Habakkuk 3 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 3:2, 3:4, 3:5, 3:9, 3:10, 3:13, 3:14, 3:16, 3:19
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 3
A prayer amid the divine appearing
Verse 3:1 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, with a song.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek offers a general song designation; the Hebrew technical heading Shigionoth is left untranslated.
Verse 3:2 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:2 YHWH, I have heard the report of You; I fear. YHWH, revive Your work in the midst of the years; in the midst of the years make it known. In wrath remember mercy.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:2 Lord, I have heard Your report and was afraid; I considered Your works and was astonished. In the midst of two living creatures You will be known; when the years draw near You will be recognized; when the season arrives You will be revealed. When my soul is troubled, in wrath You will remember mercy.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Greek expands the verse and substitutes two living creatures and promised revelation for Hebrew's plea to revive the work within years. Saints: Augustine, City of God 18.32, offers several Christian typologies for the two creatures, including the two Testaments, the two thieves, and Moses with Elijah; these are alternatives, not a single required identification [AUG-HAB].
Verse 3:3 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:3 God comes from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His splendor covers the heavens, and His praise fills the earth.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:3 God will come from Teman, the Holy One from a mountain shaded and thickly wooded. Diapsalma. His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew names Paran; Greek describes a shaded wooded mountain. Both retain Teman, divine holiness and worldwide praise.
Verse 3:4 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:4 His radiance is like light; rays extend from His hand, and there His strength is hidden.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:4 His brightness will be like light; horns are in His hands, and He established mighty love of His strength.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew rays/horns from a hand and hidden power become Greek horns in hands and strong love. The final portrayal of divine strength differs substantially. Saints: Augustine, City of God XVIII.32, interprets the horns in the hands as the cross [AUG-HAB].
Verse 3:5 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:5 Before Him goes pestilence, and plague follows at His feet.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:5 A word will go before Him, and He will go out, His feet in sandals.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew pestilence and plague attendants become Greek a preceding word and sandal-clad feet. The manifestation's imagery is fundamentally changed.
Verse 3:6 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:6 He stands and measures the earth; He looks and shakes nations loose. Ancient mountains shatter, everlasting hills sink down; His ways are everlasting.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:6 He stood, and the earth shook; He looked, and nations melted. Mountains were crushed violently; everlasting hills melted.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Greek has earth shaking and nations melting; Hebrew measuring/shaking loose. Hebrew's closing eternal-ways clause appears at the beginning of Greek 3:7, where it is translated once.
Verse 3:7 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:7 I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:7 I saw His everlasting journeys in place of toils; the dwellings of Ethiopians will be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Greek begins with material aligned to Hebrew 3:6, then has Ethiopian dwellings rather than Cushan's tents. Hebrew's observed affliction becomes future terror.
Verse 3:8 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:8 Was YHWH angry with the rivers? Was Your anger against rivers, or Your fury against the sea, when You rode Your horses, Your chariots of salvation?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:8 Were You angry with rivers, Lord? Was Your fury against rivers, or Your onrush against the sea, that You will mount Your horses and Your riding is salvation?
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew names chariots of salvation; Greek makes riding itself salvation. Both question the divine warrior's relation to waters. Saints: Augustine, City of God XVIII.32, identifies the horses with evangelists who carry Christ’s proclamation [AUG-HAB]; this allegory does not replace the horses in the translation.
Verse 3:9 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:9 Your bow is fully bared; sworn oaths of rods—the word! Selah. You split the earth with rivers.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:9 You will surely bend Your bow against scepters, says the Lord. Diapsalma. The earth will be torn apart by rivers.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew's exceptionally difficult oaths/rods/word clause becomes an explicit Greek divine saying against scepters. No reconstructed Hebrew sentence or oath recipient is invented.
Verse 3:10 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:10 Mountains saw You and writhed; a torrent of water passed. The deep gave its voice and lifted its hands on high.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:10 Peoples will see You and travail, as He scatters waters in His passage. The abyss gave its voice, the height of its appearance.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew mountains become Greek peoples, and raised hands become a difficult phrase about an appearance's height. The subjects and concluding imagery differ.
Verse 3:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:11 Sun and moon stand in their dwelling; at the light of Your arrows they move, at the brightness of Your flashing spear.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:11 The sun was raised, and the moon stood in its appointed place. Your missiles will go into light, into the brightness of Your flashing weapons.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek distinguishes the sun's rising from the moon's standing and makes missiles the explicit moving subject; Hebrew's subject of movement is less certain.
Verse 3:12 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:12 In indignation You march through the earth; in anger You thresh nations.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:12 With threat You will diminish the earth, and in fury You will bring nations down.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew marching/threshing becomes Greek diminishing/bringing down, preserving divine judgment with different actions.
Verse 3:13 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:13 You went out for Your people's salvation, for salvation with Your anointed. You crushed the head of the wicked house, exposing its foundation up to the neck. Selah.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:13 You went out for Your people's salvation, to save Your anointed ones. You cast death upon the heads of lawless people and raised bonds up to the neck. Diapsalma.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew singular anointed and crushed house-head/foundation become Greek plural anointed, death on lawless heads and raised bonds. Number, objects and saving relation differ.
Verse 3:14 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:14 You pierced the head of his warriors with his own rods; they stormed out to scatter me, exulting as though to devour the poor in secret.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:14 You cut the heads of rulers in bewilderment; they will be shaken in it. They will open their bridles like a poor person eating secretly.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew attacking warriors who devour the poor become Greek shaken rulers likened to a poor eater. The violent objects and poor person's role are substantially different; both texts are difficult.
Verse 3:15 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:15 You trod the sea with Your horses, the surging of mighty waters.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:15 You drove Your horses into the sea as they troubled much water.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both depict divine horses traversing and disturbing the sea; the precise Hebrew noun ḥōmer remains uncertain. Greek tarassontas is accusative plural, modifying horses; the English makes their action explicit.
Verse 3:16 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:16 I heard, and my belly trembled; at the sound my lips quivered. Rot entered my bones, and I trembled where I stood, that I might rest on the day of distress when it comes upon the people who raid us.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:16 I kept watch, and my belly was terrified at the sound of the prayer of my lips. Trembling entered my bones, and my bodily condition beneath me was troubled. I will rest on a day of affliction, to go up to the people of my sojourning.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Greek explicitly names prayer, trembling rather than rot, and ascent to a sojourning people; Hebrew's difficult ending concerns a raiding people. The anticipated destination and occasion differ.
Verse 3:17 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:17 Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no yield on vines; though the olive's labor fails and fields produce no food, the flock is cut off from the fold and no cattle remain in stalls,
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:17 For the fig tree will not bear fruit, and vines will have no produce; the olive's labor will fail, and fields will not produce food. Sheep have failed for lack of food, and there are no cattle at feeding troughs.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew blossom becomes Greek fruit-bearing, and flock removed from fold becomes sheep failing for food. Both preserve comprehensive agricultural loss.
Verse 3:18 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:18 yet I will exult in YHWH; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:18 But I will exult in the Lord; I will rejoice in God my Savior.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both affirm rejoicing in divine salvation despite deprivation.
Verse 3:19 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
3:19 YHWH the Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like does' feet and leads me upon my heights. For the director, with my stringed music.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
3:19 The Lord God is my strength; He will set my feet toward completion and lead me onto the heights, to conquer in His song.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew deer-like feet and a musical direction become Greek completion of feet and victory in His song. The concluding performance note is part of the Greek statement, not silently restored from Hebrew. Saints: Augustine, City of God XVIII.32, reads victory in the song as delight in God’s praise rather than one’s own [AUG-HAB].