The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
Habakkuk was a prophet who wrote during one of Israel's most frightening periods, when the brutal Babylonian empire was threatening invasion and total destruction. The book of Habakkuk is essentially an honest argument with God — the prophet questions why God allows injustice to continue and receives surprising, unsettling answers. This closing verse comes after Habakkuk has described catastrophic loss: failed crops, empty fields, no livestock. Despite all of it, with no explanation and no silver lining, he declares God as his strength. The image of feet like a deer refers to the mountain deer's extraordinary ability to run sure-footed across steep and treacherous terrain. The closing note about stringed instruments suggests this desperate prayer was eventually set to music and sung by others in worship.
Lord, I'm on terrain that scares me, and I don't want to admit how much. I don't need you to flatten it — I need you to steady my feet. Be my strength not after this passes, but right here in the middle of it. Amen.
The verse right before this one is almost unbearable: fig trees stripped bare, no grapes on the vine, olive crop failed, fields empty, no cattle in the stalls. Habakkuk isn't painting a metaphor — he's describing actual devastation, the kind that leaves people starving. And then, with no pivot, no redemptive twist, no "but at least" — he writes this. Not "God will give me strength someday when this passes." The Sovereign Lord is my strength. Present tense. Right now. In the middle of stripped-bare. The deer image is specific and worth sitting with slowly. Deer don't pick their way carefully across mountain ridges — they run. Steep and dangerous terrain is exactly where they're built to move fastest. Habakkuk isn't praying to be lifted out of the hard place. He's asking for the grace to navigate it. Whatever high and frightening ground you're standing on right now — the kind where one wrong step costs you everything — this is the prayer. Not rescue from the heights. Sure feet on them.
Habakkuk wrote this verse in the context of total loss — food, crops, livestock, everything gone. What does it mean to declare God as your strength when your circumstances offer you absolutely no evidence for it?
Think about the last time things were genuinely stripped bare in your life. Where was God in that — or where did God seem absent? What do you make of that experience now, looking back?
The image of deer on the heights suggests sure-footed movement through danger, not removal from it. Is your faith more oriented toward asking God to rescue you from hard things, or to strengthen you through them — and what does that reveal about what you actually believe?
Habakkuk's private prayer eventually became a song that others sang in worship. How have your own hardest seasons shaped what you're able to offer someone who is suffering right now?
What 'high place' are you navigating right now — a decision with no good options, a grief that won't lift, a relationship on a knife's edge — where you need to pray for deer-feet rather than a different path?
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.
Isaiah 12:2
Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Isaiah 58:14
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
Ephesians 3:16
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Psalms 46:1
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalms 27:1
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Philippians 4:13
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
The Lord GOD is my strength [my source of courage, my invincible army]; He has made my feet [steady and sure] like hinds' feet And makes me walk [forward with spiritual confidence] on my high places [of challenge and responsibility]. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.
AMP
GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
ESV
The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' [feet], And makes me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.
NASB
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. For the director of music. On my stringed instruments.
NIV
The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills. To the Chief Musician. With my stringed instruments.
NKJV
The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. (For the choir director: This prayer is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.)
NLT
Counting on God's Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I'm king of the mountain! (For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)
MSG