From the Hebrew אֱמוּנָה (emunah), from aman (to support, to be firm): firmness, steadiness, faithfulness — and so, trust. Semantic force: The root describes a thing that holds weight. It is used of hands held steady, of a nail driven into a sure place, of a nurse carrying a child. Emunah is reliability before it is anything psychological. Theological depth: The word covers both faith and faithfulness because Hebrew does not divide them. To live by emunah is not to sustain an inward conviction but to keep leaning on what has proved able to bear the weight.

Supporting Scriptures

Quoted Three TimesNew Testament

“For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”

(KJV)

Paul builds the argument of Romans on this half-verse from a minor prophet, and Galatians and Hebrews take it up as well.

Though the Fig Tree Blossom NotOld Testament

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

(KJV)

The prophet ends his book demonstrating the principle with every visible support removed.

The Exposition

Habakkuk had complained twice and been answered twice, and neither answer was what he wanted. He asked why God tolerated violence in Judah and was told that the Chaldeans were coming — a cure that looked considerably worse than the disease. It is out of that second, harder answer that the sentence comes: behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. Two postures are set against each other, and neither is primarily about belief. The soul that is lifted up is puffed, swollen, self-supporting — a man standing on his own footing because he assumes it will hold. The just man lives by emunah, a word whose root means to bear weight: the steadiness of a hand that does not shake, a nail driven into a sure place. To live by faith is not to maintain a high level of inward certainty. It is to keep putting your weight on someone else, which is a thing you can do while frightened, and which Habakkuk does at the end of his book with the crops failed and the stalls empty. The reason the New Testament quotes this line three times is that it identifies the dividing question of the whole Bible: whose footing are you standing on. Everything else follows from the answer.

The Altar

Name the thing you are currently standing on for security, and ask whether it is able to bear what you have put on it.

Daily Reading & Meditation

Passage:

Focus: Notice what the prophet lists as absent, and what he says he will do anyway, and where his strength is said to come from.

Ask yourself: When your faith is tested, do you look for more evidence or for more of God? Both are honest reactions. Only one of them is what this verse calls living.

God of truth, our Father, forgive me for the times my soul has been puffed up with self-reliance. Teach me by Your Holy Spirit what it means that the just shall live by faith. In the name of the Lord Jesus, the object and the author of that faith. Amen.

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