The Feast of the Prophet Habakkuk

In the Byzantine Rite, December 1st, 2nd and 3rd are the feast days of the prophets Nahum, Habakkuk and Sophonias (Zephaniah) respectively, whose books are placed next to each other in the Bible, the 7th, 8th and 9th of the twelve minor prophets. When Cardinal Cesare Baronius revised the Roman Martyrology in the later 1560s, he added the first and last of these on their Byzantine dates. Habakkuk, however, is noted together with his fellow prophet Micheas (Micah) on January 15th, a date connected with the discovery of their relics in the time of the Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-95; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. 7, 29)

The Prophet Habakkuk, by Girolamo Romanino, from the Sacrament Chapel of the church of St John the Evangelist in Brescia, Italy. (1521-4.) The quotation on the banderole, the opening words of his canticle in chapter 3, follows the Old Latin text, which was translated from the Septuagint, rather than the Vulgate version of St Jerome.

Of these three, Habakkuk is by far the most prominent in the liturgy, because the canticle which forms the third chapter of his book is used in the Divine Office of all the historical Christian rites. In the Roman Rite, it is said at Lauds on Friday, one of the very ancient series of seven Old Testament canticles already mentioned in the Rule of St Benedict; the beginning of it forms the first tract of the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday. In the Ambrosian Rite, it is said from the first Sunday of October until Palm Sunday as the third of three Old Testament canticles at Matins of Sunday, and of feasts of the Lord that occur within that period. In the Byzantine Rite, it is the fourth of the nine odes of Orthros which form the basis of that hour’s longest and most complex feature, the canon. (It should be noted that in Greek his name is either “Ambakoum” or “Abbakoum”, the latter of which becomes “Avvakum” in Church Slavonic.)

Unlike most of the other prophets, major and minor, Habakkuk gives no biographical details about himself, but he can be dated to the end of the 7th century BC, or beginning of the 6th, since his book is concerned with the rise of the Neo-Babylonian (or Chaldean) Empire in that period. He also appears in the deuterocanonical addition to the book of Daniel known as the story of Bel and the Dragon, chapter 14 in the Vulgate.

Habakkuk and the Angel, by Gian Lorenso Bernini. ca. 1656-61; in the Chigi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome (Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Bede735)

The prominence of his canticle in the liturgy is due especially to the Septuagint version of part the second verse, which reads, “In the midst of two living beings (or ‘animals’) thou shalt be made known.” As I have explained on various other occasions, this was understood by the Church Father from the very earliest times as either a reference to the ox and the ass at the manger in which Christ was laid when He was born, or to Moses and Elijah appearing alongside Him at the Transfiguration, or to the two thieves crucified with Him.

However, this reading does not correspond to the Hebrew text, as St Jerome notes in his commentary on the book, and he therefore wrote in his translation, “thy work, in the midst of the years bring it to life.” Perhaps to compensate for the resulting loss of what was already in his time an old exegetical tradition, he then translated the word “yish‘i – my salvation” in verse 18 as “Jesu meo – my Jesus.” The Roman Rite, however, still uses the older version in the aforementioned tract of Good Friday, and in one of the responsories on the feast of the Circumcision.

The first tract of the Mass of the Presanctified, Domine, audivi, Hab. 3, 1-3.

The Byzantine tradition simply presumes that like all the prophets, Habakkuk foresaw the coming of the Redeemer as God in the flesh. Thus we read at Vespers of his feast, “Standing on divine watch, the venerable Habbakuk heard the ineffable mystery of Thy coming unto us (vs. 1), o Christ, and he prophesied most clearly the proclamation of Thee, foreseeing the wise Apostles as steeds roiling the sea of the many gentile nations (vs. 15).” And at Orthros, the sessional hymn after the third ode of the canon: “Thou didst stand on the divine watch, o blessed and divinely inspired one, and with prophetic eyes thou didst perceive the coming of God; wherefore also thou didst cry out with fear, o Habakkuk, ‘O Lord, I have heard of Thy dread coming, and I sing of Thee, Who didst will to bear the flesh of earth which Thou didst receive from the Virgin!”

Since his canticle is part of Orthros every day, Habakkuk is mentioned in the canons of many feasts. On Christmas, for example, the second canon speaks of him as follows: “In song did the Prophet Habbakuk of old proclaim beforehand the renewal of the mortal race, ineffably deemed worthy to see the type; for the Word came forth from the mountain (vs. 3), the Virgin, as a new Babe, for the restoration of the people.”

The prophet Habakkuk depicted in a Greek liturgical psalter of the 11th century. On the right he is shown standing and praying, with a female figure representing Babylon sitting on the ground behind him. In the upper part, the angel is carrying by the hair, as narrated in Daniel 14. (Bibliothèque national de France, supplément grec 610)