Habakkuk 2:4

"Behold his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; but the righteous shall live by his faith."

Designated by many commentators as, "one of the profoundest utterance of the O.T.,"[8] this passage is quite generally grossly misunderstood. There is no reference whatever here to the inward, subjective faith of believers. As Moffatt translated the passage, "The good man lives as he is faithful." "Faith" in the biblical sense means faithfulness, integrity, perseverance, and fidelity. "Here 'faithfulness' as well as 'faith' is in view."[9] It is generally allowed that Paul in Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; and Hebrews 10:38 referred to the LXX; and, if so, the passage referred to is there rendered, "The just shall live by my faith,"[10] a clear reference not to the inward act of believing on the part of God's servant, but to the "faith" or "religion" God had enjoined. This passage in Habakkuk makes it certain that Paul referred to the same thing. "Faith" as used by the apostle might indeed be paraphrased as "Christianity" or "the holy religion of Christ." Without any doubt, that is why Paul's key reference to the "obedience of faith" stands both at the beginning and at the end of Romans. The allegation that, "Paul's use of the term "faith" ... goes far beyond the meaning of Habakkuk's word"[11] must be rejected as erroneous. Paul's reference to this passage proves that he was referring to exactly the same thing, namely, "fidelity." As Taylor pointed out, "`Faithfulness' is a more accurate translation than `faith' of the Hebrew in this passage."[12] "In Habakkuk, the words mean, `The righteous survives if he is faithful.'"[13] We might add that that is exactly what being justified by faith means throughout the N.T. As the apostle John wrote it, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). The foolish notion that any kind of a so-called experience in the believer's heart provides any short-cut to salvation by "faith only" is a monstrous and unscriptural delusion.

"His soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him ..." was accurately discerned by Hailey as a reference to the Chaldean;[14] but in its ultimate application, it also refers to all of the godless, world rulers throughout history.