Discovery BoxHabakkuk 1:4 
Context1:4 For this reason the law lacks power, 1
and justice is never carried out. 2
Indeed, 3 the wicked intimidate 4 the innocent. 5
For this reason justice is perverted. 6
Habakkuk 3:4
Context3:4 He is as bright as lightning; 7
a two-pronged lightning bolt flashes from his hand. 8
This is the outward display of his power. 9
1 tn Heb “the law is numb,” i.e., like a hand that has “fallen asleep” (see Ps 77:2). Cf. NAB “is benumbed”; NIV “is paralyzed.”
2 tn Heb “never goes out.”
3 tn Or “for.”
4 tn Heb “surround” (so NASB, NRSV).
5 tn Or “righteous” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
6 tn Heb “comes out crooked.”
7 tn Heb “[His] radiance is like light.” Some see a reference to sunlight, but the Hebrew word אוֹר (’or) here refers to lightning, as the context indicates (see vv. 4b, 9, 11). The word also refers to lightning in Job 36:32 and 37:3, 11, 15.
8 tn Heb “two horns from his hand to him.” Sharp, pointed lightning bolts have a “horn-like” appearance. The weapon of “double lightning” appears often in Mesopotamian representations of gods. See Elizabeth Van Buren, Symbols of the Gods in Mesopotamian Art (AnOr), 70-73.
9 tn Heb “and there [is] the covering of his strength”; or “and there is his strong covering.” The meaning of this line is unclear. The point may be that the lightning bolts are merely a covering, or outward display, of God’s raw power. In Job 36:32 one reads that God “covers his hands with light [or, “lightning”].”
