Habakkuk wrote his prophecy against a background of desperation. From the outside, Babylon was threatening Judah, and Judah was collapsing internally because of this political and military pressure. As in other times of crises, a prophet appeared to point out the only way to safety: trust in the Lord.

From Habakkuk's blunt words we can see how far Judah has fallen from grace. The book of Genesis proclaims that God has created humanity in the divine image and likeness. Now Habakkuk goes against such lofty doctrine: "You have made man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler". Worse than that! The fish of the sea, which man now resembles, still serves as his food. In gathering fish for food, man falls even further from grace, and begins to worship his fishing nets.

This picture of Judah is an image of much of our world today. Many crises afflict humanity, crises which arise on the political level, the military level, the ideological level. But the greatest tragedy is that these external crises lead to crises on the internal level, the human level, the spiritual level and especially the moral level.