Charles Ellicott Commentary Habakkuk 2:4

"Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; but the righteous shall live by his faith." — Habakkuk 2:4 (ASV)

Behold his soul... — A better rendering is: Behold his soul within him is puffed up, it is not upright. The soul of the Chaldean invader is inflated with pride, self-dependence ousting from his mind all thoughts of God. It is therefore unsound and distorted. Habakkuk leaves the inference “and therefore it shall die” to be imagined, and hastens to the antithesis: “But the righteous man shall live by his faith.” The word live is emphatic. The reward promised to patient waiting on God is life — deliverance from destruction. How far the promise extends, and whether it includes that aspiration after future life which is plainly expressed by many Hebrew poets and prophets, we cannot determine.

The student must be cautioned against such renderings as “he that is righteous-by-faith shall live,” or, “he that is justified-by-faith shall live,” which have been suggested by the Pauline quotations Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11. If the adjective could be taken in this close collocation with the substantive, “he that is consistent in-his-confidence shall live” would be the only possible rendering. Thus whatever force we assign to St. Paul’s citation, here, at least, the words have no doctrinal significance. Their ethical importance is, however, undeniable. (See Introduction 4)