The Daily Office · Habakkuk 3:17–19
Yet I will rejoice
Habakkuk 3:17–19
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What's happening here
Habakkuk is a short book that asks large questions. The prophet stands on his watchtower demanding an answer to the violence he sees around him, and God's answer does not rescue his circumstances — the Chaldeans are still coming. Chapter 3 is the book's closing prayer, a song set to music. After two chapters of arguing with God, the prophet lands somewhere unexpected: a defiant rejoicing that does not require anything to change first. The verb he reaches for is stronger than English "rejoice."
The word that matters
Hebrew · to exult, to triumph — joy with defiance in it
Hebrew has more words for rejoicing than English, and they carry different flavors. Simcha is celebratory joy; gil is leaping joy; alaz is closer to triumph — the exulting a victor does after battle or a defendant does when the verdict breaks his way. Habakkuk is not in a position to exult by any visible measure: the crops have failed, the herds are gone, the fig tree has not bloomed. And he names the verb anyway. Yet I will alaz in the LORD. Joy as an act of defiance before reality is fixed.
Where else this shows up
Zephaniah 3:17
A rare reversal of direction: "the LORD your God will alaz over you with singing." God doing the exulting, of his people.
Philippians 4:4
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." Paul's Greek version of Habakkuk's move.
Romans 8:37
"In all these things we are more than conquerors." Exulting in the midst of, not after.