🙏WEB · Habakkuk 3:19
What does Habakkuk 3:19 mean?
"Yahweh, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments."
— Habakkuk 3:19 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.
For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls:
yet I will rejoice in Yahweh. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
Yahweh, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments.
Explanation
Habakkuk 3:19 is the closing line of the book, and it functions as a declaration of confident trust after a long wrestling match with God. In plain language, the prophet says that the Lord himself is his source of strength, and that God equips him the way a deer is equipped—with sure, swift, steady footing—so that he can climb and stand firm even on dangerous, high terrain. The final phrase is a musical notation, indicating the words were meant to be sung, accompanied by stringed instruments, and handed over to the temple choir director for performance.
To understand this verse, it helps to know the whole book. Habakkuk was a prophet in Judah, likely writing shortly before the Babylonian invasion in the late seventh century BC. He opens by complaining to God about the violence and injustice he sees around him, and then he's troubled further when God reveals that the coming judgment will come through the brutal Babylonians. Chapters 1 and 2 are essentially an argument between the prophet and God—Habakkuk questions divine justice, and God answers with promises that the righteous will live by faith and that evil will ultimately be punished. Chapter 3 is a psalm-like prayer where Habakkuk recounts God's past acts of power and salvation, works himself into a state of trembling awe, and then arrives at this verse as his resolution: even if everything falls apart, God is still his strength.
The verse immediately before this one (3:17-18) makes its meaning even sharper. Habakkuk lists total agricultural and economic collapse—no fruit on the vine, no her
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