Habakkuk 2 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 2:4, 2:15
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Chapter 2
The watch, the faithful life and the five woes
Verse 2:1 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:1 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the rampart; I will watch to see what He will speak within me and what I shall answer concerning my complaint.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:1 I will stand at my watch and step onto a rock; I will look out to see what He will speak within me and what I shall answer concerning my reproof.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew rampart becomes Greek rock. The word within the prophet and preparation to answer correspond; complaint/reproof has more than one possible relation to the speaker.
Verse 2:2 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:2 YHWH answered me: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, so that the one reading it may run.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:2 The Lord answered me: “Write a vision clearly on a boxwood tablet, so that the one reading these things may pursue them.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek specifies boxwood and a singular tablet, and uses pursuit where Hebrew has running. The reader's precise activity remains open.
Verse 2:3 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:3 For the vision is still for an appointed time; it presses toward the end and will not lie. If it delays, wait for it, for it will surely come; it will not be late.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:3 For the vision is still for a season, and it will rise toward the end and not toward emptiness. If he delays, wait for him, for coming he will come and certainly will not linger.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek uses masculine pronouns for the awaited one, unlike its feminine “vision”; Hebrew can refer grammatically to the vision. Greek arising/non-emptiness differs from Hebrew's difficult yāpēaḥ/non-falsehood. Saints: Augustine, City of God XVIII.31, interprets 2:2–3 as announcing Christ’s advent [AUG-HAB]; this is attributed Christological reception.
Verse 2:4 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:4 Look, his soul is swollen, not upright within him; but the righteous one will live by his faithfulness.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:4 If he draws back, My soul takes no pleasure in him; but the righteous one will live by My faithfulness.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew contrasts the swollen human soul with the righteous person's faithfulness; Greek gives God's displeasure at withdrawal and “My faithfulness.” Rabbinic: Rashi on 2:4 applies the righteous one to Jeconiah and his eventual elevation [RASHI-HAB]. Saints: Hebrews 10:37–39 reuses these lines, but its “My” qualifies “righteous one”; that distinct quotation is not substituted for this Greek text [HEB10]. Pistis can express faith, trust or faithfulness; the possessive alone does not settle its semantic relation. Galatians 3:11 quotes the righteous-life clause without either possessive [GAL3].
Verse 2:5 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:5 Moreover, wine betrays the arrogant man, and he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol and is like death, never satisfied; he gathers all nations and collects all peoples to himself.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:5 But the wine-soaked, contemptuous, boastful man will accomplish nothing. He widened his appetite like Hades and is like death, never filled; he will gather all nations and receive all peoples to himself.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew's unstable dwelling differs from Greek's failure to accomplish anything. Both connect drunken arrogance with insatiable imperial appetite.
Verse 2:6 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:6 Will not all these take up a taunt against him, a mocking riddle about him, and say, “Woe to the one increasing what is not his—how long?—and loading himself with pledges!”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:6 Will not all these take up a parable against him and a riddle for his account, and say, “Woe to the one multiplying for himself what is not his—how long?—and heavily weighting his collar!”
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew's difficult ʿaḇṭîṭ, here pledges, becomes Greek a heavy collar. Both turn accumulated gain into a burden.
Verse 2:7 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:7 Will not your creditors suddenly rise and your tormentors awake? You will become plunder for them.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:7 For suddenly those biting him will rise, and those plotting against you will awake; you will become their plunder.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew nōšeḵeḵā admits the creditor/biter wordplay, here creditors; Greek explicitly has biters and shifts from “him” to “you.”
Verse 2:8 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:8 Because you plundered many nations, all the remaining peoples will plunder you, because of human bloodshed and violence against land, city and all its inhabitants.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:8 Because you despoiled many nations, all the remaining peoples will despoil you, because of human bloodshed and impiety against land, city and all its inhabitants.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: The same reciprocal plundering and victims correspond; Greek uses impiety for Hebrew violence.
Verse 2:9 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:9 Woe to the one gaining evil gain for his house, setting his nest on high to escape the hand of evil!
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:9 O you who acquire evil gain for your house, setting your nest on high to escape the hand of evils!
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Ill-gotten security and the elevated nest correspond.
Verse 2:10 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:10 You planned shame for your house by cutting off many peoples and sinning against your own life.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:10 You planned shame for your house, brought many peoples to an end, and your soul sinned.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both connect national destruction with shame and self-involving sin; Greek makes the soul sin rather than the object sinned against.
Verse 2:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:11 For a stone will cry from the wall, and a beam from the timber will answer it.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:11 For a stone will cry from a wall, and a beetle from wood will utter these things.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew kāfîs, a timber piece, becomes Greek kantharos, a beetle. The answering witness is materially different. Beetle is the retained lexical interpretation; no independent architectural identification of the Greek noun is claimed.
Verse 2:12 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:12 Woe to the one building a city with bloodshed and establishing a town with injustice!
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:12 Woe to the one building a city with bloodshed and preparing a city with injustices!
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both condemn urban power founded on bloodshed and injustice.
Verse 2:13 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:13 Look, is this not from YHWH of hosts: peoples labor only for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:13 Are these things not from the Lord Almighty? Many peoples failed in fire, and many nations lost heart.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew describes futile labor destined for fire; Greek narrates destruction in fire and loss of courage.
Verse 2:14 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:14 For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of YHWH, as waters cover the sea.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:14 For the earth will be filled with knowing the Lord's glory, as water will cover them.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew gives the sea as object of covering; Greek says “them,” leaving the referent to context. The worldwide knowledge promise agrees.
Verse 2:15 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:15 Woe to the one making his neighbor drink, adding your fury and making him drunk, to look upon their nakedness!
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:15 O you who make your neighbor drink with a turbid overthrow and intoxicate him, so that you may look upon their caves!
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew intoxication serves exposure of nakedness; Greek names caves and a difficult turbid-overthrow phrase. The intended object of voyeuristic looking changes; no euphemistic equivalence is assumed.
Verse 2:16 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:16 You are filled with shame instead of glory. Drink, you too, and expose your uncircumcision! The cup in YHWH's right hand will come round to you, and disgraceful vomit upon your glory.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:16 Drink, you too, a fullness of dishonor instead of glory; be tossed and shaken! The cup of the Lord's right hand has come around to you, and dishonor has gathered upon your glory.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew exposure of uncircumcision and disgrace/vomit become Greek tossing, shaking and gathered dishonor. The retaliatory cup remains.
Verse 2:17 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:17 For violence against Lebanon will cover you, and the destruction of animals will terrify them, because of human bloodshed and violence against land, city and all its inhabitants.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:17 For Lebanon's impiety will cover you, and the misery of wild animals will terrify you, because of human bloodshed and impiety against land, city and all its inhabitants.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew's difficult final plural in yeḥîṯan is retained as “them”; Greek expressly terrifies “you.” Violence/destruction becomes impiety/misery.
Verse 2:18 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:18 What use is a carved image, that its maker carved it, a cast image and teacher of lies, that its maker trusts his own creation, making speechless idols?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:18 What use is a carved image, that they carved it? They formed it as a cast object, a false appearance, because its maker trusted his creation, making mute idols.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew's teacher of lies becomes Greek false appearance. Both expose trust in a manufactured, voiceless object.
Verse 2:19 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:19 Woe to the one saying to wood, ‘Awake!’ and to silent stone, ‘Rise!’ Can it teach? Look, it is overlaid with gold and silver, but there is no breath at all within it.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:19 Woe to the one saying to wood, ‘Wake and rise!’ and to stone, ‘Be lifted up!’ It is an appearance, a plate of gold and silver, and no breath at all is in it.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek replaces the question about teaching with a declaration of appearance, and reallocates the waking/rising commands.
Verse 2:20 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
2:20 But YHWH is in His holy temple; be silent before Him, all the earth.”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
2:20 But the Lord is in His holy sanctuary; let all the earth revere Him.”
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew commands silence; Greek commands reverence. Divine presence and universal scope agree.