In Hebrew the verse as a whole is a statement followed by two questions. Revised Standard Version follows this order, but Good News Translation changes it so as to put the statement between the two questions. This avoids long relative clauses which would be awkward in many languages.
The first half of the verse makes a statement in two parallel clauses, Thou … art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on wrong. Thou … art of purer eyes is a figure of speech called a metonym, in which the eyes stand for the whole person in the act of looking. Habakkuk says that the LORD’s character is so pure that he cannot bear to behold evil. The prophet then repeats essentially the same idea in nonfigurative language in the second line, and canst not look on wrong. Good News Translation retains the parallelism but expands the second part to make the implied subject clear: “Your eyes are too holy to look at evil, and you cannot stand the sight of people doing wrong.” Although the Hebrew word for purer is not the same root as the word for “holy” in the previous verse, this is a development of the same idea and forms the background to the questions which follow. Note that these questions are not really rhetorical questions, since Habakkuk is looking for an answer to them in 2.1-4. Therefore they should be translated as questions and not turned into statements. Compare comments on verse 2. In some languages it may not be possible to talk about eyes being “pure” or “sinless.” In such cases translators may render this clause as “you are pure (or, sinless), and so you cannot look at evil….”
In why dost thou look on faithless men, the verb look, as in verse 3, implies “look on, without taking action.” Good News Translation makes this a little clearer by saying “How can you stand these treacherous, evil men?” One may expand this line by saying “How can you watch what these treacherous and evil men do without punishing them?” The word “treacherous” means “untrustworthy” or “that cannot be trusted.” In certain languages this meaning can be expressed idiomatically; for example, “men one cannot place one’s heart in.”
The last two lines make the same point in an expanded form and ask why God is silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he. Here the wicked refers of course to the Babylonians. In many languages it will be necessary to identify the wicked and say “So why are you silent while these wicked Babylonians destroy…?” The word swallows up is a metaphor which Good News Translation translates in nonfigurative language as “destroy.” In languages where the meaning of the metaphor will be clear, translators should keep it. The word righteous refers to nations other than the Babylonians, but especially to Judah. Habakkuk has already admitted that his own people have done wrong and need to be punished. When he calls them righteous here, he means “less wicked than their enemies,” not righteous in an absolute sense. In many languages the word used for “righteous” always has this absolute sense. In such cases it will be more appropriate to translate “… while the Babylonians destroy people who are less wicked than they are?” or “… destroy people who do less evil than they do?”
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 .