What Does Habakkuk 1:2 Mean in the King James?
O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Violence is not background to the unanswered prayer; it is the word the speaker cries into the silence.
THE MEANING
You call to the LORD and name the violence around you, yet receive neither hearing nor deliverance; the verse leaves that contradiction exposed. Your cry is not vague distress: it identifies violence as the thing that demands an answer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that speaking plainly about God’s silence means the prayer has failed: the verse addresses God with the accusation intact.
THE ROOT
חָמָס
ḥāmās
GROWS FROM
חמס
To act violently or wrongfully; violence and injury.
The speaker’s cry gives violence a name instead of leaving it as an indistinct pain. The next verse repeats this same word for the violence standing before the speaker, making the cry’s subject visible.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmas: To act violently or wrongfully.
חָמַס
The verb carries the harm in חָמָס as an action, not merely a feeling about events.
ḥāmās: Violence, wrong, or injury.
חָמָס
This is the word the speaker cries out, placing the violence itself before the LORD.
תּוֹשִׁיעַ
tôšîaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, rescue, or bring out of danger.
“save” in this verse is tôšîaʿ. The verse makes deliverance the absent answer to the cry: the speaker names violence, then says the LORD does not bring rescue. The root connects this plea to both the act of delivering and the deliverance itself.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuʿāh: Deliverance or rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
The noun names the very outcome the speaker says is missing.
môšîaʿ: A deliverer or rescuer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form makes visible the one who brings someone out of danger, the action the cry awaits.
אֶזְעַק
ʾezʿaq
GROWS FROM
זעק
To cry out or raise an urgent outcry, often for help.
“cry out” in this verse is ʾezʿaq. The verse uses two different Hebrew verbs for crying: שִׁוַּעְתִּי (shiwatti), a cry for help, and אֶזְעַק (ʾezʿaq), an outcry. That second cry is directed to God and immediately followed by חָמָס, violence: the words make clear what the outcry is about.
ALSO GROWS
zeʿāqāh: A cry or outcry.
זְעָקָה
The noun gives the urgent cry a form that can be heard and answered.
zōʿēq: One who cries out.
זֹעֵק
This form keeps the focus on the person making the appeal, as the verse does with its first-person cry.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives the cry against injustice a full voice even when the answer is not yet visible.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?THE THREAD
Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.The next verse repeats חָמָס (ḥāmās, violence) as something standing before the speaker, so the first cry opens into a scene the reader is made to look at. The repeated root ties the unanswered appeal to visible violence, not an unnamed feeling.
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