Habakkuk Structure

I've been working through the short book of Habakkuk in preparation for a four-week preaching series. It's one of those books which is easy to skip over, but once you spend a bit of time in it, it really grows on you. 

In terms of structure, it's three chapters, with the third chapter clearly set apart from the first two as a chiastic psalm. 

The first two chapters consist of a back-and-forth between Habakkuk and Yhwh, with Habakkuk beginning his brief complaint and Yhwh responding with a longer description of the answer. This is then flipped, with a longer second complaint by Habakkuk and an even briefer response from Yhwh. Technically this ties in to the rest of chapter 2, but the five woes and the roughly chiastic structure of 2:4-20, in my opinion, set that apart from the introduction in 2:2-3.

Apart from the move signalled by changed speakers, key structuring elements seem to be the divine name, Yhwh, which introduces both of Habakkuk's complaints (1:2, 12), Yhwh's second response (2:2), and the middle and end of the five woes (twice at 2:13 in the central 3rd woe, and 2:20 to conclude). Yhwh also occurs twice at the beginning (3:2), twice at the end (3:18-19) and once in the middle (3:8) of Habakkuk's psalm. 

I'm also reading through Habakkuk with my Thursday morning Hebrew group, which has been fun, and I'm also really engaged by some interesting text questions, which are a good way in to considering things like this if you're interested. The Qumran Habakkuk Pesher, the Syriac and the Septuagint all have some readings which give different emphases at different points, so working out what's going on there is quite important in interpretation. 

If you haven't got in to Habakkuk, have a look. I hope this little structural overview helps you get into it.