NOTES for Hab 3:1-19
Before us is a solemn psalm filled with reverence before the Creator's majesty, permeated with the fear of God - the only fear that does not humiliate but frees and lifts a person up. The majestic picture of the Lord's procession over the nations allows us to recall motifs well known to us from other biblical books, preserved in prayers composed by many righteous people and psalmists. But now before us is another facet of knowing God, and it is grasped no longer by former knowledge, but by living faith that drew from the prophet's heart a confession of faithfulness.
We see a new quality of faithfulness to the Creator, inseparably connected with the revelation about faith. Habakkuk's faith does not depend at all on whether he receives anything from the Lord. Habakkuk is ready to turn to Him not in order to ask anything of Him, not to solve some practical tasks. No, he is ready to follow Him completely without self-interest: he is certain that God's truth is itself more valuable than earthly goods and life's prosperity. Everything else necessary for people the Lord will give them - it will, as will be said later, be added. But He wants to give a person much more than that person can imagine on the basis of earthly experience.