Habakkuk’s Prayer Request (Habakkuk 3:1,2)

Chapter 3 of Habakkuk is called by Habakkuk a “prayer.” It is in the form of a Psalm, even giving some notation on instrumentation to play (“On shigionoth”) while reciting or singing the prayer. He repeats again that he is a prophet, signifying that this prayer has relevance to the prophecy or oracle (burden) Yahweh gave him concerning his doubts about God’s justice.

^3:1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth.

² Yahweh, I have heard of your fame;
    I stand in awe of your deeds, Yahweh.
Repeat them in our day,
    in our time make them known;
    in wrath remember mercy.

Habakkuk has heard the report of the wonderful things Yahweh has done for His people Israel, reflecting, as we will see, particularly on the deliverance of Israel from bondage to Egypt. So he asks to be able to see those saving works once again while Yahweh expresses His wrath against Judah through the military juggernaut Babylon. He asks Yahweh to be merciful in the midst of pouring out His wrath.

This is the only prayer request made in the “prayer” of Habakkuk. What follows is, much like Psalm 77, Habakkuk’s remembering “the deeds of Yahweh” (77:11), which psalm also recounts the Exodus from Egypt through Yahweh’s hand of deliverance.

This is Habakkuk’s resignation to the reality that God is going to use the Babylonians to discipline Judah (the southern kingdom), much as He used the Assyrians to discipline Israel (the northern kingdom) some 120 years earlier. He knows it must be done, but he longs for mercy from Yahweh in the doing of it. Habakkuk is trusting in the Lord, Yahweh Elohim.

Yahweh has already expressed mercy, saying that the righteous person will live by his trust in Yahweh’s  faithfulness, the just will live by faith, that God will be discriminating in His outpouring of wrath. There will be some protection of the saints. But could there be even more mercy?

May we see the same thing when God’s wrath is directed toward our own nation.