Habakkuk appeals to God’s eternal nature and holiness as grounds for questioning how He can use the morally corrupt Chaldeans to judge Judah. By framing this as a question rather than an accusation, the prophet maintains reverence while wrestling with the apparent contradiction between God’s character and His chosen method of correction.

God does not immediately answer Habakkuk’s question but allows the prophet to continue his lament in verse 13. The divine response comes later in Habakkuk 2:2-4, where God instructs Habakkuk to write down the vision and affirms that the righteous shall live by faith, while also pronouncing woes upon the Chaldeans for their eventual judgment.

Habakkuk’s question reveals the heart of his theological crisis. He appeals to God’s eternal existence and moral perfection as the foundation for his protest. The Hebrew construction uses a rhetorical question expecting an affirmative answer, yet the question form allows Habakkuk to express his struggle without direct accusation. The prophet employs three divine titles in rapid succession: Yahweh (LORD), Elohim (God), and qedosh (Holy One), each emphasizing different aspects of God’s nature. By asking rather than asserting, Habakkuk invites divine response while maintaining covenant relationship. The declaration ‘we shall not die’ demonstrates faith even amid confusion, affirming that God’s eternal purposes include preservation, not annihilation, of His people. This question carries theological weight because it addresses the fundamental problem of theodicy: how can a perfectly holy God tolerate, much less employ, moral evil as His instrument? Habakkuk doesn’t receive easy answers, but his question opens the dialogue that leads to the revelation that ‘the righteous shall live by faith.’