith, for it says, "The one who does them shall live by them."
Three New Testament books quote this line. Kelly finds a different word stressed in each place:
The emphasis here is not on "the righteous," which is strong in Romans, nor on "faith," which is strong in Galatians, but on "live," which is just as strong here. So every word seems to take the emphasis that fits its purpose in these three places. At the end of Hebrews 10 the apostle is guarding the believer from discouragement and turning aside… Whatever the form, there was living by faith in every case.
There is a warning in the line as well:
Paul sets the person who shrinks back against the person who lives by faith. The first will be lost and perishes; the other saves his life… He wanted to warn Israelites who had come to know and confess Christianity. Their Jewish pride, which promoted holiness by works, kept them from walking rightly.
- Question. Habakkuk asked why God allowed a cruel conqueror. The answer gave him rest, though it changed nothing around him.
- Contrast. Two souls stand side by side: one puffed up and not upright within, one righteous and living by faith. Pride is what blinds a man to God's thoughts.
- Waiting. God let the answer wait on purpose. He wanted hearts trained to count on Him, not a rescue that asked for no faith.
- Principle. Law says do and live; faith says believe and live. The two do not mix.
- Reach. Romans, Galatians and Hebrews all take up the line — justified by faith, not by law, never shrinking back.