The prophet begins his complaint by stating his convictions both about God and about the situation around him. The first part of the verse takes the form of a negative question, Art thou not from everlasting…? but this is really an indirect way of making a strong positive statement. See verse 2 on “rhetorical questions.” Good News Translation expresses this as a statement: “LORD, from the very beginning you are God” (compare New Jerusalem Bible). In languages where rhetorical questions may be confusing, translators should follow this example.
From everlasting: translators in many languages who follow Good News Translation makes this a separate sentence: “You are my God, holy and eternal.” The words my God do not imply that Habakkuk owns God, but rather that he worships God. The adjective Holy stresses the essential being of God. It is the quality of sinlessness which separates him from sinful humanity and from other gods. The word “LORD” is placed at the beginning of the verse in Good News Translation. In calling God Holy here, Habakkuk is laying the foundation for his question in verse 13.
The Masoretic Hebrew text next has two words which Revised Standard Version translates as We shall not die. The second of these words is one of eighteen instances in the Old Testament which an ancient scribal tradition lists as places where the text had been deliberately altered by the scribes. The purpose of these alterations was to avoid any appearance of disrespect to God. In this case the original wording (only one letter different in Hebrew) is recorded as meaning “you do not die.” The very idea that God could die was held to be disrespectful, and hence the change was made to We shall not die.
In this case it is very difficult to judge which possibility is more likely to be what Habakkuk originally wrote. Both make sense in the context. We shall not die in this setting expresses the prophet’s belief that, although the LORD would punish his people, he would not let them be completely destroyed. This meaning is given in the Septuagint and Vulgate among ancient versions, in the English King James Version, Revised Version, Revised Standard Version, and New International Version, in the French Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, and in the German Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. It is also recommended in the preliminary report of Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (1980).
The alternative “you do not die” (or some equivalent such as “immortal” or “eternal”) is found in Moffatt, Bible de Jérusalem, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, New English Bible, Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, and Bible en français courant. It matches from everlasting and gives a good balance to the first half of the verse. It avoids the abruptness found in Revised Standard Version and those translations which agree with it, and gives a smoother flow to the entire verse. On the whole, we recommend translators to accept this possibility. So the clause “You are my God, holy and eternal” may be translated “I worship you, O God. You are completely pure and do not die.”
The second half of the verse consists of two parallel statements about the place of the Babylonians in the purposes of God as a means of punishing the wicked among God’s own people. In Revised Standard Version these statements are thou hast ordained them as a judgment and thou … hast established them for chastisement. Each statement is accompanied by an address to God, O LORD in the first case and O Rock in the second. It is quite common in the Old Testament to refer to God as a rock (compare Deut 32.4, 15, 18, 30, 31; 1 Sam 2.2; 2 Sam 22.32; 23.3; Psa 18.2, 31, 46; 19.14). The meaning is that he is a source of protection, and thus Good News Translation translates as “protector.” As a judgment means “so that they will judge us,” and for chastisement means “so that they will punish us.”
Good News Translation has combined into one the two parallel statements in the second half of the verse: “you have chosen the Babylonians and made them strong so that they can punish us.” In languages where parallel statements are natural, the translator may wish to maintain the parallel statements and translate in a way similar to the following:
• O LORD, you have chosen the Babylonians to condemn (or, judge) us;
and you, who are like a rock which protects us, have made the Babylonians strong so that they can punish us.
Good News Translation has also taken the two vocatives and placed them together at the beginning of the sentence: “LORD, my God and protector.” It is not clear why Good News Translation repeats “my God” from the first half of the verse. In certain languages it will be necessary to put the words “you are” between LORD and my God and say, “LORD, you are my God and my protector.” Another way of expressing this is “LORD, you are the God I worship, and you protect me.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on the Book of Habakkuk. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .