“O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!”
O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you 'Violence!' and you will not save?—the opening lament presents theology's perennial tension: the apparent silence of God in the face of observable injustice. Habakkuk's doubled question ('how long' and the imperative cry) expresses the pathos of the righteous suffering alongside the unrighteous in a morally opaque world. This verse establishes the theodicy problem that drives the entire prophecy.
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